Karl Kilbom - Expelled From The Communist Party

Expelled From The Communist Party

In the fall of 1929, a Stalinist coup took place within the Swedish Communist Party, and Karl Kilbom together with the majority of the party’s members were expelled by a group led by Hugo Sillén and Sven Linderot.

That same year, Kilbom launched a new Communist Party of Sweden, one that would be independent from Moscow, and 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. The first couple of years, the Kilbom-Party was much bigger than the official Communist Party. Kilbom also managed to keep control over the communist daily Folkets Dagblad Politiken.

1931 was the year of the Ådalen Massacre, when the Swedish military opened fire on a demonstration of strikers, killing five workers. Kilbom wrote in Folkets Dagblad Politiken, calling the Swedish conservative government of Carl Gustaf Ekman a murder regime. For this “slander”, Kilbom was sentenced to two months in prison to be served at Långholmen, but he was eventually pardoned due to lung disease.