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In the wake of World War One that gave rise to revolutions
in Russia, Germany and Hungary and major social upheavals in Finland, Ireland
and later in Spain, the society desperately needed an ideology of peaceful
coexistence of classes and of national unity. It was at this trying moment
in history that Benito Mussolini in Italy and Per Albin Hansson in Sweden
each presented his own vision of a new world order.
Mussolini offered a fascist state based on an economy where
capitalists and workers work hand in hand for the good of their country.
Channeled away from class struggle, the desperation of the poor often leads
to the annexation of neighboring territories. Mussolini broke up with the
socialists and, repudiating democracy, openly opted for authoritarian rule.
This made him famous the world over but less than a quarter century later,
the state he established fell miserably apart…
Per Albin Hansson came up with the idea of the so-called
People’s Home where capitalists and laborers were supposed to cooperate
just like they were in Mussolini’s model. However, the reforms put forward
by Hansson, a Social Democrat, hinged on democratic principles where equalization
of class distinctions at home generated no outside aggression. Unlike
Mussolini’s model, the Swedish system never played up the importance of
the national leader. Even though Per Albin Hansson was Prime Minister for
a whole 14 years until his death in 1946, his name is not widely known
outside his country. He is probably even less known than, say, Raoul
Wallenberg, Dag Hammarskjold or Ulof Palme. And still, the Swedish model
of capitalism he built was among the most solid political and economic
models of the past century. That’s why Per Albin remains in his native
Sweden the only person, besides members of the royal family, who is known
by his first name only. There are many Hanssons in Sweden but there was
only one Per Albin… Moreover, the Swedish model of social democracy
actually gave rise to what is now known as welfare state. Hansson’s good
friend Gustav Meller used this term back in 1928 long before it took root
elsewhere. As a result, the Swedish brand of socialism became a consistent
and successful implementation of the social model the entire civilized
world adopted in the wake of World War Two.
Per Albin Hansson rejected the “divide and rule” principle
ancient Romans used so well and the alliances he forged within his party
and on the national scale invariably bore fruit. Often criticized for spending
too much time with representatives of the country’s Big Business community,
this onetime errand boy set up in 1936 a coalition with the agrarians,
and by the start of World War Two, his four party coalition government
also included members of the country’s bourgeois parties. It was
a real coup de force by the ruling Social Democrats offering the nation
a graphic example of a concerted effort to build a People’s Home hinging
on a Swedish brand of social peace. Caught between the hammer and anvil
of big powers settling their scores on the battlefield, the little Sweden
showed a unique example of internal solidarity. In practice, the world
conflagration was actually playing into the hands of the Swedish Social
Democrats rather than threatening their rule. Per Albin Hansson actually
made good use of the ongoing war to preserve domestic stability maintaining
diplomatic relations with Hitler up until May 7, 1945, just two days before
the Nazi German surrender. When the unions pressed for an economic boycott
of the Nazis, the ruling Social Democrats rejected the idea as unwise and
endangering the hard-won and vital compromise with Berlin. And still, for
all his nation-saving considerations, Per Albin Hansson was seen by many
as the most pro-Nazi Social Democrat of his time, something that some of
his colleagues were pretty much unhappy about. In 1944 Trade Minister
Herman Ericsson wrote in his diary about how he wished the “dear Prime
Minister were less scared of the Germans…”
Sticking to its time-tested policy of neutrality that was
essentially a means of allying with the stronger side, Sweden emerged from
the war considerably less battered than any other European state. As for
Per Albin Hansson, by the year 1946 he had already acquired the status
of the Father of the Nation, much respected by everyone. Even when they
criticized the Social Democrats’ economic policy, the business community
never dared to badmouth the Prime Minister.
Per Albin Hansson didn’t live to fully enjoy the love and
respect of his nation though. On October 6, 1946, he died of a heart attack
right in the tram he usually took on his way home from the office.
Meanwhile, Sweden was already enjoying an era of prosperity
that was without a parallel in European history. The workers who Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels had said a century before, had nothing to lose but
their chains, were moving into comfortable municipal apartments enjoying
free health care and preparing to spend their retirement living off very
comfortable pensions their well paid colleagues could only dream about
when Per Albin Hansson formed his Cabinet...
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