We urge working people and youth to join in condemning Washington's massive bombings and assault on Afghanistan, whose purpose is to set up an imperialist protectorate in the country.

Prime Minister Göran Persson and the Swedish government are backing the war in order, like all other imperialist governments, to try to assert the interests of the Swedish capitalist class in the conflict. Persson is also using the pretext of "anti-terrorism" to increase the control of the wealthy rulers over working people in this country.

The idea that Sweden represents a more "democratic" and "peaceful" imperialism is an illusion kept alive by all wings of bourgeois forces in this country. This is reflected in recent demonstrations in Stockholm where there have been calls for more Swedish influence in the conflict, often in combination with a bigger role for the United Nations.

But the truth is that the Swedish ruling class is as brutal as their U.S. counterparts, differences in economic and military power aside. Ever since it became a junior imperialist power--joining the international band of robbers around 1900--the government in Stockholm has not missed an opportunity to either use military or other means to back the interests of finance capital.

In 1905 it gathered troops at the Norwegian border to prevent independence for Norway--an attempted war that was prevented by the working class in Sweden which refused to fight against its class brothers and sisters in Norway. The Swedish "voluntary-brigades" and their role in the drowning of the Finnish revolution in blood in 1918 was another example not long after.

Swedish troops constituted the lion's share of the UN force that disarmed the anti-colonial liberation movement in the Congo and paved the way for the murder of its leader Patrice Lumumba. Swedish troops have participated in the occupation of Bosnia, Kosova, and Macedonia. Today the ruling class in Sweden is preparing for war by, among other moves, building a rapid deployment force.

In addition to military deployments, the Swedish companies are fully occupied with the superexploitation of workers in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and seek to establish themselves in their backyard, the Baltic countries.

The rulers work day and night to make working people believe there is a "we" in Sweden. But it is the oppressed peoples in Afghanistan and other Third World countries, and in other imperialist countries, that are the allies of the working class in the fight for a future for humanity. Our allies are not the Swedish capitalist families--the Wallenbergs, Stenbecks, Axelson-Johnsons, Philipssons, Kamprads, and others--and their government in Stockholm. They are our common enemy.  
 
Attacks on workers' rights
The foreign policy of the Swedish rulers is an extension of their politics at home. Immigrant workers in particular know the brutality of the police and security guards--for example the killing of Idris Demir in Jönköping in March and the assault on Adonis Hocheimy in Stockholm last year. Far more workers are injured and killed on the job each year than even those assaulted by police officers and security guards.

Using the "anti-terrorism" scare, the Swedish ruling class is seeking to strengthen its hand in preparation for the social battles which they know will grow as the crisis of capitalism deepens. They have backed assaults such as the antidemocratic laws within the Schengen Agreement that increase police cooperation and end protection against extradition within the European Union.

Recent struggles by working people in Sweden and Scandinavia give glimpses of the historic line of march of the working class and point the only way out of the dead end of capitalism. They help show the road forward for the exploited producers, the creators of all wealth, to take power out of the hands of the imperialist war makers and, like the workers and farmers in Cuba in 1959, install their own government.

A workers and farmers government will lead millions of working people in Sweden to abolish capitalism and join in the worldwide struggle for a socialist future, where science and the means of production will be used in the interest of humanity--and not to destroy all human culture in a Third World War.

End imperialism's war against Afghanistan! No to Swedish imperialism's complicity! No to the government's "anti-terrorism" laws: they are an excuse for attacks on workers' rights!
 
 
Related article:
'Becoming more deeply connected to resistance of working class' in Sweden  
 
 
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