History
Flamman group, an orthodox pro-Soviet section with Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna (Left Party – The Communists) that emerged as an internal fraction when C.-H. Hermansson took over as party leader and distanced the party from Moscow. The group was centered around the party newspaper Norrskensflamman (The Flame of the Aurora Borealis, usually just called Flamman), the regional party publication in Norrbotten. The fraction worked as a parallel party centre, and relations between them and the party leadership soured.
At the party congress in 1975, when Hermansson stepped down as party leader, the Flamman group launched Rolf Hagel as their candidate for party leadership. Hagel was defeated by Lars Werner with 162 votes against 74. In the same year the Flamman-sympathizers were expelled from Kommunistisk Ungdom (Communist Youth), the youth league of the party.
In 1977 the group broke away, and formed Arbetarpartiet Kommunisterna (Workers Party - the Communists, abbreviated APK). A founding congress took place in the Swedish Riksdag. A large number of foreign delegated participated in the congress, indicating that APK had a strong moral support from CPSU and the orthodox sector of the World Communist Movement. Two MPs (and party central committee members), Rolf Hagel and Alf Löwenborg, were leading the split. Rolf Hagel was elected party president. Norrskensflamman became the central party organ.
In many places entire VPK party units joined APK, including in Malmö, Göteborg and Mälardalen. The foremost stronghold of the new party was Norrbotten. In total, up to 25% of the entire VPK party membership (other sources claim between 10 to 15%) joined APK. To a large extent it was the trade union cadres of VPK who joined APK. Shortly thereafter, a large section of the KU district in Gävleborg joined APK.
Sveriges Kommunistiska Ungdomsförbund (Young Communist League of Sweden) was created as the youth league of the party. A student wing, Marxistiska Studenter (Marxist Students), was founded although it never attained any importance.
The party maintained a Finnish language-publication, Siirtotyöläinen, from 1978 to 1986.
APK failed to make any electoral breakthrough, and gradually the party declined. The fall of the Soviet Union came to have a very negative impact on the party. Many members left it, either to politics completely or to rejoin Vänsterpartiet. SKU broke away in 1990, and had a short-lived period as an independent communist youth organization.
In 1995 APK was declared financially bankrupt by state authorities, the first political party in Sweden to suffer that fate.
Directly after the bankruptcy of APK, the core around Hagel regrouped and reconstituted their party as Sveriges Kommunistiska Parti (Communist Party of Sweden). In 2000 SKU was reorganized as the party youth league. The party participates in elections under the nomenclature of Kommunisterna (The Communists).
Read more about this topic: Communist Party Of Sweden (1995)
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