DENMARA Left socialists at a crossroads IN SCANDINAVIA, as in the Netherlands, there is a long experience of parties standing to the left of social democracy and yet exercising a certain parliamentary influence. This experience is most extensive in Denmark, where the social democracy was seriously discredited by wartime collaboration and where the Communist Party suffered a major split in the 1950s. Led by Aksel Larsen, a historic CP and trade-union personality, the Socialist People's Party that came out of this split absorbed some other left currents and became a significant minority force in parliament, which it remains.
After suffering losses in the 1966 parliamentary elections, the Social Democrats accepted a coalition with the Socialist People's Party. Within the "workers' majority" coalition, the Socialist People's Party made parliamentarist concessions. In protest against the party accepting a social-democratic austerity policy, the left wing broke away at the end of 1967 to form the Left Socialists, Venstresocialisterne (VS). The new party very quickly became divided between a left parliamentarist wing and the so-called Blomsterboerne ("Flower Children"), that is, the post-1968 radical generation. Some of the parliamentarists left. The VS has remained a multi-tendency party and kept a foothold in parliamentary politics, getting just over the two per cent minimum for representation in parliament. In the January 10, 1984, general elections the Socialist People's Party got 11.5 per cent of the vote; the VS, 2.6, and the Social Democrats 31.6 per cent.
Because of its dependence on foreign trade, Denmark has been hard hit by the international capitalist crisis. But its strong union and welfare-state traditions have made it difficult for the bourgeoisie to apply an austerity policy. In 1985, the attempt by the bourgeois government of Poul Schlueter to push austerity further provoked massive protest strikes (the "Easter Rebellion").
Therefore, there are rising pressures on all the workers' parties, and the VS in particular has been experiencing considerable internal tensions over policy. It held a special congress at the beginning of October in an attempt to resolve its problems. Tom Gustafsson attended it as a representative of the Fourth International and wrote the following report in the October 16 issue of Internationalen, the congress delegates could march with their eyes open straight into a trap.
The congress was a "special" one. one. It was supposed to make some clarifications of VS policy that the regular congress in the spring could not handle.
The starting point for the entire debate was two hypotheses. One was that the workers' parties (the Social Democrats, Socialist People's Party and the VS) would get a parliamentary majority in the next elections. The other was that the VS would hold the balance of power and therefore be able to sit in the driver's seat. The VS would then put pressure on the other bigger parties and force through reforms for the benefit of the "workers' majority."
These hypotheses are, to say the least, shaky. The election has not yet been announced, although most think that it will in fact be held in 1987. Both the Social Democrats and the Socialist People's Party are on a rightward slide. For the Social Democrats, that means that the party's "profile" as an alternative to the ruling right-wing coalition is becoming more and more blurred.
The longer this rightward course continues, the more difficult it will be for both parties (the Social Democrats and the Socialist People's Party) to mobilize the discontented working-class voters and the youth, who want a radical break from this whole political establishment.
Even if the VS manages to continue to attract an important part of this discontent, it is not yet certain that it will top the 2 percent threshold for representation in parliament.
It was the "right-center" current that emerged victorious from the congress - although it did not move as fast as the most pronounced right wing, the "Phoenix" group wanted. But in an eagerness to play an important role in Danish working-class politics, this current made a classical error throughout the congress.
The political debate was focused on the political ajdustments and compromises that the VS could consider going along with so that some of its main proposals would be accepted paper of the Swedish section of the TOM GUSTAFSSON
It was a bewildering experience to attend the Danish Left Socialist Party (VS) congress that was held on October 4-5 in Fredericia, Jutland. Bewildering because of the type of meetings conducted at the congress, but even more because of the sort of political positions taken there.
A VS congress is sometimes thought-provoking and sometimes an overwhelming mixture of introductory 10
Fourth International. speeches, plenary debates, question times and "revolving microphones" in the sea of delegates, culminating in an endless half-day-long process of voting- with amendment after amendment to the main resolution presented by a whole spectrum of various currents and loose tendencies in all the colors of the political rainbow.
But the most bewildering thing was to see how a broad majority of the its main proposals would be accepted by a future government based on a "working-class majority:"
* The congress voted that jobs should be "given priority" over "full pay," if the VS manages to push through a shortening of the workweek, but that compromises would have to be made on working conditions.
* The congress advocated an incomes distribution through wages and taxes, and also among wage earners in order to conduct an "responsible" economic policy at the municipal level, with - if possible - balanced budgets.
International Viewpoint 24 November 1986
NETHERLANDS
* * The congress came within a hair's breadth (even now) of buying the conception of a "defensive" military policy (that is a modification within the framework of the bourgeois military) as a substitute for withdrawal from NATO and for a definitive rejection of nuclear weapons in Denmark.
That means that instead of focusing the discussion around the initiatives that the VS must take to begin to change the relationship of forces, to counter the rightward turn in the workers' movement in general and create an attractive left pole, the congress was already bargaining over the price of the bear's skin long before the bear was shot.
And this was done on the basis of a clear over-estimation of the weight that the VS can bring to bear at the parliamentary level.
This course did not go unchallenged, to be sure. But the left opposi-