Communist Party (Sweden)
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The Communist Party (, K) is a Marxist–Leninist
political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...
in
Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
started in 1970. From 1970 to 1977, it was known as the Communist League Marxist–Leninists (Revolutionaries) (, KFML(r)) and from 1977 to 2004 as the Communist Party Marxist–Leninists (Revolutionaries) (, KPML(r)). At the 14th Party Congress held in
Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...
in January 2005, it was decided to change the name to the current one. KFML(r) was unofficially founded in 1970 by a splinter group from the pro- Chinese KFML, which in turn had split from the Eurocommunist Left Party in 1967. "The (r)s" (''"(r)-arna"'') considered that KFML had approached reformism and was not a genuine workers' movement. In 1970, it began publishing the weekly '' Proletären'' (''The Proletarian''), and the group was officially registered as a political party in 1977. During the 1980s, KPML(r) achieved representation in some municipalities, including Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city. The Gothenburg region has always been the strongest area for the party, partly because the party was started there. During the period of 1970 to 1999, the party chairman was Frank Baude. Baude was succeeded by Anders Carlsson, who held the post as chairman between 1999 and 2014. Between 2014 and 2019, Robert Mathiasson was the chairman of the party, he was succeeded by Ulf Nilsson, who only led the party for a short time. Ulf Nilsson resigned as party chairman in January 2020. On the Communist Party's 19th congress in September 2020, Povel Johansson was elected new chairman. Its members and sympathisers includes, or included, several Swedish celebrities such as actors
Sven Wollter Sven Justus Fredrik Wollter (11 January 1934 – 10 November 2020) was a Swedish actor, writer, and political activist. Wollter is one of the most renowned Swedish actors, he was awarded Best Swedish actor twice. In his native country, he becam ...
, Lasse Brandeby and Kent Andersson and musicians Ken, Totta Näslund and Fred Åkerström, all of whom have participated in events and gatherings arranged by the party.


Youth organisations

In the early days of the party, the pro-KFML(r) fractions of the United FNL Groups (DFFG) and of the Swedish Clarté League broke away and set up the Solidarity Front for the People of Indochina and Clarté (m-l) respectively. In 1972, these two structures were dissolved and merged into the Young Communist League of Sweden (Marxist-Leninists) (''Sveriges Kommunistiska Ungdomsförbund (marxist-leninisterna)'', SKU (ml)), the new KFML(r) youth wing. Later a new students organisation, SKS (ml), was formed. Both SKU (ml) and SKS (ml) were disbanded towards the end of the 1970s as the party itself consisted mainly of young people. In 1994, the party again launched a youth organization, Revolutionary Communist Youth (RKU).


International relations

The party upholds close relations with the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP; ) is a secular Palestinian Marxist–Leninist organization founded in 1967 by George Habash. It has consistently been the second-largest of the groups forming the Palestine Liberation ...
, the
Communist Party of the Philippines The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP; ) is a far-left, Marxist–Leninist–Maoist revolutionary organization and communist party in the Philippines, formed by Jose Maria Sison on 26 December 1968. The CPP has been fighting a gue ...
, the
Workers' Party of Belgium The Workers' Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA) is a Marxist and socialist political party in Belgium. It is the only Belgian party represented in parliament that is a fully national party, representing both Flanders and Wallonia. Having historically be ...
, the
Communist Party of Greece The Communist Party of Greece (, ΚΚΕ; ''Kommounistikó Kómma Elládas'', KKE) is a Marxist–Leninist political party in Greece. It was founded in 1918 as the Socialist Workers' Party of Greece (SEKE) and adopted its current name in Novem ...
, the
Polisario Front The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Spanish language, Spanish: ; ), better known by its acronym Polisario Front, is a Sahrawi nationalism, Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement seeking to end the occupatio ...
and others. During the
North Korean famine The North Korean famine (), dubbed by the government as the Arduous March (), was a period of mass starvation together with a general economic crisis from 1995 to 2000 in North Korea. During this time there was an increase in defection from N ...
, the party participated in charity fundraising for the delivery of humanitarian aid to
North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...
. As a result, the party developed a degree of collaboration with the
Workers' Party of Korea The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), also called the Korean Workers' Party (KWP), is the sole ruling party of North Korea. Founded in 1949 from a merger between the Workers' Party of North Korea and the Workers' Party of South Korea, the WPK is ...
, although this cooperation did not persist to the present day.


Illegal surveillance by the Swedish Security Service

In 1969, governmental registration of an individual's political affiliation was made illegal in Sweden. However, in 2003 it was revealed that the
Swedish Security Service The Swedish Security Service ( , SÄPO , , formerly , RPS/Säk, until 1989) is a Sweden, Swedish Government agencies in Sweden, government agency organized under the Ministry of Justice (Sweden), Ministry of Justice. It operates as a security ...
(Säpo) already in 1970 had been secretly instructed by the Swedish government to continue surveillance of "key individuals" in some twenty organisations on the
far-left Far-left politics, also known as extreme left politics or left-wing extremism, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single, coherent definition; some ...
and
far-right Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...
of Swedish politics in spite of that ban. This surveillance continued until 1998. KFML(r)/KPML(r) and its associated organisations were among those put under such surveillance. When the files were made public, they revealed that the number of surveilled individuals of the party ranged from 2,012 in 1985 to 1,346 in 1998, which meant that almost all party members had been under surveillance.SOU 2002:89 Politisk övervakning och personalkontroll 1969-2002 - in Swedish only
Retrieved 2012-04-11


Electoral results

The party does not participate in elections to the national nor the
European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...
s. It does not participate in the national elections due to financial and tactical reasons whereas it advocates boycott of the European parliament elections. However, it does participate in the municipal elections in some Swedish municipalities. In 2010, the party participated in the elections in 18 municipalities, which is the largest number of municipalities so far. Its electoral results have fluctuated over time, with high results in various cities during the late 1990s (second-largest party in Karlshamn, for example). In the three most recent elections, the party has lost ground electorally.


Footnotes and references


External links

*
Kommunistiska partiet
- Official site *
''Proletären''
- Official site {{Authority control 1970 establishments in Sweden Communist parties in Sweden Far-left politics in Sweden Political parties established in 1970 Minor political parties in Sweden