CHAPTER VII Socialism and Labor in Scandinavia and Finland The three Scandinavian countries - Norway, Sweden, Denmark — and Finland must be considered together because of the close interaction of their various labor and Socialist organizations. It is true that of the four Norway seems the more revolutionary and Denmark the more conservative, while Socialism of the less revolutionary type is more dominant in Sweden than in any of the rest of the group. In fact in Sweden the question of the day was whether the Socialist Party should not take upon itself the formation of a complete government instead of merely forming part of a coalition government. The leader of the Majority Socialists in Sweden, Branting, has long been known as one of the ablest leaders in Europe. A movement is on foot to add to the above four nations of the league not only Iceland but the new Baltic states of Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania, in a scheme for uniform Northern legislation and policy. It was announced in the "Reval SocialDemokrat " of January 27th that at the end of February a conference of the Socialists of Finland, Poland, Esthonia would be be held for the purpose of discussing questions of general policy. This was to follow closely on the meeting of the Scandinavian Socialist Congress of December and the Scandinavian Labor Congress of January which are here reported. SCANDINAVIAN SOCIALIST CONGRESS A Congress of Scandinavian Socialists of the Left- the revolutionary branch of the party-met in Stockholm, December 8 and 10, 1919. It was attended by 143 delegates from Sweden, 107 from Norway and 18 from Denmark. The Norwegians, with Tranmael at their head, played a very prominent part. They advocated revolutionary methods in nearly all their speeches, Olaussen, the principal leader after Tranmael, especially stating that the final struggle must be fought out with arms. The Congress split up into Communists and Syndicalists. The revolutionary methods proposed by the Norwegians were not well received by the Swedes, one of whom, Severin, asked Tranmael: "Why, if the Norwegian Labor Party is so unanimous in this See Addendum, Part I. view, does it not raise a revolution in Norway, instead of coming to Sweden to talk about it?" The Swedish radical paper "Social-Demokraten" showed that the Bolsheviks and the Syndicalists, who formed the two big groups of the Congress, were hopelessly divided and could not come to any agreement. appeared as if the Syndicalists were in the majority. It The final resolution showed that the Congress did not regard Moscow as "the new Mecca," as it postponed the question of adherence to the Third International for further deliberation. Owing to the same reason the disagreement with the radical attitude of the Norwegian delegates the negotiations for Scandinavian co-operation was also postponed. There was a discussion of the relations between Scandinavian working-class organizations and world revolution, and of the duties, methods and forms of the trade union movement. Here, again, the Syndicalists carried the day against the Bolshevists, who lacked solidarity. Syndicalism showed signs of joining forces with the political Socialists of the Left. Shortly before this the Communal elections in Norway had shown a decided veering of public sentiment away from revolutionary radicalism, resulting in a Socialist defeat as well as the defeat of the party of the Left. (Quotations from Swedish and Norwegian Press in the "Political Review," January 9, 1920.) SCANDINAVIAN LABOR CONGRESS More than a month after the Revolutionary Socialists of Scandinavia met at Stockholm, there was opened, on January 21st, at Copenhagen, the Ninth Scandinavian Labor Congress. Four hundred delegates were present, representing a million organized workers. Sweden sent 109 and Norway 76 delegates, and 3 came from Finland. The rest of the 400 represented Denmark. The foreign delegates were welcomed by the Danish Social Democratic Party. The last previous Congress had been in Stockholm in 1912. The matters dealt with by the Congress cover socialization, industrial democracy, the position as regards the International, future Scandinavian co-operation, mutual aid in trade disputes, social legislation, the high cost of living and co-operation. ("Social-Demokraten," 20, 22.) Among the resolutions passed was one upholding the continuance of both political and trade union co-operation throughout Scandinavia. Another expressed continued adherence to the Second International. Both these resolutions had large majorities. The long resolution on socialization (only six votes, all Norwegian, against it) states that the aim of Social Democracy is to conquer economic and political power with the object of transferring the ownership of the means of production to the people and of socializing production. In order to attain this end the workers must organize themselves industrially as producers, co-operatively as consumers, and politically as citizens. The increased share of workers in the control of industry will be a useful preparation for the future, when Capitalism is replaced by Socialism, and it will also counteract the tendency toward bureaucracy now in evidence in large undertakings, whether public or private. Industrial democracy is, therefore, to be regarded as a step in the process of socialization. Another resolution favored working for uniform social legislation in the four countries. (Scandinavian Press in the "Political Review," London, February 13, 1920.) SOCIALISTS' CONGRESS IN FINLAND A Congress of the Finnish Social-Democratic Party opened on December 10, 1919, in Helsingfors. The election of the committee resulted in fifty-eight for the Left Socialist list and ninety for the Socialists of the Right, showing that the Communists formed about one-third of the party. It was