Sweden

In this article Martin Oscarsson, from the Editorial Board of the Swedish Marxist journal Socialisten, illustrates how the deepening worldwide crisis of capitalism is affecting Swedish society. A radical mood is developing among the youth in the Social Democratic Party (SSU) and the unions are being placed in a position where they will have to come out into open opposition to the party. The old "Swedish model" once fondly referred to by all the right-wing leaders of the labour movement internationally has definitely broken down. Sweden faces an intensification of the class struggle.

We publish below a translation of the December 1998 editorial statement of the Socialisten (Swedish Marxist journal). It was written because their was some debate at the time over the question of "housemaids". The fact is that a lot of wealthy families "employ" immigrant women to do their housework. They get low wages, no taxes are paid and they have no rights or social security at all. It is a totally black market. The proposal then was to make this market legal, by granting tax-exemptions on these services.

The Swedish media has been taken by surprise by the groundswell of opposition to the US military adventure. Now the opposition to the US attacks has begun to be expressed in demonstrations. Opinion polls reveal that 6 out of 10 Swdes are against any US attack if any innocent civilians were put at risk. Only 3 out of 10 favour such attacks. In addition 56% have little or no confidence in Bush and only 32% have confidence in him. By Lena Ericson Hoijer, Editor Socialisten, the Swedish Marxist Journal. In addition we publish a report on an anti-war demonstration in Stockholm by Pia Hallgren.

Three huge demonstrations (particularly for a city with only half a million inhabitants) took place during the EU summit in Gothenburg. 10,000 marched against president Bush on Thursday 14 June, 20,000-25,000 against EU/EMU on the Friday and 10,000-15,000 against the policies of the EU on the Saturday. These was the largest demonstrations in Gothenburg since the big strike and lockout of 1980. It also reflects a growing discontent amongst young people and workers.

The ECOFIN - all the Finance Ministers of the EU member states - held a meeting in Sweden's third largest city, Malmo, in the early part of May, which was met with a countre-demonstration, similar to the many demonstrations around the world againts the IMF, the WTO, World Bank, etc. The police used brutal methods to break up the demonstration.

Day to day reports on the Festival of the International Union of Socialist Youth.