Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 16:49:20 +0100 (MET)
Subject: M-G: Sweden:Report from massive workers protest!




>
>Taking a lot of this stuff from the USec,newspaper,tv and radio coverage. My 
>11 year old has been sick with the flu so I couldn,t get to some of my other 
>sources of info.
>
>About 5,000 (!) people took part in the march on parliment against the 
>Social Democratic government and its bougeois allies in the Center party 
>last Tuesday. Naturally the National TV and radio tried to play this down, 
>some saying "thousands" and others very low estimates of "a few thousand, 
>etc. The National media also tried to play it up as a "far left" 
>mobilization and the "far left" arising from the grave to "use" the 
>situation that has developed in the country. However the degree of lying 
>depended on which National Channel one watches. However all of them tried to 
>play down this demonstration and its meaning!
>
>Naturally this was a big falsehood because this was a very powerful 
>manifestation of grass roots working class people who  have been the 
>backbone of electoral support of the Social Democracy in this country. In 
>fact many of them had never been to a demonstration before in their lifes! 
>Although the left was present and quite vocal and with a fairly large 
>proportion of paper proganda of the varying sort, the left is no longer the 
>place that can draw big numbers to a demonstration. In fact the left 
>numerically has never been so small  as it is today in this country. As to 
>political line I can not say to much about the left as I have not had a 
>chance to look at their newspapers.
>
>However,what is driving these people out on the streets (certainly not the 
>left) is the incredible speed that the Social democrats along with their 
>bougeois allies have continued the policy of dismantling the "welfare" state 
>in this country. In fact they have done far more in tearing down the reforms 
>then the previous bougeois government. That government could only run up an 
>incredible debt of billions upon billions of crowns to save the banks which 
>were on the verge of crashing in the early ninties. The price of bailing out 
>the banks was going into foreign debt for billions upon billions of crowns 
>naturally can be layed at the door of the former bougeois government, but it 
>is the Social Democrats in power that made the cuts in all of the systems 
>and reinforced mass unemployment on a scale which has not been seen since 
>the depression!
>
>The demonstration brought people in busload after busload from the entire 
>country. It would have beem twice the number, but there are thousands like 
>myself who have to choose between the busfare and food for your kids! Many 
>of the busses were organised by the local trade union sections throughout 
>the country! And some people had to ride buses over 1000 kilometers in order 
>to demonstrate against the Social Democratic government and did!
>
>Not only that they did it in opposition to the central trade union 
>bureaucracy who first went out and said that they did NOT support the 
>mobilisation. Only a day later sending a fax out over the country claiming 
>that this was all a buig mistake and that they did support the 
>demonstration. In fact the central trade union bureaucracy are loyal to the 
>hilt to the Social Democratic government and did everything they could to 
>try and sabotage the demonstration with out right lies and falsifications. 
>Especially the powerful Metall union bureaucracy. One has to on the other 
>hand say "Hats off" to the Transport Union who did everything in its power 
>to help mobilise for the demonstration. They also have taken the famous four 
>child mother who started all of this under their wing. Although their are 
>some doubts naturally about the ultimate motiv of some of these people who 
>filling the pressure did help to mobilise. Only perhaps too later on down 
>the road make a deal of some sort and sell us out. Let us hope that this is 
>not the case. Another union which was split on the issue was the biggest 
>trade union in Sweden "Kommunal". Where in some sections they tried to 
>mobilize and in others did absolutely nothing to help mobilise. This is sort 
>of the general trade union picture all along the line. The grass roots are 
>getting desperate and beginning to organise themselves and the trade union 
>bureucracy is split between loyalists who openly try to smash this 
>mobilisation to the center which gives half hearted support on paper and 
>serious people that want to really fight and bring down this Social 
>Democratic government!
>
>Back to the demonstration which was felt right into the halls of the 
>parliment! A meeting with the finance minister and the trade union 
>bureaucracy  in Metals "council for labor negoiations" to be held at 1:15 PM 
>while the demonstration was to start at 1:00PM. A member of the United 
>Secretariat and trade union activist and four representatives of the 
>powerful miners union walked out of the meeting to take part in the 
>demonstration! While the others sat their as the loyal lackies of the 
>politics of the Social Democratic government who were responsible for the 
>fact that 15,000 angry protesters were marching on the parliment. Another 
>Social Democrat representative of the parliment standing outside the 
>parliment in a camelhair long winter coat which probably cost more then most 
>workers make in a month! Was free to give interviews to the assembled 
>press,TV and Radio about how this demo was a Communist plot! And even a lot 
>of his friends had been in the demonstration.
>
>In his speech to the demonstration at the parliment Anton Flink (chairman of 
>the Malmo section of the Transport Union among other things if the 
>government won't listen to us then " the people should disolve this 
>government and elect a new one" and "we are so many here today that if we 
>were all to spit the government would drowned!". And this demonstration is a 
>lot of people beginning to gather the slem in their throats to spit with! 
>And in and interview with a reporter he said that "We are protesting against 
>this anti-democratic government and its anti-people politics which Goran 
>Persson (the prime minister) and is god damned supporters are for!"
>
>Social democratic parlimentry representatives were enraged that this speaker 
>and longtime Social Democrat got up and made this speech after a well know 
>actor who sympathizes with the ex maoist KPML-r who in the 60ties and 70ties 
>had the line of a "red front" against the Social democrats and the trade 
>unions. Naturally this was a show by these parlimentry cretians to paint the 
>whole demonstration up as some sort of anti-Social Democratic Communist 
>conspiracy!
>
>The unemployed and the long time sick organisations which are beginning to 
bloom
>all over this country was also represented and many had there own placards 
>done at home that they brought with them to the demonstration. And over 40 
>trade unions with their flags went at the head of the demonstration with a 
>brass band singing the International! So this was hardly a Communist 
>conspiracy but a rebellion by the grass roots against the Social Democratic 
top!
>
>The powerful miners union warned the government that if this demonstration 
>did not get the government to back down on the anti-trade union legislation 
>that we belong to a generation that was in the big miners strikes in 
>1969-1979 and even if we have pensions some of us now we are well aquainted 
>with how to fought a battle.The delegation from the miners union in Kiruna 
>in the far north recieved the following message from the workers in the 
>mines. "When you get down their to Stockholm twist Persson's nose until 
>there is nothing left but flour!" Also the miners union is now calling for a 
>political strike in the beginning of December when the new anti-trade union 
>legislation will be voted on.
>
>The stock market reacted to the demonstration with a warning that this kind 
>of activity would drive up the interest rates! A clear warning to the Social 
>Democratic government that they had better not back down on this issue. 
>Commentators are saying that the Social Democratic government can hardly 
>back down now that they have put so much pretige into cutting the deficit.
>
>The labor market minister in the government (a womam) as alreadt claimed 
>that this anti-trade union legislation is good for women. Thus trying to 
>make this a "feminist" question and splitting the working class!
>
>And the struggle is only beginning because the bosses are already calling 
>for more anti-worker and trade union legislation along the lines of Forced 
>arbitration on contract negoiations,forbidding sympathy strikes, taking a 
>vote in a factory before going on strike in other words wripping the only 
>serious weapon the working class has out of the hands of the workers and the 
>trade unions. And the government and the central trade union bureaucrats 
>loyal to the government are prepared to discuss these purposals with the 
bosses.
>
>Thus the present trend is much like what is going on Internationally in the 
>Labor Parties. The leadership mostly intellectuals at the top + a good dos 
>of relatives ans sons and grandsons of the leadership are deserting the 
>working class with a turn towards the middle class and the bougeoisie. But 
>what is different here in Sweden is that we are not seeing the typical labor 
>vs conservative governments--but a labor government confronted by the 
>working class for its desertion and betrayal of the working class. Thus we 
>do not have the situation like in England as well as NZ and Australia about 
>which wing of the Social Democracy to capituilate to in order to stop a 
>conservative government. Or in the United States the worser of two evils 
>debate that the Democratic party labor fakers use to fool the workers. In 
>fact we have the reformist traitors exactly where we want them. In power and 
>exposing themselves to the working for what they *really* represent. However 
>we do have the danger of the traditionalists who want to go back to the good 
>old times. The Euro Communist who want to become good Social democrats and 
>diverse left groups that are tailing events instead of trying to lead them. 
>Out of this mess a cristalization must take place turning it into a tool of 
>recruiting the most militant and determined workers to a party which can 
>quickly grow from a small sect to a party with mass influence in the workers 
>movement. Because the conditions for a political split between the base and 
>the top are rippening far more quickly then the material for a vanguard 
>party. This connected to the complete bankruptcy of the Social Democracy and 
>the neo-Stalinist Euro-Communist party can mean that a small Trotskyist 
>party of cadre can find themselves quickly leading mass struggles in the 
future.
>
>The present attack against the trade unions and the working class must be 
>seen in the light of the disintegration of the former Soviet Union connected 
>to a world wide offensive against the working class and its organisations in 
>the wake of this historical event! No longer having the Stalinist led Soviet 
>Union to deal with the cold war has gone over to a hot war directed at the 
>working class Internationally to roll back the gains not only won because of 
>the October Revolution but all of the gains made since the second world war.
>
>Only a party that understands this connection, but also understands all of 
>the historical betrayals in both tactics and politics of the reformist 
>Social Democracy and the politics of the Stalinists Internationally over the 
>last decades and who has the politics,tactics and program which can show the 
>way forward. That is a party which encompises the historical theroretical 
>gains of the Bolshevik Party, the first four congresses of the third 
>International, the Left opposition of Trotsky and the founding documents of 
>the Fourth International can show the way forward.
>
>Thus solving the crisis of leadership and the construction of a 
>Revolutionary International.
>
>Warm Regards
>Bob Malecki
>
>
>
>




     --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---