ELECTIONS SHOW SHARP POLARIZATION AND STRONG LEFTWARD TREND
The theory the Western European workers have gone bourgeois and become politically either conservative or apathetic another disproof in Danish elections. Denmark, noted as a "welfare state" under a coalition government of the Sccial-Democrats and two small liberal parties, has been enjoying a prolonged boom, with full employment and increased wages - a situation supposed to block any leftward trends.
Yet even before the elections, there were advance Many wildcat strikes broke out, against the opposition of the Social-Democratic trade-union bureaucracy.
was the strike of Copenhagen postal workers: a strike against the state itself, unheard-of in Denmark. And three weeks before the elections, a three-day march from Holbæk to Copenhagen, in protest against nuclear armament, was
La long tradition of anti-militarism, none of the old parties were offering the voters a chance to express it. The Social-Democrats have a completely pro - N A TO policy; and the traditionally anti-militarist Radical Party voted for it. Even the Communist Party was against total disarmament.
One party, however, was taking a strong stand for total disarmament, with the slogan, "Not one for defense." This was the new People's Socialist Party, formed in 1959 by a major split in the Communist Party (reported on in Fourth International, Spring 1959) led by the party's long-time president, Aksel Larsen. The rest of its programme, while hardly revolutionary, much to the left of the Social-Democracy.
The results were decisive. The Communist Party vole fell from 72,000 (1957) to 27,000; and it lost all its seats in the parliament, which were picked up by the new Socialist People's Party. But the new party, with a smashing vote of 150,000 on its first try, bit into the Social-Democracy too, for five more seats, as an estimated 100,000-odd usually Social-Democratic voters thus showed their radicalization. As a result of deserting its traditional anti-militarist policy, the Radical Party saw its votes cut by a quarter, and the other government party, the Justice Party (standing for the ideas of Henry George) lost all its seats. The Soçial-
Democratic Party compensated for its loss on the left by picking up six seats from the conservative opposition.
On the right, the "moderate" Conservatives and the liberal Farmers' Party lost seats to a new and more reactionary rightist formation.
The picture of increased polarization is clear: a leftwardmoving left, a very weakened centre, and a rightward-moving right.
The Social-Democracy's behavior in forming the government was typical and will further open the eyes of its increasingly uneasy membership. It had a numerically equal choice in parliamentary support by making a coalition government with its fellow Socialist party or with the Radical Party. True to its incurable reformism and dependence on big business, it of course chose the Radicals.
Whether the new People's Socialist Party will prove any less reformist than the Communist Party from which it sprang remains to be seen. Aksel Larsen's own strongly reformist inclinations find an audience in those members who are either non-Marxist or not fully trained Marxists, and the pure pacifists. But many others want a more radical and even revolutionary policy, and vigilant rank-and-file opposition against bureaucratization has so far maintained internal democracy in the party, as was exemplified when Aksel Larsen's attempt to keep the bulk of our Danish comrades from joining it was blocked.
It is thus a promising field of work for our Danish comrades, to organize in this still relatively fluid organaround a programme of revolutionary Marxism.
Denmark is not the only Scandinavian country strong left trend is visible. The Swedish general elections autumn demonstrated a strengthening of the two workers' parties and a weakening of the Radical Party. In the Norwegian Labor Party, a strong and growing minority, with its own organ, Orientering, has adopted a clear and consistent policy of opposition to the NATO.
All these trends parallel in their own way the more spectacuiar phenomena in Belgium, Italy, and Great Britain, 1o show that it is, to say the least, somewhat premature for bourgeois propagandists to cross off the European working class as a factor in coming events.