SWEDISH COMMUNIST PARTY PRETENDS SELF-CRITICISM AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-00915R000600030028-2
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 5, 2000
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: November 29, 1957
• Content Type: DISP

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Swedish Communist Party Pretends Self- riticii
cm of Speech
"Ny Dag" (Stockholm), the leading organ of the Swedish Communist Party,
has lately opened its pages to articles written by leading Party members who
in notably frank language criticized the Party Executive and its policies which
were said to foster bureaucracy, personality cult and "intolerance", The Party
was, also censured for echoing too uncritically Soviet Russian propaganda while
paying little heed to Swedish "national" interests and the welfare of the Swedish
labor class, It is yet too early to say whether this self-criticism. reflects
a real sentiment among the Party rank and file or if it is only a cloak for new
tactics designed to make. Communism or "Socialism" appear democratic and
nationalist minded;
The first article, written by Allan BJMK, former CP Treasurer and former
editor of 'I 3orskeneflarrmian" (Lule&),. a Communist. provincial daily, appeared on
November 20, In it, the author complained that the Party Executive had failed
to draw the conclusions for Sweden's part of the uprooting of the personality
cult which was said to have been effected ,in the Soviet Union, This, it was
claimed, had made it impossible for the .Swedish: CP members to understand the
great re-evaluations that had taken place within the Russian parent party in the
past two years, BjUrrk found it particularly strange and serious that the Party
leadership had almost entirely ignored or belittled the strong condemnation of the
personality cult voiced by the Soviet Communist Party Congress in the spring of
1957 and had thereby allowed continued "bureaucratization of Party life, lacking
tolerance vis-a-vis Party comrades entertaining a. dissident view on non-principle
questions, and unwillingness or inability. over a. number of years to encourage
and develop political and ideological discussion within the Party", The working
method (wrote the author) has been for the Party Executive to present ready-made
views where different opinions or nuances have had no place and specific Swedish
conditions and characteristics have not been taken into account. As an anomaly
was pictured the fact that of the 35 members of the Party Central Committee only
two are. trade unionists and two -or three more directly engaged in productivity,
all the others being paid Party functionaries or writers in the Party press, and
that all eleven members of the Executive Committee are Party employed function-
aries, Of the nine Communist members of the Rikedag only two were active in
production when elected, The centralization of the Party's activities and
"remote control' of the Party press and the Party districts were other causes of
complaints "It in the bureaucratic methods And . ennuis Jog-trot. and inability
alllers gb
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 MMIAM-MR-RDP 8-0
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listen to members and the working people which are prImgrf:ly res onecible
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Approved For Release 20
had been directly invited by the GP tecutive to discuss what should be done to
heal the weaknesses from which the Part' was still suffering "as a consequence
of the harmful personality cult". He reiterated his various points of criticism
and said that he had believed that he could do this without being branded
Inimical to the Party and given other of the names "so frequently used by us
during the heydays of the personality cult"
A.. second article, published November 219, was written by Henning NILSSON,
of t vle, a former member of the Communist Rikedag group' He criticized the
Party leaders for insisting. on preserving the ideas of 20 or 30 years ago and
paying no heed to modern developmentsa That the Communist party is part of
the international labor movement has been. stressed to a degree where many
Communists have become more international than national, that is to say, many
Communists feel and think, suffer and rejoice over what is happening in the
Soviet Union and the people's democracies but have little feeling for what is
happening in our own country and in our own Party.... The Swedish Communists'
immediate 'worries and sources' of joy lie in. lweden, not in the Soviet Union,
in Stockholm, not In Budapest. This means that we are not responsible for the
events in Hungary, just as we have no part in the enormous successes of the
Russian scientists. It in not we who put up the earth satellite,"
This author stressed the need for creating a Swedish Communist Party, look-
ing more to Swedish than to Soviet interests and having better direct contact
with its individual members and their every day sources of sorrow and happiness;
"Try to understand those members who are concerned about the events in Hungary
and about personality cult instead of branding them as victims of bourgeois
propaganda".
Thus far, "Ny Dag' has v not replied editorially to this outspoken ctiticiam
of the Party, but on November 22 it featured a signed article by a Party member
who defended the Party Executive and. characterized "comrade" Allen Bj?3rke s
article as "trash" and directly harmful to the Party,, but this: writer, too,
titted that there were many shortcomings that would have to be overcome if the
Swedish Communist Party was to regain the ground it lost in recent years,
In his 'ply, published November 26, Allan Bj$.k disclosed that he and others
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"they men in the field", to active trade unionists, sympathizers from the
popular organizations. and from among the intelligensia,
for the
present conditions within our Forty". The 'remedy urged by 13jiark
This Interesting internal, debate and soul searching among the Communists
pay attention to or quote what is printed in "NSA Dag". This poorly circulated
daily paper, mouthpiece of the numerically small Swedish Cor iht Party, is by
the democratic press, but this may be partly due to a tacit,.. agreement not to
mh shows every sign of being continued has thus far not been commented upon
? Approved For Release 2000/08/27 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000600030028-2
 'this method not given the benefit of having its views reac
wider audience,
For the Ambassador:
Donovan n
ryounselor of Embassy
for
Political Affairs
Copies sea
Amembaaiy ' Mosco>:
Amemb sy Helsinki
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Amembassy Copenhagen
Approved For Release 2000/08/27 : CIA-RDP78-00915R000600030028-2