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| “Don’t waste your vote — strengthen the Communists!” |
This Sunday, September 13, Sweden goes to the polls. Amid the familiar electoral promises and manufactured differences between the established parties, the Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) is putting forward a fundamentally different choice: not another formula for administering capitalism, but a political alternative rooted in the interests of the working class and the struggle for socialism. For decades, Swedish social democracy cultivated the image of a capitalism capable of reconciling the interests of labour and capital. Today, that illusion is increasingly difficult to sustain.
Job insecurity, attacks on workers’ rights, commercialization of welfare and public services, growing social inequalities and the deterioration of living conditions coexist with the wealth and power accumulated by the big monopolies. Meanwhile, Sweden’s entry into NATO has tied the country still more closely to the military strategy of the imperialist alliance.
The established parties may disagree over how this system should be managed, but none challenges the power that stands behind it. Whether governments move somewhat to the right or somewhat to the “left,” Swedish capital retains its ownership, its profits and its control over the decisive sectors of the economy. The workers are repeatedly asked to choose which political force will administer conditions that they themselves did not create.
The SKP breaks with this consensus. Its election manifesto openly identifies capitalism itself as the source of exploitation, insecurity, militarism and war and puts forward socialism — workers’ power and a planned economy serving human needs rather than private profit — as the alternative.
This distinction is particularly important at a time when nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric are being used to divide working people. Swedish and immigrant workers do not have opposing class interests. They confront the same employers, the same capitalist exploitation and the same policies that subordinate their lives to profitability. The answer to deteriorating living standards is therefore not competition among workers over the crumbs left by capital, but common organization and struggle. The SKP explicitly calls for solidarity with refugees and equal conditions for workers regardless of origin, while linking racism and discrimination to the divisions generated and exploited by capitalist society.
Nor does the SKP tell workers that an election, by itself, can transform society. Its position is more demanding: lasting gains are won through organization and class struggle in workplaces, trade unions and neighborhoods. Elections are one terrain of that struggle, not a substitute for it. The party consequently emphasizes rebuilding a militant labour movement and confronting the reformist forces that have subordinated trade unions to capitalist “competitiveness.”
This is also why the argument that a vote for the communists is “wasted” turns reality upside down. A vote that strengthens yet another party committed to the existing order changes nothing fundamental. A vote for the SKP registers support for an independent working-class political force and for a society beyond exploitation. As the party itself argues in its election manifesto, every communist vote helps demonstrate that another political road exists.
On Sunday, the choice for class-conscious workers, young people, pensioners and working immigrants should therefore be clear: strengthen the Communist Party of Sweden. Strengthen the organized opposition to capitalism, NATO and imperialist war. Strengthen the struggle for workers’ power and socialism.
The SKP is contesting the parliamentary election under the ballot designation “SKP – Kommunisterna”, with party chairman Andreas Sörensen heading its national list. It is also standing in regional and municipal elections across Sweden.
The established parties may disagree over how this system should be managed, but none challenges the power that stands behind it. Whether governments move somewhat to the right or somewhat to the “left,” Swedish capital retains its ownership, its profits and its control over the decisive sectors of the economy. The workers are repeatedly asked to choose which political force will administer conditions that they themselves did not create.
The SKP breaks with this consensus. Its election manifesto openly identifies capitalism itself as the source of exploitation, insecurity, militarism and war and puts forward socialism — workers’ power and a planned economy serving human needs rather than private profit — as the alternative.
This distinction is particularly important at a time when nationalism and anti-immigrant rhetoric are being used to divide working people. Swedish and immigrant workers do not have opposing class interests. They confront the same employers, the same capitalist exploitation and the same policies that subordinate their lives to profitability. The answer to deteriorating living standards is therefore not competition among workers over the crumbs left by capital, but common organization and struggle. The SKP explicitly calls for solidarity with refugees and equal conditions for workers regardless of origin, while linking racism and discrimination to the divisions generated and exploited by capitalist society.
Nor does the SKP tell workers that an election, by itself, can transform society. Its position is more demanding: lasting gains are won through organization and class struggle in workplaces, trade unions and neighborhoods. Elections are one terrain of that struggle, not a substitute for it. The party consequently emphasizes rebuilding a militant labour movement and confronting the reformist forces that have subordinated trade unions to capitalist “competitiveness.”
This is also why the argument that a vote for the communists is “wasted” turns reality upside down. A vote that strengthens yet another party committed to the existing order changes nothing fundamental. A vote for the SKP registers support for an independent working-class political force and for a society beyond exploitation. As the party itself argues in its election manifesto, every communist vote helps demonstrate that another political road exists.
On Sunday, the choice for class-conscious workers, young people, pensioners and working immigrants should therefore be clear: strengthen the Communist Party of Sweden. Strengthen the organized opposition to capitalism, NATO and imperialist war. Strengthen the struggle for workers’ power and socialism.
The SKP is contesting the parliamentary election under the ballot designation “SKP – Kommunisterna”, with party chairman Andreas Sörensen heading its national list. It is also standing in regional and municipal elections across Sweden.