BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN
STOCKHOLM - "When Fidel Castro spoke in Copenhagen March 11, he addressed the 4,500 people at the public meeting as co- fighters in the struggle for a better world," said a delegate to the third congress of the Communist League in Sweden. During his visit for the United Nations World Summit for Social Development, youth and workers gave the Cuban president confirmation of the opportunities for revolutionary socialists to meet and work with young people who want to struggle and build the communist movement in Sweden and around the world today. The resolve to make use of these openings was the focus of the Communist League congress held here April 1-2.

The night before the congress opened, delegates and guests attended a public forum on "Defending Cuba, Defending Cuba's Socialist Revolution" by Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party in the United States and author of an article by the same title in New International.

"When you look at what's happening in Cuba, you have to start with the world. You have to start with the world economic crisis of capitalism, with the depression conditions and deflationary pressures that force the bosses to intensify their attacks on wages and working conditions, and with the resistance to these attacks, whether it is in Canada, Mexico, Germany, or Cuba," Waters said.

The acute crisis in Cuba - what' s become known as the "special period" - was precipitated when aid and trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed, something Cuba was unprepared for. But even without that, Cuba would still be facing today the kind of economic crisis that confronts other Third World countries, Waters went on to explain.

What makes Cuba different from Mexico is the fact that workers and farmers made a socialist revolution 35 years ago. The government defends their interests not those of a bourgoisie. Working people bring their weight to bear in dealing with the economic situation and finding a way forward.

"How can we defend the Cuban revolution here today?" asked one of the more than 30 participants at the forum.

"We have to get into the concrete activities going on, like building the August 1-7 `Cuba Lives' international youth festival in Cuba. We have to discuss and write about what is happening in Cuba," said Waters, in order to understand it and use Cuba's example. "But is that all? The Cuban revolution rises or falls with the class struggle in the rest of the world. It depends on forging communist leaderships in other parts of the world, capable of leading working-class movements to power." The Cuban revolution is a living example that this is possible, Waters said.

The discussion on the forum and the article by Waters, just published in Swedish in Ny International no. 2, continued at the congress the next day. Attending the meeting were delegates from the Communist League in Sweden, fraternal delegations from the Young Socialists in Sweden and communist leagues in several countries, and other guests.

"I have three co-workers who have read the article in Ny International," reported Anita Ostling, a member of the Transport Workers Union. "They appreciated how the article looks at Cuba through the working class and takes workers seriously. Some workers also read Fidel's speech at the UN summit and remarked on how he talks about the unemployment even in the imperialist countries and says that something must be wrong in the entire system."

Sassa Norman, from the Young Socialists in Sweden, said, "I was as surprised as Fidel to see all the people at the public meeting in Copenhagen. I talked to many youth afterward and they had really been inspired by his speech. Not many young people in Scandinavia know what kind of a leader Fidel Castro is. But a lot of young people have opinions about Cuba and want to discuss Cuba."

Instability of capitalism
"The last months, weeks, and days illustrate the financial instability of a capitalism in deep crisis," said Communist League leader Carl-Erik Isacsson, reporting on the article "Imperialism's march toward fascism and war," also published in Ny International no. 2. "As the crisis in Mexico has pulled down the dollar and driven up the Deutsch-mark and the yen, the Swedish krona has also fallen, further than any other currency in western Europe except the Italian lira. The losses that caused the failure of Baring's bank in London and the even bigger losses that dragged down Credit Lyonais in France are small compared to what the Swedish banks lost in 1990-91, when the Swedish government had to pour $10 billion into the banking system to prevent a total collapse. And in 1992 an interest rate of 500 percent could not stop a free fall for the krona, which in a couple of days lost 25 percent of its value."

"The cherished `Swedish model' is now the root of all evil for the rulers, a symbol of all the problems they must deal with to regain some strength," Isacsson said. "Economics professors from Harvard and the University of Chicago who recently published a book on the Swedish model advised the rulers here to get rid of the high social wage and push for greater wage disparities."

The changes for working people in Sweden over the last few years have been dramatic. Total unemployment has gone from 3 percent to 14 percent, going down only slightly with the recent hiring. Hourly wages are low, comparable to those in Portugal. Anti-immigrant attacks by the government have fueled right-wing racist violence.

