The example of a Fourth Internationalist unionist at Volvo Goteborg THE FOLLOWING interview was given to Gerry Foley in Milan in March by Gote Kilden, the leader of the Socialistiska Parti/Swedish section of the Fourth International organization at the Volvo motor vehicle complex in Goteborg, following new successes by the SP-IV in union elections.
police are getting very racist and try to turn refugees back whenever they can. This sort of thing is in the newspapers every day now.
We had a case in a town near Nacka where there was a Chilean refugee family that had been waiting for three years for permission to stay, and it was finally denied. The pupils at the school where this family's nine-year-old girl was enrolled demonstrated and petitioned the government. The local nursery school petitioned the government. Unfortunately, the Social Democrats and the VpK did not do anything, although they had the majority in the town.
Another case is Sodertaelje, an industrial town just south of Stockholm. There is a big Assyrian community there, about 4,000 out of 100,000 inhabitants. They all live in one area. The authorities are trying to keep them from living together. So, we are campaigning for their right to live where they want. Socialist Party election poster (DR)
Valj TROTEST= ARDETAR
MILD
Socialistiska partiet
Question. With the right on the offensive and the left generally in decline, how do you explain the fact that the SP-backed slates continue to make progress in the elections?
Answer. The trade-union opposition in Goteborg has been active for ten years now. In the beginning, it included different political forces, such as the Communist Party, our party, and other left-wing groups. In recent years, all the other organized political forces have gone away. they have dissolved or become diluted owing to the changes in political and trade-union life in Sweden.
You could also say that we as well have been hit by crisis in some respects. Some of the cadres in the opposition and some SP members have also become demoralized, although not to the extent that they have lost interest in union politics or left our party. But after spending many years at physically hard jobs and still being young enough to change, many of them have gone on to skilled jobs, such as electricians. But that has meant that we have lost some capable cadres among assemblyline workers.
Moreover, the right has been having a field day, as in many other countries. And now with a Social Democratic government pushing down wages, instituting an austerity program, there has been further demoralization among many left Social Democratic sympathizers and for the first time we can see some very young workers, representing 10 to 20% in general elections, turning to the right. Some young workers even wear right-wing party badges. This does not happen, on the other hand, in the Volvo truck factory, where we are very strong. The relationship of forces there is such that it is impossible to act as a rightist.
Our position is that there has been no real change among workers in general, although there has been a certain shift among younger workers to the right. We talk rather about a political vacuum. That is, you have workers turning their backs on politics in general, all parties. Of course, this means problems for us. But we have stood up against the right. One important example of what can be achieved in this respect happened after the right held a demonstration of tens of thousands of people in Goteborg. Formally, it was against a proposal by the Social Democratic government to set up funds through which the workers could "buy out" the capitalists, the so-called Wage Earners Funds. But in reality it was to attack wages, the public sector, social security, and to press for greater differentiation within the working class. The right wants big differences between skilled and unskilled workers, like in the US. In Sweden, there is still very little difference.
The Social Democratic Party and the big unions refused to reply to this offensive. But we took an initiative and got support from dozens of local unions, most of them small but including some large ones. We managed at first to organize a demonstration of 2,000 people. Second, we produced a good paper and managed to circulate 100,000 copies. We held a lot of neighborhood meetings, going around working-class areas. The big press was obliged to send reporters to our news conferences.
We have taken many initiatives like that, such as our work in support of the British miners. We have taken representatives of the FMLN of El Salvador to our union meetings.
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International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
We have also been aggressive in skirmishes around local contracts and our working conditions. So that's the background to the recent elections.
In the truck factory, we already had a majority, but not an absolute one. I have been the chairman there for some years. This year, after a furious campaign by the Social Democratic Party, in which the state apparatus threw itself behind them to a large extent, in which they had dozens of full timers, expensive leaflets, four-color materials, and all that, our candidates got an average vote of around 67%.
What we did not expect was that this time also we made a breakthrough in the auto plant. On the day shift, where the union has a thousand members, our comrades got 55% of the vote. They only ran three candidates but all of them got 55%. This is an extremely important indication, given the situation I talked about before. It shows that a political vacuum can be transformed into support and confidence for a new leadership. It showed that in response to the government's austerity policies, a lot of former Social Democratic voters are ready to look for a different sort of leadership.
