Socialism of the Future / Future of Socialism

An activist from Sweden, regretted that he has to use an imperialist language like English to express his views. Also, he regretted that in so many international meetings where nations fully understood what the others were talking about, and the only one who was not understanding the English conversation was the Englishman. He said if a socialist society was defined as one where everyone contributed according to his or her capacity and everyone got what he or she needed then there was no problem. “Then we are all socialists and as it is true in Brazil it is also true in the context of my country. Although, in Sweden, socialism is more used and we don’t have only social forums but we also have socialist forums where many young people now come. So, if socialism is termed as everybody having a dignified life then we have had 62 years of socialist party rule in Sweden,” he stated.

He said it did not mean that they didn’t have problems but yes there were a majority of parties that were very close to socialist principles. The Socio-Democratic party, the Left party, the former Communist Party - strong in Sweden with eighty percent of the voters - and the Green Party supporting them have a clear majority but in spite of that they were responsible for the present neo-liberal policies that were put in place in Sweden. “So, it doesn’t help with parties; it doesn’t help with socialism,” he pointed out. He said Sweden was more of a welfare nation in terms of income parity, however this general welfare was now threatened in many ways. The pension system has been privatised in large parts and there has been a lot of reduction in non-employment benefits. The small farmers, too, were greatly threatened. This was already expressed, last year, in the EU Summit in Sweden.

He expressed his concern over then changing situation in his socio-democratic country where the state has started a higher level of repression than ever before. “Now what do the Marxist, the Leninist and the Leftist parties say to this? Even the most radical ones say - you nasty, stupid youth activists, you are horrible.” Bjork said that it was to be understood that a battle has been going on all over the world and we have to struggle together. Referring to the process of globalisation, he said that the Indians need not underestimate them as the main force in such a simultaneous battle all over the world was in India.

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