Sweden: Communism & Revolution 2025 – “A world on fire. A world in crisis. A world in revolt” 

It is 28 November, a Friday afternoon. The Revolutionary Communist Party’s (RKP) centre in Stockholm is awash with feverish activity. Stacks of boxes of books have been lined up in rows and are being systematically collected by members of the RKP’s Stockholm university branch using two trolleys. In other rooms, people are rehearsing their contributions to the weekend's discussions, someone is preparing an article – visitors from other cities in the country are looking around.

[Originally published in Swedish at marxist.se]

Outside the centre, a car is ready to drive off. Books, pamphlets, newspapers, coffee machines, crisps, and much, much more are on their way to ‘Communism & Revolution 2025’, which starts that evening. Doors are opening and closing everywhere. The air is thick with questions and laughter alike. Some are trying to grab a bite to eat before it all kicks off. The conversations are marked by expectant nervousness.

“With over 150 registered participants, ‘Communism & Revolution 2025’ is our biggest weekend yet”, Leo Marklund exclaims a few hours later as the first session begins, to thunderous applause.

“So good! So good! So good!”

Fredrik Albin Svensson opened the first session on a topic that framed the entire weekend: ‘Capitalism's death throes and the perspectives for world revolution’. He urged:

“Think about what people all over the world see on the news every morning.

“Apocalyptic images from Sudan, from Gaza, from Ukraine; trade wars between the world's superpowers; constant – again apocalyptic – scenes of floods, fires, and so on; poverty, crumbling infrastructure, incitement against various oppressed groups, warmongering, and so on. There is a general feeling of disintegration in society”.

He emphasised that all social groups feel that something must be done – including the capitalists, the ruling class. Everyone also agrees that politicians are not doing this. But the point is that what the ruling class demands and needs is diametrically opposed to the demands and needs of the working class. He continued:

“The ruling class cannot rule as before and ends up in crisis. The masses cannot live as before and go out to fight. Here you find the typical conditions for revolution.”

Before the breaks, tables upon tables had been set up with revolutionary communist literature, as well as t-shirts, pens, marmalade, raffle tickets – all kinds of attractive products made by comrades to boost the party's coffers. In the queue, a new comrade who was attending the event for the first time shared with us her first impressions:

“So good! So good! So good! I just wrote that over and over again to my sister during the introduction.”

Everyone looked around curiously, planning their purchases. At the end of Saturday's first session, the person in charge of the book stall came up to the podium with a stack of books so high that it almost tipped over.

“This is what I've bought”, she declared with a broad smile, being met with warm and amused applause. “How can you choose anything when there is so much important reading to do?”

Benjamin Roobol chaired this session, his first words sounded almost like a poem, but summed up the situation perfectly:

“A world on fire. A world in crisis. A world in revolt. The old world is dying, and a new one is being born. We are here to help it along. To understand the world, and change it.”

A struggle to overthrow their rule

The session on Saturday morning focused on the crisis of bourgeois democracy. In his introduction, Niklas Albin Svensson – of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International – emphasised that democracy has always disguised the rule of a class, from the democracy of slave owners of Ancient Greece to today's bourgeois democracy.

He explained that most of the democratic rights we have today were won as a consequence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the revolutionary upsurge that followed in Europe. In order to cling to power, the bourgeoisie had to compromise with the leaders of the labour movement. The postwar economic boom and concessions to the working class cemented this. He continued:

“But that is no longer the case. Capitalism cannot afford what the workers are demanding. That is why the workers are turning away from the politicians who are seen as representatives of the system.

“This is an inevitable part of the crisis of capitalism. And we are not fighting to prop up the old ways of the bourgeoisie, but to overthrow their rule.”

‘A huge victory’

At 4pm, everyone gathered for a book launch. After much hard work, the party has been able to publish in Swedish the first volume of a biography that the gravedigger of the Russian Revolution, Joseph Stalin, tried at all costs to suppress: Leon Trotsky's Stalin.

Written in the late 1930s, Trotsky by this point had led the seizure of power in the 1917 October Revolution, the Red Army in the civil war, the struggle against the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union of which Stalin was the figurehead, and much more. While systematically exposing the absurd heroic legends that had been concocted to aggrandise Stalin, he also used the book as a way to convey his four decades of experience to a new generation, as part of the struggle for genuine communism.

But in August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated by Stalin's agent in Mexico, leaving much of Trotsky’s biography unfinished. By that point, Stalin had led a historically unprecedented campaign of persecution and murder.

