Anton Nilson was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 militant

Militant

The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...

 socialist and convicted murderer.

Nilson was born and grew up in a peasant

Peasant

A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...

 region in Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden. He became a construction worker in 1906, by which time he had already become a class conscious young socialist.

Amalthea bombing

In the summer of 1908 the workers in the docks of Malmö

Malmö

Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...

 went on strike for better conditions. The police and military were called in to keep order, and the employers took in British strikebreakers to do the job. This was considered highly provocative by the striking Swedish workers.

The British strikebreakers were temporarily living on a ship called Amalthea. On the night between July 11 and 12, three young unemployed workers, including Anton Nilson, put a bomb outside Amalthea. The bomb exploded, killing one and wounding 23 of the British strikebreakers.

Anton Nilson was sentenced to death

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

. His two accomplices Algot Rosberg and Alfred Stern were sentenced to penal labor for life.

Before his execution, Anton Nilson was pardoned and, like the others, given forced labor for life.

The first reactions in Sweden to the bomb attack on the Amalthea were those of horror and disgust followed by condemnation, including from the workers movement. However, after a while public opinion sided with Anton Nilson, Algot Rosberg and Alfred Stern, and a massive campaign was launched to have them freed. Thousands of international meetings were held in their support, including some 600 meetings amongst workers in the United States, organized by the Industrial Workers of the World

Industrial Workers of the World

The Industrial Workers of the World is an international union. At its peak in 1923, the organization claimed some 100,000 members in good standing, and could marshal the support of perhaps 300,000 workers. Its membership declined dramatically after a 1924 split brought on by internal conflict...

 and with Joe Hill

Joe Hill

Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle , and also known as Joseph Hillström was a Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World...

 as a leading participant.

A petition containing some 130,000 names was handed to the government and Supreme Court of Sweden, asking for the release of the three young men.

An attempt to free Anton Nilson by force from the prison in Härnösand

Härnösand

Härnösand is a locality and the seat of Härnösand Municipality in Västernorrland County, Sweden with 18,003 inhabitants in 2005. It is called "the gate to the High Coast" because of the world heritage landscape rises just some miles north of Härnösand...

 took place on May Day 1917, when 10,000 workers marched to the jailhouse. Guards with machine guns were stationed on the walls and the military was called in. The prison guards were ordered to shoot Anton Nilson if necessary rather than letting him escape. Eventually the masses demonstrating outside the prison gave up and walked away.

Finally, in October 1917, Anton Nilson and the two others were pardoned. It was the first decision made by Nils Edén

Nils Edén

Nils Edén was a Swedish historian and liberal politician, Prime Minister of Sweden 1917–1920, and along with Hjalmar Branting acknowledged as co-architect of Sweden's transition from quasi-absolute monarchy to a parliamentary democracy with equal male and female suffrage.Edén was born in...

's appointed coalition government of Liberals and Social Democrats, which under the following two years would institute democracy

Democracy

Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

 and women's suffrage in Sweden.

In the Russian Revolution

As Anton Nilson was released from jail, the Bolshevik Revolution had just started in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. Without hesitation, and nowhere else to go, Nilson went to visit Russia in company with the Swedish communist leader Ture Nerman

Ture Nerman

Ture Nerman was a Swedish socialist. As a journalist and author, he was a well-known political activist in his time. He also wrote poems and songs.Nerman was a vegetarian and a strict teetotaler...

.

Anton Nilson decided to join the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

, fighting as a pilot in the civil war

Russian Civil War

The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

. Nilson helped organize the air defense of Moscow, later taking command of the air force on the Baltic

Baltic region

The terms Baltic region, Baltic Rim countries, and Baltic Rim refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea.- Etymology :...

 Front

Front (military)

A military front or battlefront is a contested armed frontier between opposing forces. This can be a local or tactical front, or it can range to a theater...

. For his services his comrades elected him to receive an award from Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

.

At the rise of Stalinism

Stalinism

Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...

, Anton Nilson decided to return to Sweden in 1926. He would always consider Stalin as a traitor to the revolution, saying: "Stalin took the state police, which had been formed against the counter-revolution, and turned it against socialists...." and an adherent to the fascist model of a police state

Police state

A police state is one in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic and political life of the population...

. His departure from the Soviet Union may as well have saved him from the Great Purge

Great Purge

The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...

s during the 1930s.

When Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

 took over the leadership of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 in 1953, Anton Nilson considered it a positive development.

For the rest of his life, Nilson toured Sweden agitating for Swedish Communist rule.
He also became revered as one of the Swedish Labour Movement's heroes and his portrait is to be found at the headquarters of Landsorganisationen

Swedish Trade Union Confederation

The Swedish Trade Union Confederation , commonly referred to as LO, is a national trade union centre, an umbrella organisation for fifteen Swedish trade unions that organise mainly "blue-collar" workers...

. His 100th birthday, during which Anton Nilson himself held a speech lasting for several hours, was celebrated by several Social Democratic members of the Swedish Cabinet.

Anton Nilson lived to be 101 years old.