Contribution of the Communist Party of Sweden

Dear Comrades,

Engaging with, raising the class consciousness of, and recruiting among the youth of Sweden is viewed by the Communist Party of Sweden as one of its most important tasks. Many problems in Swedish society can affect younger people especially hard, such as
unemployment and lack of housing, along with cutbacks in education in particular, but also in the health sector. The fall of socialism in Europe made for a certain respite from anti-communist propaganda, as this existential threat to capitalism had seemingly been defeated.

Later generations can thus have been less affected by bourgeois lies and falsification of history with regards to communism, with consequently less negative preconceptions about socialism and the communists. Although we can definitely see that anti-communist propaganda has started to intensify again in recent years, the younger generations have strong reasons to be skeptical about a system under which they can with certainty expect lower living standards than their parents enjoyed, and which curses them with existential questions such as climate change and environmental degradation. The communist are the only ones who can offer an alternative to this harsh reality and we must make sure that we can get our revolutionary message out in a persuasive manner.

The youth organization of the SKP, the Communist Youth of Sweden, SKU, plays an important role in engaging the youth. As an organization its history stretches back 120 years, but before being reactivated three years ago it had in practicality become dormant. Much work during these three years has gone towards building up and consolidating the organization, but that there now is an active communist youth organization in Sweden is in itself a very important step.

With only three years having passed since its reactivation, the SKU is understandably still a small organization, so recruitment is a vital task, along with the necessary political education of the cadres. The SKU's ties to fraternal communist youth organizations internationally, along with participation in international meeting and activities, have contributed much to the development of the organization. The sharing of experiences with fraternal organizations abroad becomes even more important on account of the break in continuity that the SKU is now rebuilding itself after. The SKU's ambition is to host its own summer camps and other international activities on Swedish soil in the future. This so that Swedish youths get the chance to come into contact with the international communist movement, and see that we are many and that we are organized.

The plight of the people of Palestine has been an important issue to the SKU since the start, but following the genocidal Israeli attack on Gaza, the organization has ramped up its activities for solidarity and peace for the people of Palestine. The SKU has participated in demonstrations, supported university campus occupations and members have participated in campus actions. The campus occupations were among the strongest actions of solidarity with the Palestinian people during the last year in Sweden, and they can be seen as a glimmer of hope that universities can again become a venue for radical organization and struggle. The SKU recognizes the necessity of becoming more active in schools and universities, and in particular the need to establish their own student organizations on campuses.

As for the party, the SKP, we can tell that it is among the youth that curiosity about socialism is the strongest, and the prejudices against the communists the least entrenched. Our growth is strongest among the younger generations and generally we push the hardest to get our message out to younger people, whether that's during elections, campaigns or to inform people about our free online courses on communism, which is one of our very most effective sources of recruitment. As a part of this we are working to expand our online presence to platforms where we can better reach the youth and adapting to these platforms, and the target audience, with media that is more likely to get younger audiences to learn about our party.

Engaging with and successfully recruiting among the youth is a cornerstone of the future successes of our struggle. That much of this work needs to be carried out among the youth, where they study, work and otherwise spend their time, is something we acknowledge and work towards. As we strengthen our party and youth organization, and increase our capacity to do this, we will no doubt find ourselves facing new problems we must solve when it comes to gaining the trust of the youth and raising its class consciousness. As in other struggles, we see the shared collective experiences of our fraternal parties as an important resource to build on.

Thank you comrades.