Scandinavian workers realized that, electoral “democracy”
was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to
exert the power for change.
January 29, 2012 |
Photo Credit: Christopher Neugebauer
While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy
movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other
countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing
about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and
Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s
after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of
people who set the direction for society and created the basis for
something different.
Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1
percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to
avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however,
both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly
eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums,
provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right
and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the
Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the
latest CIA
World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”
Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg
Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing
authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the
path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist
who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of
its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I
remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial
city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the
evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the
differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I
finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned
the real reason: their own histories.
Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for
their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time
when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could
deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1
percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so
nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.
In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1
percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told
the Swedish story vividly in
Ådalen 31, which depicts the
strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike.
(You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm
in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s
movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was
spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by
mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated
valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then
by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country
rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become
independent.
When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned
to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They
were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian
Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin.
Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted
ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians
wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle,
along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.
In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest
formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened
to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general
strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but
workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.
The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in
1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League,
recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League
included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike
breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!
The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone,
whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some
reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor
Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood
that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was
needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing
polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and
boycotts in 1928.
The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there
than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian
union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even
though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass
mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of
the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought
back with massive demonstrations.
Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound
familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up
payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds
gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their
farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had
previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance
itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to
rule the many was in doubt.
By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was
losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as
militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be
just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery
of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt
increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which
it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise
agreement with the other side.
This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right
to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of
government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the
economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of
full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy.
Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady
inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that
majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest.
(There is an entry on this case as well
at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)
The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy
and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives
return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules
of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of
production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation
for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When
Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the
economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)
Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top
management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out
any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector
was
not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in
2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was
solid.
Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you
meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom
and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with
middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the
people to govern for the common good.
George Lakey is Visiting
Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops
on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and
international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author
of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book
Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a
civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team
while protesting mountain top removal coal mining.
Suspicions: Technicians work at the reactor building at Bushehr
nuclear power plant, 750 miles south of Tehran. Iran has always
insisted its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes