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SAC Syndikalisterna

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SAC Syndikalisterna
Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden
Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation
Founded1910
HeadquartersStockholm, Sweden
Location
Members
3,055 in Sept 2018
Key people
Gabriel Kuhn, secretary-general (current) Elise Ottesen-Jensen
Britta Gröndahl
Jan Fridegård
Stig Dagerman
Folke Fridell
AffiliationsRed and Black Coordination
Websitewww.sac.se/en

SAC Syndikalisterna (Swedish: Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation) is a syndicalist trade union federation in Sweden. Unlike other Swedish unions, SAC organises people from all occupations and industries in one single federation, including the unemployed, students, and the retired.[1] SAC also publishes the weekly newspaper Arbetaren ("the Worker"), owns the publishing house Federativs and runs the unemployment fund Sveriges Arbetares Arbetslöshetskassa (SAAK).

History[edit]

Establishment[edit]

Insignia of SAC
SAC workers conference, held in Örebro November 25-November 26, 1917. The conference decided to plan mass action for 8-hour working day in the spring of 1918.

Anarcho-syndicalism first began to emerge in Sweden out of the far-left opposition to social democracy within the trade union movement.[2] In 1908, members of the Young Socialists began to advocate for the adoption of the syndicalist methods of the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT).[3] In the wake of the defeat of the 1909 Swedish general strike, rank-and-file trade union members became more disillusioned with their social-democratic union leaders.[4] This culminated in 1910, with the establishment of the Central Organization of Swedish Workers (SAC).[5]

In September 1913, delegates from the SAC attended the First International Syndicalist Congress in London, where they and other revolutionary syndicalist unions attempted to establish a Syndicalist International.[6] However, this process was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.[7] After the war, the SAC participated in a series of strike actions.[8] By 1920, the SAC had grown to count 32,000 members, largely from the construction, timber and metalworking industries.[9] It also maintained close relations with the syndicalist federations in Norway and Denmark.[10]

Opposition to Bolshevism and international syndicalism[edit]

The SAC was sceptical of the rise of Bolshevism that occurred in the wake of the Russian Revolution, considering it to be a centralist and authoritarian ideology.[11] It refused to affiliate to the Red International of Labor Unions (RILU), as the SAC considered it to be an organ of party politics and thus incompatible with the anti-political stance of syndicalism.[12] In December 1920, the SAC participated in an international syndicalist conference in Berlin.[13] When a Russian delegate encouraged the syndicalist delegates to affiliate themselves with the RILU, the SAC delegation responded by criticising the government of Vladimir Lenin and its political repression of the Russian anarchist movement.[14]

The SAC attended the RILU's July 1921 congress in Moscow, where it supported a motion to keep the RILU independent from the Communist International, but the motion was defeated.[15] Syndicalist unions that were in the opposition at this congress decided to establish their own international association.[16] At a subsequent syndicalist conference, held in Dusseldorf in October 1921, delegates from the SAC supported the establishment of a syndicalist international.[17] Back in Sweden, the SAC formally voted against affiliating with the Communist International in an internal referendum.[18] In December 1922, the SAC, along with syndicalist unions from Argentina, Chile, Germany, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Spain, established the International Workers' Association (IWA).[19]

In the wake of the Spanish Revolution of 1936, the SAC criticised the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) for joining the government of Spain, although it also accepted the CNT's tactical autonomy on the matter and defended the policy of anti-fascist unity.[20]

Post-war revisions[edit]

The SAC building in central Stockholm, housing the Stockholm Local Federation of the SAC, the SAC secretariat, and the Arbetaren office

Following the conclusion of World War II, anarcho-syndicalist unions throughout Europe experienced a decline, while reformist trade unionism began to see a resurgence. Although the SAC remained relatively strong after the war, from 1945 to 1957, its membership numbers declined from 22,000 to 16,000.[21] In Sweden, where the anarcho-syndicalist movement hadn't been suppressed by dictatorship or wartime repression, the SAC remained active, making it one of the few IWA affiliates that continued to function. The Swedish state was also developing into a social democracy, with a comprehensive system of welfare and collective bargaining, in which trade unions themselves were tasked with administering social benefits.[22]

