Communist Party of Sweden (1995)
Encyclopedia
The Communist Party of Sweden (Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti) is the continuation of Workers' Party – The Communists (Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna, abbreviated APK).

History

Flamman group, an orthodox pro-Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 section with Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna (Left Party – The Communists) that emerged as an internal fraction when C.-H. Hermansson took over as party leader and distanced the party from Moscow. The group was centered around the party newspaper Norrskensflamman
Flamman
Flamman is a Swedish socialist newspaper. It was founded in 1906 by the workers in the northern mine fields, and the paper was originally named Norrskensflamman , before a change of name in 1998...

(The Flame of the Aurora Borealis, usually just called Flamman), the regional party publication in Norrbotten
Norrbotten
Norrbotten is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.- Administration :...

. The fraction worked as a parallel party centre, and relations between them and the party leadership soured.

At the party congress in 1975, when Hermansson stepped down as party leader, the Flamman group launched Rolf Hagel as their candidate for party leadership. Hagel was defeated by Lars Werner
Lars Werner
Lars Helge Werner is a Swedish politician. A construction worker by profession, he was elected the chairman of the Left Party - Communists in 1975 and was a member of the Swedish parliament from 1965 to 1994. During his time as party leader, in 1990, the party changed its name to the Left Party,...

 with 162 votes against 74. In the same year the Flamman-sympathizers were expelled from Kommunistisk Ungdom (Communist Youth), the youth league of the party.
In 1977 the group broke away, and formed Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna (Workers Party - the Communists, abbreviated APK). A founding congress took place in the Swedish Riksdag
Parliament of Sweden
The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...

. A large number of foreign delegated participated in the congress, indicating that APK had a strong moral support from CPSU
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

 and the orthodox sector of the World Communist Movement. Two MPs (and party central committee members), Rolf Hagel and Alf Löwenborg, were leading the split. Rolf Hagel was elected party president. Norrskensflamman became the central party organ.

In many places entire VPK party units joined APK, including in 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...

, Göteborg and Mälardalen. The foremost stronghold of the new party was Norrbotten
Norrbotten
Norrbotten is a Swedish province in northernmost Sweden. It borders south to Västerbotten, west to Swedish Lapland, and east to Finland.- Administration :...

. In total, up to 25% of the entire VPK party membership (other sources claim between 10 to 15%) joined APK. To a large extent it was the trade union cadres of VPK who joined APK. Shortly thereafter, a large section of the KU district in Gävleborg joined APK.

Sveriges Kommunistiska Ungdomsförbund
Young Communist League of Sweden (1977)
Young Communist League of Sweden was a political youth organization in Sweden.When Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna broke out of VPK in 1977, they founded a youth league with the name SKU. The Flamman-group in KU had been expelled during 1975-1976...

(Young Communist League of Sweden) was created as the youth league of the party. A student wing, Marxistiska Studenter (Marxist Students), was founded although it never attained any importance.

The party maintained a Finnish language
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

-publication, Siirtotyöläinen, from 1978 to 1986.http://embla.kb.se/F/P8THESQ42JTPEQLKJL3EPRGMQLRAAHUEVY71TVQGT3ULLILLRY-00799?func=find-acc&acc_sequence=000488846

APK failed to make any electoral breakthrough, and gradually the party declined. The fall of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 came to have a very negative impact on the party. Many members left it, either to politics completely or to rejoin Vänsterpartiet. SKU broke away in 1990, and had a short-lived period as an independent communist youth organization.

In 1995 APK was declared financially bankrupt by state authorities, the first political party in Sweden
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....

 to suffer that fate.

Directly after the bankruptcy of APK, the core around Hagel regrouped and reconstituted their party as Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (Communist Party of Sweden). In 2000 SKU
Young Communist League of Sweden (2000)
Young Communist League of Sweden is the youth wing of the Communist Party of Sweden . It was founded in 2000. The organization is a member of the World Federation of Democratic Youth....

 was reorganized as the party youth league. The party participates in elections under the nomenclature of Kommunisterna (The Communists).

Election results

In the 2006 election, the party received 438 votes. 4 years later they got 375 votes.

External links

Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti - Official site
  • TVKommunist - Official Youtube
    YouTube
    YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

    channel
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