Policing of Political Protest. The Security Police's Control of the Extra-parliamentary Opposition in Sweden During and after the Cold War

Abstract

Throughout history, those in power have monitored and exercised control over individuals and groups who have been perceived as representing some form of threat to their power. Irrespective of the system of government in place, political crime is a matter of central interest to a society's security police. Political crimes are often committed by extra-parliamentary groups or organizations. The focus of this paper is how the Swedish secret police (SÄPO) have acted against what they have perceived as the extreme left, mainly anarchists and autonomists, during and after the cold war. Did SÄPO's perception of this part of the extra-parliamentary opposition change when the cold war was over in the early 1990s? Were these groups and individuals perceived as the new enemy in the threat vacuum that temporarily arose in the aftermath of the cold war? Furthermore, had the new security concept that was introduced at that time any impact on SÄPO's activities?

Keywords:

• Anarchists
• Cold war
• Extra-parliamentary opposition
• Political crime
• Political protest
• Security police
• Surveillance

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Urban Lundberg for comments on a previous draft. Thanks as well to David Shannon for comments and his translation of the text.

Notes

¹ For a review of the principal report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Security Service and its seven research reports SOU 2002:87–94, see Flyghed 2011.

² The SAC syndicalists are a Swedish trade union that was formed in 1910 by individuals from the then Social Democratic youth movement, the Young Socialists, in opposition to the major reformist union organization the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO). The Young Socialists argued that a trade union organization must be independent of political parties, which was not the case with the LO, which was perceived as a tool for the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SAP).

³ If nothing else is stated, the information from the security police's archive is drawn from the research report Hotet från vänster. Säkerhetstjänsternas övervakning av kommunister, anarkister m.m. 1965–2002 [The Threat from the Left. The security service's monitoring of communists, anarchists and others], SOU 2002:91, which constitutes part of the inquiry conducted by the Commission of Inquiry into the Security Service; see pages 305–385 in particular.

⁴ KRUM was an organization that existed in the years 1966–1984 with a view to engaging in advocacy to make the Swedish prison system more human, to reduce its use of punishment, and to influence politicians to reduce the use of imprisonment.

⁵ November 30th has been an annual meeting for nationalists and right-wing extremists to celebrate King Karl XII who died that date in 1718.

⁶ Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) is a political party to the far right. Their party programme has a strong emphasis on nationalism. In the 2010 general election, the Sweden Democrats crossed the 4% threshold necessary for parliamentary representation and won 20 parliamentary seats.

⁷ The Invisible Party was launched by the autonomous scene in the spring of 2006. The intention was never to run in any of the national or local elections but to provide an umbrella for protests against the election campaigns.