Within the SAC, the German emigrant Helmut Rüdiger challenged the anarchist "orthodoxy" of anti-statism. Rüdiger thought that, as the states which anarcho-syndicalists had previous opposed had since been transformed into welfare states, overthrowing the state would also mean abolishing its social programmes. He thus proposed that anarcho-syndicalists should act within existing state systems in order to democratise the economy, rather than waiting around for a social revolution,[23] and even began to support participation in local government.[24]

In order to pursue such reforms to the state structure and bolster its own popularity, the SAC elected to participate in the administration of unemployment benefits in Sweden.[25] In 1952, the SAC membership voted to approve the creation of a syndicalist-administered unemployment insurance fund. Rejecting direct action, they declared their goal to be the establishment of industrial democracy by bringing state and private companies under workers' control. Evert Arvidsson [sv], the editor of Arbetaren, declared the SAC's renunciation of the "magic wand of revolution".[26] Instead he announced that the SAC "regards the progressive democratization of the economy as its primary task... The basic idea consists in gradually transferring economic power from the shareholders to the producers."[27]

During this period, while it grew increasingly moderate, the SAC also saw a marked growth in its membership.[28] The SAC's establishment of unemployment insurance funds resulted in the further deterioration of relations between it and the IWA, which increasingly criticised the SAC as "reformist" and "collaborationist".[29] In 1958, as the CNT called for a "return to anarchist principles" in the international anarcho-syndicalist movement, the SAC left the IWA.[30] For its part, the SAC called for the "modernisation" of anarcho-syndicalism by revising its principles to fit post-war conditions.[31]

Contemporary era[edit]

Malmö LS 1 May 1991.

Throughout the late 20th century, the SAC experienced a decline, as the SAC failed to respond to the counterculture of the 1960s and the institution of neoliberalism in Sweden damaged their position within the welfare state. By the turn of the 21st century, the SAC's membership had declined to 7,000 members.[32]

In the 1970s, the SAC began to swing back towards far-left politics and reaffirmed some syndicalist principles, although it continued to administer state unemployment benefits well into the 21st century.[33] In 1993, the SAC established a youth section, the Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation (SUF). As of 2009, it allowed the unemployed, students and pensioners to join the ranks of the SAC.[34] In 2001, the SAC co-founded the International Libertarian Solidarity network, together with other anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist organisations throughout Europe.[35]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ The Principles and Aims of SAC Archived 11 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine, point 10
  2. ^ Damier 2009, p. 19.
  3. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 19–20.
  4. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 20–21.
  5. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 20–21; van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 190.
  6. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 39–40.
  7. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 40–41.
  8. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 56–57.
  9. ^ Damier 2009, p. 56.
  10. ^ Damier 2009, p. 57.
  11. ^ Damier 2009, p. 66.
  12. ^ Damier 2009, p. 66n99.
  13. ^ Damier 2009, p. 71.
  14. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 71–72.
  15. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 73–74.
  16. ^ Damier 2009, p. 74.
  17. ^ Damier 2009, p. 75.
  18. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 75–76.
  19. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 82–85.
  20. ^ Damier 2009, p. 182.
  21. ^ Damier 2009, p. 193.
  22. ^ van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 222.
  23. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 196–197.
  24. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 196–197; van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 223.
  25. ^ Damier 2009, p. 197; van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 223.
  26. ^ Damier 2009, p. 197.
  27. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 197–198.
  28. ^ Damier 2009, p. 198; van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 223.
  29. ^ Damier 2009, p. 198.
  30. ^ Damier 2009, pp. 195–196.
  31. ^ Damier 2009, p. 196.
  32. ^ Damier 2009, p. 198n334.
  33. ^ van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 223.
  34. ^ van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 190.
  35. ^ van der Walt & Schmidt 2009, p. 224.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Damier, Vadim (2009) [2000]. Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century. Translated by Archibald, Malcolm. Edmonton: Black Cat Press. ISBN 978-0-9737827-6-9.
  • van der Walt, Lucien; Schmidt, Michael (2009). Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism. Edinburgh: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-904859-16-1. LCCN 2006933558. OCLC 1100238201.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]


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