decided to support the present government in order to avoid bringing in a conservative government with a bourgeois coalition. The Congress also decided to continue to support the Second International. Communist leaders threaten to split and form a separate party of action. The local Helsingfors Social-Democratic organization has already voted to leave the Second International without as yet joining the Third (Moscow) International. The It The government has not agreed to the demand of the Socialists for a complete amnesty but has released 3,000 more prisoners and restored citizenship rights to 40,000 previously released. is to be remembered that these prisoners were supposed to be supporters of the "Red Terror" which was suppressed by the "White Terror" when Finland expelled the Bolsheviks and established independence. The fear of subjugation by Lenine and Trotzky appears to be what is keeping the naturally revolutionary Finnish Socialists from becoming more generally Bolshevik. (Finnish Press in the "Political Review" of January 16, 1920.) SWEDISH SOCIALIST CONGRESS The Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Sweden opened February 8, 1920, in Stockholm. In the opening speech Branting declared that now that power is in the hands of democracy, the Social Democrats must concentrate on the new problems of economic changes. If civilization is to be maintained immense changes will be necessary; building up as well as pulling down, and lessons may be learned from countries that have tried a dictatorship of the proletariat. Progress toward Socialism must not be through minority dictatorship, but must be based on democracy. The Congress refused to go on record as supporting in its political programme "a single-chamber system," such as at present forms the representative government of the country. For this expression it substituted "a democratic system of repre sentation." In the discussion Branting maintained that it was by no means certain that the single-chamber system would prevail in the Socialist state. He thought that the much discussed and misunderstood Soviet system should be examined from the SocialDemocratic point of view. There was perhaps something of value in the idea that groups of producers should as producers send representatives to an assembly other than one resulting from a general election. Such an assembly might be conceived as existing side by side with the popularly-elected chamber. (Nya Dagliga Allehanda, II.) The Congress passed a resolution calling for an immediate discussion of the introduction of a system of industrial democracy. (Swedish Press in the "Political Review," March 5, 1920.) COMPARATIVE CONDITIONS IN SCANDINAVIA The Scandinavian Socialists acknowledge quite generally the weakness of the International-by which they mean the Second International due to its "straddling" policy and to the weakness, they believe, of Social Democracy in England and France. The Third International is in danger of causing a schism in Scandinavia as everywhere else. Even Branting, the Swedish leader, while adhering to the Second International and protesting against the Soviet principle of dictatorship by a minority, has suggested a careful study of the Soviet system with the view of adopting some of its features. Throughout Scandinavia there has been the same epidemic of strikes as elsewhere, with this difference, that lockouts by the employers have been quite frequent. There have also been organized conferences for attempted adjustments between aggregations of employers and workers. In no case, however, has there been any violence, though in many cases agreement has not been found possible. In Denmark the workers are not by any means represented by one political and economic party. The Social Democrats (Socialist Party) represent the interests of the workers in the towns, the Radicals represent largely the agricultural workers, the Party of the Left the farmers, while the Conservatives represent the upper and middle classes of town and country. (Hovedstaden, 19, of Copenhagen, in "Political Review," February 13, 1920.) Thus far there is no very clear political economic outlook. In Norway the extreme revolutionary tendency, noted in the case of the Norwegian delegates to both the Socialist and Labor Congress, just reported, was accentuated at a recent meeting of the Norwegian Labor Party in connection with a dispute between the Socialist leader, Buen, and the Extremist leader Tranmael. Buen asked whether it was not the case that indifference, and not actual hostility, had lately been exhibited, by those in power in the Labor Party, towards the question of universal suffrage and parliamentary routine. Tranmael replied that the Social Democrats continued to take an interest in universal suffrage and would participate in the elections. At the same time they had no confidence in the efficacy of the Storting (the Parliament of Norway) as an instrument of Socialism, and would be glad to see it abolished. As long as the present system continued the Social Democrats would insist upon proportional representation and equal suffrage. Their aim, however, was a complete reconstruction of political life," beginning in the workshops." The workers must appropriate the economic power. Zinoviev, head of the Third (Moscow) International, in his manifesto, reproduced elsewhere names the most violent Bolshevist in Norway, the deputy, Hoglund, whom he compares to Liebknecht in Germany, as rendering incomparable service in Sweden to the Soviet cause. With the great increase of power throughout Scandinavia of the Labor and Socialist elements in their more advanced form, it is a debatable question whether their Congresses will adhere to the old International that is to meet in Geneva on July 1st, or will pass over to the Soviet Third International of Moscow. Whatever |