#84. Christmas Special. "Amalthea 1908: Red Terrorism in Sweden" Featuring the Komintern Podcast
Fri Jan 16 2026
In 1908 Sweden was one of the poorest countries of Europe, the serf system (statare) was still in place, almost a quarter of the population had left for America, only Norway and Ireland saw people fleeing in greater numbers, those who stayed behind organized and the Swedish proletariat became during that decade one of the most prone to strike and violent action in the western world. In 1906 the Christmas or "December Compromise" had been signed by the social democrats and the industrialists. They sought to avoid a "Bloody Sunday" incident like the one in Russia the previous year. The compromise was considered by many a back-stab, for it gave the employers rather than the unions right to manage and allocate work and to freely hire and dismiss employees at whim. As the class struggle intensified the industrialists began hiring British strike-breakers in the multiple thousands. The strike-breakers where armed and dangerous, but though their violence was as a rule acquitted by the bourgeois courts, three young communists began planning to take justice in their own hands and show the traitors who was boss.
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In 1908 Sweden was one of the poorest countries of Europe, the serf system (statare) was still in place, almost a quarter of the population had left for America, only Norway and Ireland saw people fleeing in greater numbers, those who stayed behind organized and the Swedish proletariat became during that decade one of the most prone to strike and violent action in the western world. In 1906 the Christmas or "December Compromise" had been signed by the social democrats and the industrialists. They sought to avoid a "Bloody Sunday" incident like the one in Russia the previous year. The compromise was considered by many a back-stab, for it gave the employers rather than the unions right to manage and allocate work and to freely hire and dismiss employees at whim. As the class struggle intensified the industrialists began hiring British strike-breakers in the multiple thousands. The strike-breakers where armed and dangerous, but though their violence was as a rule acquitted by the bourgeois courts, three young communists began planning to take justice in their own hands and show the traitors who was boss.