Karl Kilbom
Karl Kilbom (1885 – 1961) was a Swedish Socialist politician.
Youth
As the son of a blacksmith, Karl Kilbom grew up in a working-class family of Walloon origin in the small town of Österby outside Uppsala, where he started working in the steel mills at an early age.
In the year 1900, a socialist agitator visited Österby to talk to the workers of the mills. Karl Kilbom, only 15 years old, was one of the 7 people who stayed after the meeting to participate in the formation of a socialist club in Österby with the goal to establish a union. However, company spies had been present at the meeting and soon Kilbom was told he would not only lose his job, but also his family, who lived in a house owned by the company, would be evicted, if he didn’t quit with the political activities. This time, Kilbom gave in to the threats.
Becoming a Socialist
In 1903, Kilbom moved to Sandviken where he joined a socialist club. However, he didn’t remain active there for long when he soon found job on a ship named Thetis, embarking from Gävle shipping lumber from Sweden to England and other places. The conditions for the workers on the boat were wretched and the pay was low, but Kilbom saw this as a great opportunity to explore the world, although, according to his autobiography, he had severe problems with seasickness.
In 1905 Kilbom disembarked the Thetis in Gävle. Unemployed, he joined the Social Democratic youth organization in the city, and he was schooled by the prominent socialist Fabian Månsson to be an agitator. Kilbom soon moved to Krylbo and Avesta to work for the party there.
In 1907, Kilbom was conscripted to do military service in the Swedish Navy and he soon found himself on the navy base of Skeppsholmen in Stockholm, and stationed on the battleship Svea. While in the navy, Kilbom got in trouble with the officers for spreading, what they called, "illegal" Social Democratic papers with anti-militarist messages.
After military service, Kilbom moved to Gothenburg and started working at a plant manufacturing safes, and became a leader of the union there. He also became more and more active in the Swedish Social Democratic Party and started to study Marxism. He was asked by the party to go on national speaking tours to spread the word of socialism to the workers in every corner of Sweden, and for many years Kilbom was without a home, always on the road.
Becoming a Communist
In 1910, Karl Kilbom moved to Halmstad to do work for the Social Democratic party there. Within the party, Kilbom sided with the Left Opposition led by Zeth Höglund. In 1917 the party split in two and Kilbom joined its Left-leaning faction, which supported the Bolsheviks in Russia and was called the Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden. It later evolved into the (original) Communist Party of Sweden. Already in 1915, Karl Kilbom had been made one of the main Swedish contacts with the Russian Bolsheviks and worked closely with Bukharin who lived in Sweden during the war.
In the spring of 1917, Kilbom was sent to Finland on behalf of the Swedish Left-Socialist to persuade the Finish Social Democrats to turn left too, but he soon realized that the Finnish socialists were already further to the left than himself, and in less than a year Finland would experience its own workers revolution.
From Finland, Kilbom traveled to Russia together with his Finland-Swedish comrade Karl Henrik Wiik, and after some difficulties at the border, they arrived in Petrograd and were greeted by Alexandra Kollontay. In Petrograd Karl Kilbom was taken to see a debate between Kerensky and Lenin in front of a huge crowd of workers and soldiers. Kilbom did not understand what the speakers said, but afterwards Kollontay told him Lenin had spoken about the importance of making peace with Germany, while Kerensky had been speaking of continuing the war. The same evening, Kilbom had a chance to talk to Lenin briefly. They had met once before in Stockholm, and the Bolshevik leader now told him that a new revolution, in which the communists would take power, was imminent, and that he hoped the Swedish comrades would be prepared for the same.
Back in Sweden, Kilbom started working for the newly launched Left Party paper Politiken.
In December 1917, a month after the October Revolution, Kilbom, together with Höglund, went to Soviet Russia to spend the New Years and show their support for the Bolsheviks. At the Smolny the Swedes met with their Finnish Comrades, who were very happy after Finland having been given independence by the Bolshevik Government.
In 1919, Kilbom was approached in Stockholm by the American diplomats William C. Bullitt and Lincoln Steffens, who asked him if he could help them get to Russia and into contact the Bolshevik government. Kilbom took the Americans to met Lenin in Moscow and he greeted them as they said they wanted establish diplomatic relations between the USA and Soviet Russia. However, soon, President Wilson repudiated the project and Bullitt resign from Wilson’s staff.
In 1921, Sweden held it’s first democratic election where workers and women could vote, and Karl Kilbom was elected to the Lower House of the Riksdag.
Soviet Wedding
In 1921, Karl Kilbom was the head of the Swedish delegation at the Profintern congress (Red International of Labor Unions) held in Moscow. Their interpreter was a 17-year old girl named Zoia and they soon became good friends. One morning, Zoia didn’t show up, and Kilbom later found out that she had been arrested by the Soviet Secret Police as one of many suspects in a counterrevolutionary conspiracy. Kilbom refused to believe these allegations were true and spoke to high ranked Soviet officials like Karl Radek and Alexandra Kollontay to have the young girl released. Zoia was freed, and when she said she didn't want to stay in the Soviet Union, Karl Kilbom decided to marry the young girl so she could come with him to Sweden.
Expelled from the Communist Party
During the 1920's, SKP was in a state of flux and many of its leaders and cadres either left or were expelled. Zeth Höglund and Fredrik Ström left the party in 1924 after arguments with Zinoviev. Karl Kilbom took over the lead and remained within the Communist Party until 1929, when he was eventually expelled on orders from the Soviet-dominated Comintern.
That same year, Kilbom launched a new Communist Party of Sweden, one that would be independent from Moscow, and gradually became more critical of Stalin and the Soviet Union. In 1934 his party took the name Socialist Party (Socialistiska partiet). The party’s supporters were generally called Kilbommare after Kilbom while the Comintern affiliated Communist Party members were called Sillénare after their party leader Hugo Sillén.
In 1937 Karl Kilbom resigned from the Socialist Party, whose leadership was taken over by Nils Flyg, and in 1938 he rejoined the Swedish Social Democratic Party. During World War II, Kilbom fully supported the Swedish coalition government under the leadership of Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson.
Works
- Karl Kilbom wrote many political pamphlets and a huge amount of articles in different papers.
- Kilbom’s three volume autobiography, published 1953 – 1955, is called:
- Ur mitt livs äventyr (My Life’s Adventure)
- I hemligt uppdrag (On Secrete Mission)
- Cirkeln slutes (The Circle is Completed)
- Kilbom has also written many books on the history of the Walloon People, their immigration to Sweden and their typical trades.
References
- Kan, Aleksander. Hemmabolsjevikerna. Falun: Carlssons bokförlag, 2005. (ISBN 91-7203-673-7)
- Kilbom, Karl. My Life’s Adventure. (autobiography vol. 1.) Stockholm: Tidens förlag, 1953.
- Kilbom, Karl. On Secrete Mission. (autobiography vol. 2.) Stockholm: Tidens förlag, 1954.
- Kilbom, Karl. The Circle is Completed. (autobiography vol. 3.) Stockholm: Tidens förlag, 1955.