We say that the right wing only exists because of the betrayal of the union leaderships. It is they who open the door for the rightist forces. The union leaderships are saying say, OK but it should be cut back more. Social Democratic and union leaders don't stand up for a socialist program. The same goes for the CP, which has a marginal role in Sweden.
The CP gets about 5% of the vote in the elections. But in the union field it no longer has any base in the industrial unions, although it still has a certain base in the public sector. They have no position other than negotiating in parliament and keeping the peace. So, they told their activists to avoid competing with Social Democrats for union positions because that was not good for their relationship with the Social Democratic Party in parliament. The Social Democrats more or less told them that if they gave them trouble in the unions, then they would not accept them as allies in parliament.
But the workers are looking for an alternative. There is another important example. At an important steel plant, Domenarbetet-Bolonge, where they produce special steel, and at Uranius Aluminium, we took the leadership of the union some weeks after there had been a scandal. The bureaucrats came in and offered a compromise, but the 20 workers did not buy it and threw joined in our initiative against the the whole leadership out. right that I mentioned before. But
This is another example of the their party leadership ordered them fact that the rightward trend is not to withdraw, saying that Trotskyists something inevitable. If you have were in the leadership. They refused, enough forces, if you have a correct replying that whatever else these line on trade-union unity, you can people may be they are good unionists even put forward the elements of and this initiative is a good one, a socialist program, not just on trade- even if we don't agree with them union issues but on governmental about the Soviet Union. The upshot questions, on austerity. In our union was that they were expelled, election campaigns, we openly 35 of them were expelled, including attacked the government's policy, half the leadership and many of its calling it antiunion and against the most active members. They are not interests of the workers, and so on. Trotskyists, but they are very open to discussion and to common activities.
Q. How well have you done in recruiting to the party in the plants? Q. Does the AKP have a very
A. We have recruited in the past different line in the unions from the years a substantial part of our fraction "Union Club," VpK? what we call our A. Yes. In the split, they kept from the plants. But because of the some of the most experienced situation I described, with many unionists. They were not necessarily leaving to take skilled jobs, our more Stalinist than those who went membership has remained about the to the Eurocommunist VpK, but same for the last two years. But we they had the feeling that in the party hope that we can broaden our contacts nobody cared anymore about workers. during the party campaign for the They had no alternative but to be September 15 parliamentary elections. more radical than the VpK. Other-
When we began our union work, wise, they would have no reason we were rather young, many of us. Our periphery were very inexperienced for existence. But they also tend to be very weak with respect to the in union matters. Today, it's different.
Social Democracy when it comes In our new union leadership, we have to national questions. On the other many workers around us who are hand, the people who were expelled thirty or forty or fifty years old, and they follow our party in a very not only collaborated with us but close way. I think that in the coming also criticized their party leadership for having a weak line toward the year we can recruit a lot of them. It Social Democrats. takes time. These people have no political background, and they have families and so on. So, it takes some Q. What sort of national impact did your gains in the Volvo elections years for them to acquire a political have? education. But already today, they A. The Social Democrats' big are close to our politics. paper, Arbetet ("Labor") devoted a whole editorial to it. The whole your success in the union elections Q. How much of a factor in "splitter" of the workers movement. thing was an attack on me as a is the close identification between
Their only argument was that we the government and the union bureau- took an initiative against the rightist cracy? Are you seen as the force forces without the Social Democrathat is not controlled by the governtic Party supporting it. ment?
A. I think that in these elections the close relationship of the bureau- Q. But you did try to get the crats to the government favored Social Democrats to support it? us. They came against us with anti- A. Of course, and many did, Communist slander, a red-baiting many individuals, even some of campaign, calling us terrorists But their representatives in the city governthis has not worked, because we ment came up to us and embraced have been working in the union for us, saying that this initiative was the many years. People know us as serious best one in ten years. So, we didn't socialists, union people. They don't have a sectarian line. But the Social accept such slanders any more. Democrats refused to participate, because if they mobilize people to What sort of a role does the respond to the rightist attacks, Workers Communist Party (AKP), the tomorrow the same people are going orthodox Stalinist splitoff from the CP to ask questions about the governplay? It claims to represent a workers ment's policy. So, the Social Demoalternative to the "petty bourgeois" crats are paralyzed in the face of the politics of the regular CP (the VpK, right. We hope that we can begin Left Party of Communists)? to get across the idea of an alterna-
A. It's a minor party, but it has tive on a broader scale in our campaign some forces. The group here originally for the parliamentary elections.
International Viewpoint 16 September 1985
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