During the book launch, the final lines of Trotsky’s testament were read aloud, leaving a tear in the eye of many comrades:

“Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”

After Trotsky's death, the manuscript of Stalin was distorted beyond recognition by the bourgeois publishing house and their appointed translators. Explaining the significance of the RCI finishing and publishing Stalin, the speaker explained:

“That is why it is a huge victory for the entire international communist movement that our International was able to complete the book as fully as possible in 2016.”

Almost ten years later, Trotsky's Stalin is now available to a Swedish audience.

Everyone wanted to get their hands on this book, the lines stretched for about ten metres during the ten-minute break. A total of 65 copies were sold over the weekend.

With a sense of history in the air following this discussion, the weekend's financial collection began. For three months, branches of the RKP around the country had worked hard to raise money for the party, with an ambitious target of 400,000 Swedish kronor (roughly £31,800).

Oscar Gunnarsson began the financial appeal by tearing down the so-called ‘left’, which has responded to the crisis of capitalism by simply giving up on trying to change society altogether:

“They say: ‘don't try to change society, it's been tried, it doesn't work, you'll understand when you get older’.

“‘Oh well, so we'll just have to accept this world with genocide in Palestine, war and starvation – 345 million people around the world are acutely undernourished – we have poverty and homelessness even in rich countries like Sweden – but, yes, it's not worth trying to do anything about it, this is the society we have to live with...’”

This type of bankrupt individual, he explained, will never understand why one should make sacrifices for something greater than oneself. For our part, we are proud to ask people for money for the communist cause.

“It is proof of our revolutionary optimism and determination – that we are completely different from everyone else on the left and that we mean business.”

The collection was our time to prove ourselves. And proof is exactly what we delivered! We raised 465,000 Swedish kronor (roughly £37,000).

Socialism or barbarism

‘Communism & Revolution 2025’ had more sessions this year than ever before. On Saturday afternoon, participants had a choice between three different sessions: on Swedish imperialism, the Soviet Union, and the causes of the current economic crisis. This was also the case on both Sunday morning and afternoon.

The participants all seemed to agree on one particularly noticeable physical restraint:

“I wish you could attend several sessions at the same time!”

Fortunately, however, the lectures that initiate the discussions are available on both YouTube and the RKP’s podcast.

One session dealt with the myth of ‘socialist’ Sweden, against the backdrop of the major improvements for workers in the postwar period. Swedish industry had emerged unscathed from the Second World War, thanks to the Swedish government's capitulation to Nazi Germany. The bombed-out Europe presented Swedish companies with great opportunities. In Sweden, a collaboration was formed between the leaders of the labour movement and large companies that had very little to do with socialism.

Jennifer Österman, who gave the opening talk, takes a building that has recently been in the spotlight as an example:

“Between 1955 and 1964, the Harpsund Talks were held in Harpsund [the country retreat of the Prime Minister of Sweden], where representatives of the government, trade unions, banks and large companies came together.

“Most workers may not have liked this, but they could accept it because life was getting better.”

She explained that the political consciousness shaped by that period stands in sharp contrast to the conclusions people draw today. What Rosa Luxemburg said is becoming increasingly obvious to more and more people:

“Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism”

Later that day, in the same hall, Esaias Yavari spoke about the need for a revolutionary programme in the fight against racism. The conclusion built on themes of the previous session:

“We need a party that can act as a catalyst for the revolutionary process.”

At 3.30pm on Sunday afternoon, all attendees gathered together again for the closing rally. Physically, people were tired after two intense days of discussion, but their conversations were no less intense. Everyone wanted to make the most of every minute.

Ylva Vinberg gave the closing speech. She talked about the heroism and strength that people in country after country have shown in revolutionary movements in recent years. She spoke about the Gen Z revolutions – but also how the absence of revolutionary parties allows the ruling class to repeatedly manoeuvre to retain power:

“We are building our International to put an end to sacrifices without victory.

“We are doing this for the nurse Hanadi, for the men in Irun, for the children in Gaza and the West Bank, for all the victims of Epstein and his ilk, for those who died in the terrorist attack in Örebro, for starving mothers who skip meals so their children can eat their fill, for all those who die in workplace accidents or in hospital corridors because of staff cuts.”

She concluded with a promise:

“We do this because another world is possible: a socialist society, a socialist world, built on different economic relations, a different morality, a different culture. And we promise that we will be here until the end, until victory.”

This was followed by a standing ovation. The entire hall joined in singing the Internationale. And so ‘Communism & Revolution’ drew to a close.