Set Persson facts for kids
Set Persson (born March 5, 1897 – died July 15, 1960) was an important Swedish political leader. He was known for being a communist and working to improve life for workers in Sweden.
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Early Life and Joining the Movement
Set Persson was born in Stockholm in 1897. Sadly, he became an orphan and was raised by his relatives in Hälsingland. He was a bright student in school. However, he left his studies at age 14 to start working on the railroads.
Soon after, he joined the Social Democratic Youth League. This group was for young people interested in social change. Later, he joined the Communist Party of Sweden. This party was actually started by members of the youth league in 1917.
Standing Up for Workers
In 1931, there was a sad event called the Ådalen massacre. After this, Set Persson led a 10-day general strike in Söderhamn. During this time, there were some disagreements with the police.
The next year, in 1932, he was a main speaker at a workers' gathering in Sandarne. This event was against people who crossed picket lines during strikes. After the speeches, the workers marched towards the dock area. Police then used force, and some people were hurt. Set Persson was arrested for helping organize the gathering. He was given a sentence that involved forced work for four months. He also lost his job with the railroads and his pension rights. The government offered to pardon him twice, but he said no.
A Full-Time Political Leader
After his release, Set Persson became a full-time worker for the Communist Party. In 1934, he moved to Stockholm. He joined the party's main leadership team. He worked closely with the party chairman, Sven Linderot. He also helped edit Ny Dag, a party newspaper, focusing on local and union issues.
In 1940, he was elected to the Riksdag, which is the Swedish parliament. During World War II, he spoke out against the government's policy. This policy involved sending communists to special work camps. These were officially military units, but they acted like prison camps.
Helping with Housing in Stockholm
In the 1946 local elections, his party did very well. Set Persson was elected to the Stockholm city council. He left his role in parliament to become the first communist borgarråd. A borgarråd is like a city commissioner. His job was to manage housing in the city.
In 1947, he created a system to help distribute housing in the city. He strongly supported building more city-owned homes. This was to solve the problem of not enough apartments in Stockholm. In many ways, he was a pioneer in how Sweden managed housing.
For a short time, he also led the city's police committee. In 1948, he publicly stated that the Stockholm police would not follow central rules against hiring communists as police officers. He lost his position as borgarråd after the 1950 elections.
Debates Within the Party
Set Persson became known as a leader of a group within the party that held more traditional views. There were several important debates inside the party. One main topic was how the party should work with the ruling Social Democrats.
After World War II, many communists around the world started to believe that socialism could be achieved peacefully. In Sweden, this idea began around 1944. The Communist Party of Sweden began to think about forming alliances with the Social Democrats. They also wanted to focus more on working within the parliament.
The party chairman, Sven Linderot, suggested a "united front" with the Social Democrats. He said it was wrong to think of the Social Democrats as being the same as the government. The party also changed its trade union policy to be less confrontational. Set Persson and Nils Holmberg were among the main critics of these new ideas.
In 1952, there were special parliamentary elections in Jämtland and Kristianstad. The party decided not to put forward their own candidates. This was to help the Social Democrats win. The party leaders said this was to "ensure a labor majority in the Riksdag." Also, these areas were not likely to elect a communist member of parliament anyway. However, Set Persson and his supporters saw this as giving in to the Social Democrats.
Another issue was about the youth movement. The party wanted to create a broader youth organization. In 1952, Democratic Youth (Demokratisk Ungdom) was founded. This was a wider youth group that existed alongside the Young Communist League of Sweden. Set Persson and his friends felt this made the youth movement less focused on its political goals.
Other important issues included the party's decision to hold joint May Day rallies with the Social Democrats. Also, the party decided to give money to the "labor press," which was mostly controlled by the Social Democrats.
Leaving the Party
The disagreements reached their peak at the party meeting in 1953. Set Persson strongly criticized the new party chairman, Hilding Hagberg. He called him an opportunist. In return, Persson was accused of being selfish and trying to harm the party. Even his former ally, Nils Holmberg, criticized him. Holmberg said Persson lacked clear political direction and acted against the party.
Only a few people at the meeting supported Persson. Even they said they didn't fully agree with all his criticisms. In a very emotional moment at the end of the debate, Set Persson announced that he was leaving the party.
After he left, the party criticized him a lot in their newspapers. Set Persson had promised not to talk about his departure to other newspapers at first. But in January 1954, the party accused him of contacting the Social Democratic press. They also criticized him for living on his borgarråd pension. After these accusations, Set Persson openly spoke about what happened at the 1953 meeting.
At the same time, the party removed people who supported Persson. Persson gathered his supporters into secret "Marxist circles." Some people in these groups were still party members. In 1956, he started a new party called the Communist Labour League of Sweden (Sveriges Kommunistiska Arbetarförbund). This new party published a newspaper called Revolt. However, this new party did not become very important. It had about 100 members at its largest.
Later Life and Legacy
Even though Set Persson was seen as a very strict communist leader in the 1950s, he was also one of the first to publicly criticize human rights issues in the Socialist Bloc.
Set Persson passed away on July 15, 1960. His new party, the Communist Labour League of Sweden, faded away after his death. In the 1970s, another group called the Marxist-Leninist Struggle League (MLK) opened bookstores named after Set Persson. These bookstores were in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Trollhättan, Sundsvall, and Kiruna. Another group that claimed to follow Set Persson's ideas was the Communist Party in Sweden (KPS).
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Set Persson
