It has been a few days after the 40th anniversary of Olof Palme's assassination, when he and his wife were coming back from watching a film in a Stockholm cinema, where he was rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, he eventually died from his wounds 6 minutes past midnight on the 1st of March 1986, per a Time Magazine article. Olof Palme was a champion of economic and social rights, who rapidly transformed the face of Sweden for decades to come, including the introduction of Swedish multicultural policy. On the international front, he meaningfully supported the anti-apartheid movement of the African National Congress (ANC) and the extradition of Chilean Socialists who found themselves at political persecution after the overthrow of Allende's Government in 1973 - truly an anti-fascist and anti-imperialist stalwart.
A Fierce Defender of Democratic Socialism
In the 1982 debate, between then-Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin of the agrarian Centre Party and Ola Ullsten of the People's Party [later known as the Liberals], Olof Palme doubled down on the claim that he was a socialist after Fälldin accused him of being one - and he was quoted to have said the following in a widely circulated YouTube video, amongst people on the left:
"I am reinforced in my conviction when I see injustices increasing in our own country - unemployment rising and speculation and fraud taking hold. When I see how right-wing politics in country after country drives people into unemployment [which] shatters security, yet they still fail to resolve the financial challenges - and as I see into the future that the bourgeois seem to offer: a future: where workers grow poorer while the wealthy grow even richer, where the social safety net is becoming weaker and the number of luxury boats is growing in places where solidarity diminishes and egoism becomes more pronounced…"
In that same video, he was quoted as paying tribute to those who came before him:
"I am a Democratic Socialist: as [Hjalmar] Branting when he introduced suffrage; as Per-Albin [Hansson] in the 1930s when he tackled unemployment and talked about our Nordic model; as [Tage] Erlander when he expanded the Social Security System, building up the pension system. This is fundamentally about solidarity and compassion among individuals…"
Amongst all these values, the one he emphasised the most was solidarity. Not just solidarity with the working class of Sweden, but also with the working class internationally, to the point where he was nicknamed "the honorary African" by a Swedish newspaper, which he took as a compliment.
Domestic Policy under Palme - the Swedish Way
Palme's political significance cannot be understood via his obvious strong rhetoric alone, but it must be founded in how Sweden transformed post-1945. Building upon foundations laid out by Hjalmar Branting, Per-Albin Hansson, and his immediate predecessor - Tage Erlander, Palme oversaw the maturation of what we, in the modern day, would identify as a social democratic regime which was and still is characterised by "universalism, decommodification and the promotion of equality of the highest standards," as espoused in "The Three Worlds Of Welfare Capitalism"
Under Palme's leadership, the welfare state expanded further into childcare and gender equality. He was part of a housing initiative launched in 1964 known as the Million Programme [Swedish: Miljonprogrammet], which aimed to build one million homes in ten years. Although Palme wasn't the Prime Minister at the start of it, as he was a minister without portfolio in 1964, he oversaw the completion of it. Furthermore, he ensured that education became more egalitarian in nature, even as an Education Minister for Erlander, further entrenched the labour unions in the political economy conversation and pushed marginal tax rates upwards in pursuit of redistributive justice.
Foreign Policy - Swedish Solidarity in Neutrality
However, as it turns out, his solidarity did not stop at Swedish borders - it expanded across the world. Sweden had a long-standing neutrality policy, where it would not ally themselves to the American eagle nor the Soviet bear [in the case of Palme's time]. However, that did not stop him from expanding his Democratic Socialist ideals to the rest of the world.
At a time when so many "liberal democratic" Western Governments hesitated, Sweden under Olof Palme openly, not just with rhetoric, but materially as well, helped the African National Congress (ANC), the main opponents against apartheid in South Africa. Nelson Mandela, in a speech to the Riksdag (the Swedish Parliament) shortly after his release from imprisonment, was quoted as saying that Sweden was a "true friend". Palme was also vehemently against the war in Vietnam - comparing the Christmas bombings to the bombings of "Guernica, Oradour, Babi Yar, Katyn, Lidice, Sharpeville, Treblinka" - as reported by the New York Times, with an oral protest given to the Swedish Ambassador. After the coup d'état in Chile, which ousted socialist President Salvador Allende, Palme welcomed Chilean refugees fleeing Augusto Pinochet's impending dictatorship.
Forty Years On - What Remains?
The Sweden of today is not the Sweden where Olof Palme became Prime Minister. The Sweden of today is facing an election this year where the far-right Sweden Democrats could have greater leverage in Government negotiations should the right bloc [the conservative bloc] win vis-à-vis the government right now, following the 2022 election. The Sweden of today faces issues like rising income inequality, rising privatisation and increasingly hardline immigration debate. Yet, the fingerprints of Olof Palme still remain as Universal Healthcare, Parental Leave and Public Pensions are still very much alive in Swedish society.
Maybe that's why his words from 1982 still hit hard - not because they are nostalgia-filled, but because they give us a reason why we are democratic socialists: An unapologetic, fervent defence of solidarity across arbitrary lines. Rest in power, Olof Palme.
Timothy (timothytanyeantim@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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