BY INGE HINNEMO

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - "There is a difference between swimming in water and trying to learn how to swim on dry land." This is how Swedish foreign minister Lena Hjelm-Wallén described the fact that Swedish troops for the first time had been put under NATO command in Yugoslavia.

In an interview with the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet in February, Hjelm-Wallén said, "I am proud for the sake of Sweden that we could do it, because it is still a big change from what we could imagine doing earlier."

This development marks a turning point, as the Swedish capitalists acknowledge that their government and military forces have to get more involved in big world conflicts and imperialist alliances than ever before in this century.

This change can be clearly seen in the Baltic region - one of the dividing lines between imperialist states and workers states.

The conservative Moderate Party in Sweden has always touted its support for governments of the Baltic countries against Moscow as a weapon in domestic politics against the Social Democrats, who have seemed to adopt a more cautious policy. But in its declaration of foreign policy last February the Social Democratic government said the Baltic countries have "a central place in our security policy."

When Goran Persson took over as the new Social Democratic prime minister in April, his first international stop was Estonia. In June he visited Latvia, and the whole period has been filled by intense diplomatic activity by representatives of the Swedish government. The biggest event was the summit of all the governments around the Baltic sea in Visby, Sweden, at beginning of May. Among the participants were Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin and German chancellor Helmut Kohl.

`Law and order' in Baltics
The only lobbying group allowed to address the summit was a delegation of business representatives from the countries in the region. It was led by Peter Wallenberg, head of the most powerful ruling family in Sweden. The first point on their list of demands was "law and order" in the Baltic workers states. "We stress the importance of protection of private property and clear rules on bankruptcies, debt redemption, and so on; and pursuing all laws that strengthen the police, the courts, and other aspects of the judicial system."

As unstable depression conditions force other imperialist powers in Europe to guard their backyards in the workers states, crisis-ridden Swedish capitalism looks to the Baltic countries as a natural outlet for its surplus capital.

Compared to its population, Estonia has received the largest foreign direct investment of all the workers states in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. Some 31 percent of the investments are by Swedish capitalists, another 31 percent from Germany, and 25 percent from Finland. U.S. investment in Estonia makes up just 5 percent of the total.

"The way the privatization was done has been decisive for the rapid reforms in Estonia," says Basil Zavoico, representative of the International Monetary Fund in Estonia. "The state companies have been sold to foreigners rather than to `insiders,' that is, employees or former managers."

The Kreenholm textile mill in Narva is the biggest industry in Estonia and is majority-owned by the Swedish textile company Boras Wafveri. Workers' wages are less than 10 percent of wage levels in Sweden.

"Workers can no longer afford to eat at the canteen," trade union president Yulia Dmitrijeva told Svenska Dagbladet. She described how a worker's family has lost rights to health care and possibilities to go on vacation.

The new owners have cut the workforce from 5,600 to 5,000 with plans to lay off another 1,000 workers over the next year. About one quarter of the city's population rely on Kreenholm for a living. Unemployment benefits are available for a maximum six months for Estonian citizens. But only 12,000 out of Narva's population of 77,000 have citizenship. Some 96 percent of the population are Russians.

"As I see it the layoffs could create tensions and difficulties, although it has been rather quiet the last two years," said the mayor of Narva, Raivo Murd.

Swedish investors in the Baltic countries are confronting the same obstacle as all foreign capitalists in Eastern Europe and Soviet Union: the resistance of the workers defending the basic conquests of the proletarian dictatorship. They also realize that they are operating in a likely arena of future conflict between imperialist forces, which are trying to open up the workers states to capitalism and a bureaucratic regime in Russia, that is weakened but still represents a big nuclear power.

Military tensions in region
This conflict is foreshadowed both by the imperialist intervention in Yugoslavia and by Russian opposition to the enlargement of NATO, as well as the permanent tension in the relations between Moscow and the regimes in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

The denial of citizenship rights for the large Russian populations by the nationalist bureaucratic regimes in the Baltic countries is used by Moscow to motivate its continued political and military pressure against these countries.

During this century the ruling class in Sweden has always looked with sympathy to all counterrevolutionary attempts against the revolutionary conquests by working people on the eastern shore of the Baltic sea. But they have always refrained from any official military intervention, realizing it would have forced them be part of one of the big conflicting power blocs.

If the Swedish rulers had intervened on the white side in the revolution in Finland in 1918, it would have made them an ally of German imperialism on its way to lose the first world war. If they had supported the capitalists in Finland in the war against Soviet Union in the winter of 1939-40 at the time of the Stalin- Hitler pact, it would have put them in conflict with German imperialism. And after the Finnish government's defeats in its wars against the Soviet Union in the second world war, the Swedish ruling class had to proclaim its "neutrality" during the cold war to have Moscow to accept Finland as a buffer state - still capitalist but accepting Moscow having veto powers on its foreign policy.

Participation in NATO-led operations is now official Swedish policy. And the Swedish government is actively involved in building up the military forces of the Baltic regimes. Together with Washington, Sweden is the biggest contributor to the Baltic Battalion, trained by Nordic and British officers. This project is part of NATO's "Partnership for Peace" and the common language of command is English. The battalion consists of one company from each of the Baltic countries. It is said to be trained for peace-keeping operations under United Nations command, but also to teach Western military strategy.

Swedish forces are training 138 Latvian soldiers, some of whom are going to be part of the Swedish government's replacement troops for Bosnia. Officers from all three Baltic countries are going through military education in Sweden.

By strengthening its military influence in the region and through its intensive diplomatic activity, the Swedish government hopes to have a bigger say in regional political developments and enhance its prospects for profits from the hoped-for reintroduction of capitalism in the area.

Debates over NATO, EU membership
The government realizes it has to maneuver inside the framework of the alliances dominated by the big powers, above all Washington. Stockholm's objective is to get as many guarantees for the security of the Baltic states as possible, in hopes of deterring Moscow from any defensive moves and - if a conflict breaks out - not bear the brunt of it. That's why the rulers of Sweden are pushing for the rapid inclusion of the Baltic governments into both the European Union (EU) and NATO.

This position comes into conflict with the interests of the rulers of other imperialist countries. Washington favors the inclusion of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO - a development that will lead to sharpening conflicts with Moscow and that is opposed by Bonn.

On the other hand, Washington has recently renegotiated its 1990 agreement with Moscow on disarmament of conventional weapons. The new agreement allows the Russian army to increase the number of armored vehicles in the region of Pskov, bordering Estonia and Latvia, from 171 today to 600.

Contrary to the wishes of the Swedish rulers, Washington is pressuring the governments of Finland and Sweden to give the security guarantees and conclude a defensive pact with the Baltic governments. A report from the California-based Rand Institute argues that Poland be integrated into NATO but the Baltic countries be left outside. It proposes that the governments of Sweden and Finland expand their military support to the Baltic regimes. The governments of both Finland and Sweden have opposed this proposal.

The Swedish government also finds itself in disagreement with the dominant powers inside the European Union. While Bonn opposes the expansion of NATO to Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, it favors the inclusion of these governments into the EU. But Bonn is blocking the Swedish demand for a rapid inclusion of the Baltic countries.

These strains on both NATO and the EU will only increase in the coming months.

Inge Hinnemo is a member of the Metalworkers union in Stockholm.  
 
 
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