Over
the weekend of the January 6-7 a Northern
European Marxist
School was held in Stockholm, Sweden. There
were around 40 people present from Sweden,
Denmark, Poland and Great Britain. The school was
organised by the Marxist tendency in the Swedish Labour Movement gathered
around the paper Socialisten.
For only the third time in 84 years the Social
Democracy lost the recent parliamentary elections in Sweden, leading to the
resignation of its leader Göran Persson. Now a bourgeois four party “alliance”
will govern the country. But anyone who thinks that the workers of Sweden have
voted for more attacks on their living conditions is ignoring reality. The
alliance announced the very opposite of what they are going to do. So a new
period of conflict is being prepared.
The Swedish Marxists of the Socialisten
journal have sent us this appeal which is taken from the website of
the underground drivers’ trade union branch (www.klubb119.org).
It describes a very important trade union struggle in Sweden that
involves the rights of all trade union activists. Their next
demonstration/strike will take place on Friday, November 18, but the
struggle will continue after that. The union is asking for messages
of support.
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.
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.