Campaigning work of Swedish section of REVOLUTION, October-December 2008

October 08

During October 2008 REVOLUTION Sweden kept fighting to make the capitalists pay for the crisis and not the workers. Only in September 9000 Swedish workers got fired. And the best response the Social Democrats can come up with is that more money should be put on education. Not one word on how to save the jobs through strikes and occupations. We say: Let the rich pay! Many young workers are thrown out to a job market without jobs.

We have participated in the struggle against the Right Wing government's new housing policy. They try to change the system of rentable apartments to a system where you have to buy your apartment. They also want to adapt the rent to the market and get rid of the limit on how much a landlord is allowed to charge. Further, they want to privatize all communal housing companies. All this will benefit the rich. The ones to take the hardest blow will be working class youth. In Stockholm for example, 225 000 people stand in queue to get an apartment but last year, only 3000 new rentable apartments were built in Stockholm, partly because the government has cut all subventions for building these kind of apartments. It seems like the strategy of the bourgeois government is to clean the inner city from working class youth and other "unattractive" elements.

Finally, we have started to mobilize for this year's anti nazi protest march taking place in december and arranged by Nätverket Mot Rasism (Network Against Racism), which we are a part of. We are going to work for a socialist platform inside the network because it is very important to realize that only by linking anti racism to class struggle and by pointing out that racism is an enemy to the working class, we can attract broader layers of the working class to join the struggle.

November 08
During November REVOLUTION Sweden continued working against racism together with other left wing groups inside NMR (Network Against Racism). In Stockholm we did a town meeting tour, recruiting for the anti fascist struggle and spreading information about the Network and the planned antinazi demonstration in December. NMR visited working class suburbs to spread the propaganda. We also participated in the Stockholm Socialist Forum and spread information about NMR there. Unfortunately, the nazis intensified their terror in Stockholm during this month and burned a leftist hang out, "CYKLOPEN", to the ground. But not a single revolutionary antifascist was scared to silence. The struggle continues with the same intensity.

The 30 November some nazis marched on several locations in Sweden but was met by protests. It was only through massive police protection that they managed to escape being smashed up by the crowds in Lund, southern Sweden. There is a Swedish slogan: DAGENS POLIS SKYDDAR MORGONDAGENS HITLER! (The Police of today protects the future Hitler.)

Besides the anti fascist struggle we have participated in a demonstration arranged by LO (The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, gathers all the major trade unions) against the righ wing government's as well as the EU bureaucrat's attacks on "The Swedish Model", a reformist model which secures some basic rights for the Swedish working class, but in return guarantees that the capitalists can stay in power. We argue that the Swedish working class of course should defend the rights we have through our "model" but that we should go beyond it and challenge the capitalists to push the limit for our rights forward until the capitalists are not a problem anymore and the working class has total power over the work places and economy. The Social Democrat leaders of the trade unions want class collaboration. They don't seem to understand that capitalists have a parasitic funtion on the economy and that we can manage very well without them if we just got the chance.

December 08

During December we continued working hard within the Network Against Racism and campaigning for the antinazi demonstration which was going to take place December 7. Every year Swedish, Scandinavian and Northern European right wing extremists gather in the Swedish town Salem for an annual march in memory of a Nazi youth which was murdered in Salem year 2000. The Swedish Nazi movement see this as an opportunity to spread their propaganda. And every year the antifascist movement arranges a counter demonstration to disturb the nazis. Unfortunately this counter demonstration has been struggling with isolation from the major trade unions and has never been able to build a mass base or an anchorage in the local population of Salem. Rather, it has always been an event gathering about 1000 antifascist, mostly autonomous or anarchist, militants and has never succeded in stopping the march. This year was no different. The difference was the brutality of the Police, who this year went as far as violently stopping as many as 500 comrades at the train station before they even arrived in Salem. See report here: http://revolutionsweden.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/salem-2008-gross-attack... Even though the demonstration was something of a failure, the campaigning work in November, with propaganda and town meetings in suburbs, was a step in the right direction for the Network Against Racism.

During December there were violent uproars and strikes in Greece and Italy and we engaged ourselves in solidarity work in Sweden.

In the end of the month the Israeli state intensified their massacre on Palestinians on Gaza and we mobilized to support the Palestinians through solidarity actions.