Anarchism in Sweden

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Anarchism was reported to have been extant in Sweden by Mikhail Bakunin as early as 1866. As with the movements in Germany and the Netherlands, Swedish anarchism had a strong syndicalist tendency. One of the earliest Swedish anarchists of note was the artist Ivan Aguéli who in 1884 was arrested and sentenced in the "Trial of the thirty" in Paris. Also prominent were Anton Nilson, Leon Larsson, Axel Holmström, Albert Jensen, and Hinke Bergegren. Bergegren edited and published nine issues of the weekly periodical Under röd flagg, from March to June 1891. The magazine, which had an anarchist communist editorial bent, featured excerpts from the writings of prominent European anarchist intellectuals Peter Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Élisée Reclus.

Anarchist ideas were prominent in the Swedish Social Democratic Party from its founding in 1889 to the early 1900s. Bergegren headed the party's anarchist group – called Ungsocialisterna (The Young Socialists). Bergegren and Ungsocialisterna were expelled from the SDP between 1906 and 1908.

The Invisible Party was a decentralized campaign founded by different parts of the Swedish extra-parliamentary left, in particular the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation. The purpose was to highlight the real politics going on in the workplaces and in the streets, as compared with the parliamentary politics of the Riksdagen. The campaign "disbanded" in September 16, 2006.

An anarcho-syndicalist trade union, Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation, was founded in 1910. In 1922 it had 32,000 members. Today it has about 7,500 and still publishes its own weekly paper, Arbetaren.

A Swedish magazine, Brand, is the oldest continuously published anarchist magazine. Being published since 1898.

Many Swedish anarchists joined and fought with the CNT-FAI during the Spanish Revolution 1936–1939. Among them, Nisse Lätt and Axel Österberg later published eye-witness reports from Spain.

The well-known author Stig Dagerman remained an anarchist for his entire life. The Lund's Anarchist Group was a minor anarchist movement in Lund, formed in the wake of the protests of 1968.

One of many minor anarchist groups are the Fag Army, a left-wing queer anarchist group, which launched its first action on August 18, 2014, when it pied the Minister for Health and Social Affairs, Christian Democrat leader Göran Hägglund.

Bibliography

• Campbell, Joan (1992). European Labor Unions. Westport: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-26371-X. 
• Woodcock, George (2004). Anarchism: a History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Peterborough: Broadview Press. ISBN 1-55111-629-4.