But the rulers in Sweden have achieved only a little of what they need to do in driving down workers' standard of living and expectations.

"The hourly wages are low, but the social wage is still high," Isacsson explained. "You can still live on your pension in Sweden. A few years ago unemployment benefits and sick-leave pay were still 100 percent. Now it's down to 80 percent, and the government is campaigning to bring it down to 75 percent. Wage differences are still small.

"All this reflects the gains won by the working class in years of struggle," Isacsson said. "The extent to which working people look upon sick pay, pensions, leaves, and unemployment benefits as rights and entitlements is a real problem for the rulers. These conquests strengthen the solidarity of the class at a time when the rulers are under enormous pressures to deal real blows to the social wage."

Because of the sentiment in the working class, the rulers cannot push through a frontal assault on the social wage as they would like. Instead, Isacsson explained, they wage political campaigns to undermine the solidarity that exists among working people who consider it their right, and the right of everyone in the country, to have the security to raise children, even as a single mother; to live on your pension; to have full compensation when you are sick or unemployed; or to live through any hardship anybody may enter into as a result of the deepening crises.

Pointing to the attacks that have been carried out, Birgitta Isacsson, a metal worker in Sodertalje, said, "Now you have to think twice before going to the doctor or to the dentist. But it is important to remember how few of the government's schemes have actually been pushed through. Remember the campaign against welfare recipients who supposedly spent their time on the beaches of Spain, Thailand, or the Canary Islands? All they could produce, with all their new authorities to check on people, was one example!"

The bosses in Sweden have been able to speed up work at the factories to some extent. One example is that the average time to build a Saab car went down from 70 hours in 1988 to 30 hours now. The team-work concept, which began in Sweden, has been one instrument used by the capitalists to achieve that.

Isaccson pointed out that although the number of strikes is still low, resistance is beginning. Miners in the north, for instance, recently held a sit-down strike against scheduled weekend work. The same issue sparked resistance at the Scania truck-building plant in Sodertalje. And in breweries and meatpacking plants in Stockholm workers have resisted attempts to take away breaks.

"At the meatpacking plant where I work, it was impossible to organize a protest against the layoffs that are taking place now," reported Maria Hamberg, a member of the Food Workers Union. "But when the company tried to force all workers with `foreign' family names to present their passports to the company, many refused and were actively supported by all other workers. The company had to back down after the union reported it to the state-appointed Discrimination Ombudsman, and even had to offer a public apology. Workers considered this a victory."

Fraternal delegates from the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Iceland, and Canada compared what the capitalist rulers in Sweden have and have not yet achieved with the employers' offensive against the working class in the countries where they live.

A living, fighting revolution
"A central task for the Communist League is to organize a political campaign in defense of the Cuban revolution - a socialist revolution, not a schema, not a utopia, but a living, fighting revolution that is attractive to workers and youth looking for answers in today's world," said Tirsén. Her report projected members of the Communist League working with other Cuba activists, co-workers, and young people to build a large delegation to the August international youth festival in Cuba and carry out other activities in defense of the revolution.

The socialist workers also projected participating in other struggles, from strikes and other labor resistance to protests against proposed cuts in social benefits.

"Together with the Young Socialists we want to build and strengthen a revolutionary youth organization," said Tirsén.

The Young Socialists in Sweden held a meeting in connection to the congress, where Young Socialists from United States, the United Kingdom, and Iceland also participated. The Young Socialists in Sweden decided to start a class series; to join with the Communist League in the international campaign to sell the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and New International; and to help build the youth festival in Havana. "We want to work together with the Communist League. We think your experience and ours together will be a really powerful thing," Sassa Norman reported back to the congress.

Two days after the Communist League congress, the social democratic government in Sweden, together with one of the opposition parties, presented a new set of measures that proposed lowering unemployment and sick leave pay to 75 percent and imposing a ceiling on spending by local governments for hospitals, day-care centers, and other social services.

Congress delegates returned to work better prepared for the discussions among co-workers on how to cope with increasing demands of overtime, speedup, and the new trial balloons from the government as well as world politics and the importance of the example of the revolution in Cuba.  
 
 
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