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Friday, May 20, 2022

Communists save Sweden's dignity — “NO to NATO membership!”

The government of Sweden has formally submitted the application to join the imperialist alliance of NATO. In a ceremony held on Wednesday 18 May in Brussels, the Swedish ambassador to NATO Axel Wernhoff handed over the application to the organization's General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.

While the Swedish government, the ruling Social Democratic party and the other bourgeois forces have been completely surrendered to the sirens of imperialism, it is important to underline the stance of those who, firmly and consistently, say NO to the country's NATO membership: The Communist Party (SKP).

SKP: We condemn Sweden's accession to NATO and fight against it

In a statement (here in Swedish) about the submission of Sweden's application to NATO, the Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) points out: “Sweden's accession to NATO is now only a few formalities away and we are in a new reality, where Swedish imperialism has taken the step fully and sought membership in the strongest and most important imperialist alliance of our time”.

The SKP also highlights some major points concerning imperialism and NATO which are significant for the organization of the struggle against the Euro-Atlantic organization.

“When Sweden and Finland apply for NATO membership, it is not because they have been deceived or that our politicians are sellouts to foreign powers of that they are “lap dogs”. They act for the interests of their own capital. For them, this is necessary as international conflicts increase and the need to defend the interests of the Swedish and Finnish capital throughout the world has increased. However, they can't do this alone; they need to unite themselves”, reads the SKP statement.

“This entails significant risk not only for the working people of Finland and Sweden, but for the working people of the whole world, as the membership of both countries will mean a further escalation and a further sharpening of the contradictions that characterize the capitalist system. The war is getting closer to our threshold and the Swedish capital is approaching the war”, the Communist Party stresses out.

The Communist Party of Sweden underlines that a movement against NATO “must be based on the realization that the working class has nothing to gain from allying itself with any country” and on “an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist position”.

Among other issues, the SKP points out that the struggle against Sweden's accession to NATO must not be based on ideas about the loss of national sovereignty. “It is our own national bourgeoisie that, based on its own interests, joins; it is not about an occupation or an attack from a foreign power, but about the Swedish bourgeois class acting on the basis of its own interests. It is thus not about any loss of national sovereignty, but about our country's accession to an imperialist alliance. To claim that national sovereignty is being lost means giving priority to national antagonisms over social ones which, in short, means that one puts the national struggle before the class struggle”, reads the statement.

The SKP notes that the fight against NATO must be principally anti-capitalist. It is a task of the communists “to show how capitalist breeds war and the war under capitalism is inevitable and how alliances like NATO are a product of capitalism”, as well as “to show that the only solution is a completely new social system where profit is no longer a driving force, but rational planning based on human needs is what drives development. Socialism is the only solution to capitalist barbarism”.

The statement ends with the phrase that “the Communist Party of Sweden says no to NATO and imperialism and condemns every step that Swedish imperialism takes to strengthen the defense of its own interests in the world, at the expense of the all the world's people”. 

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©

Also Read:

- Sweden's communists say "NO" to NATO membership