DOCUMENTS 119 118 THE CLASS STRUGGLE support even if they should be of the limited nature proposed by you would in such meetings require detailed examination, We suggest the desirability of an carly answer to this communication.
Stockholm, Nov. 16, 1918.
For the Executive Committee.
a National Constituent Assembly, placed ourselves on the broadest democratic basis. We have surely in this way answered your objection with regard to what you call a first requirement for a practical political cooperation.
Touching the Minimum Program you propose, we must make the general observation that it concerns itself almost exclusively with purely political reforms, neglecting the great social and economic demands which cannot or ought not to be postponed to an indefinite future in the present situation. Such proposals as were made by us in our minimum program the socialization of the money system and of big industry, workers control of industry, and the provisional solution of the land question have not been considered at all in your program.
But even in connection with your political demands we must deplore that they provide no guarantees whatever for a speedy and thorough solution. We find, among other things, that such old demo.
cratic demands as a republic and a single legislative chamber, which have long since been accepted by the bourgeois circles of the country, have not seemed to you to be capable of immediate realization.
Instead, you point out that binding assurances should be given in advance by the state powers, regarding the removal of all disabilities in voting (but you seem to have forgotten the age restriction. while the question of a one chamber system or of a republic should be decided either by a Riksdag, constituted under the new election laws, or by a new popular election in accordance with those laws.
We believe, however, that Sweden workers have learnt through long and bitter experience how much assurances and promises from the ruling classes are worth, and they would, in our opinion, be guilty of a serious mistake politically, if not of a crime against themselves and their future, if they should permit an opportunity for action to slip by, that might solve these questions at a single stroke.
As far as the only social demand in your program is concernedthat of the eight hour day we note that even its realization has been postponed without so much as a suggestion of a provisional solution. Particularly this omission must cause great discouragement among the entire Swedish working class.
To accept the minimum program you set up, as suggested by you in your communication, as a basis for our cooperation, would be impossible for us, for the reasons above named. The Program, which limits itself entirely to a bourgeois democratic action, seems to be adapted rather for a continued cooperation with the liberal party than for a common basis for the entire Swedish working class, which would have been more natural.
Nevertheless, we hope, in spite of the form of your communi.
cation, that you may again consider whether there is no possibility for a common action between us, along lines that may lead more clearly and speedily to the democratic and social transformation that is desired by both the parties.
Should you find that a continued discussion is advisable, we suggest that it is desirable for both parties to appoint special representatives for the continuance of the negotiations.
The question as to the resources of power which the working class must, in those demands which it advances, mobilize in their IV. The Old Party Answers One Question When You Ask Them Another To the In answer to your last communication we beg leave to say: To our plain question whether you can without reserve accept the principles of democracy you have replied that our party has never been for a minority dictatorship, and that the question of a dictatorship of the proletariat is not a burning one in our country at present. These are subterfuges that would be more in place in the notes of the old diplomacy than in a declaration of a party which, in accordance with its loudly proclaimed principles, should place a certain value upon straightforwardness. We must, therefore, again emphasize that the necessary prerequisite for a cooperation on our part is the unconditional renunciation of Bolshevism by your party. The Social Democratic Party Executive feels that it has the support of an overwhelming, opinion among the Swedish working class, in declaring that it will not enter into any cooperation with Bolsheviks.
You have answered our question with regard to your attitude on our program of action, by saying that it is impossible for you to accept it as a basis for cooperation as it stands. We herewith point out that this minimum program was adopted after a careful scrutiny by the political and craft leaders, with the specific purpose of bringing about the strongest possible rally of all the democratic forces in our country around it. Your Sunday resolution is a blow in the face to this unity thought and asks, on the contrary, a split in the front of democracy.
We, therefore, point out that in both the points we have drawn up the answers made by your Executive have been either evasive or negative.
Stockholm, Nov. 18, 1918.
For the Executive Committee of the Hj. Branting.
Gust. Möller. Final Reply from the Left: You Prefer Unity with the Liberal Party to Unity within the Working Class To the Executive, At a meeting held yesterday, of the Committee and the Committee, as well as the Riksdag members and the representatives in Stockholm, as well as other representatives, it was unanimously decided to send the following communication to the