I posted this (perhaps a bit too negative) review of Magnus Utvik´s Swedish book "Med Stalin som Gud" at the site of a certain web-based vendor in 2012. They no longer sell it, and the product page has been removed, too, so I just repost it here as a suitable introduction to my book blog!
Magnus Utvik's book "Med Stalin som Gud" only exists in a Swedish
edition. It created quite a stir in Sweden last year. As usual, I missed all
the action. (I was too preoccupied trying to understand Owen Barfield, I
suppose.) Apparently, Utvik is a well-known Swedish writer and book reviewer.
As a teenager in the early 1980's, Utvik had different agendas. At the age of
seventeen, he actually joined a small Communist group, the KPS. He left the
group, or was de facto expelled, three years later.
The KPS was a small but notorious group. They never stood in elections, but they were difficult to miss. The group supported Enver Hoxha's regime in Albania, and regarded Stalin as a great revolutionary leader and thinker. The group operated a number of bookstores, which sold works by Hoxha and Stalin, some of them in Swedish. Guys, where did you think I picked up all my Stalinist books, which I have been reviewing here at Amazon? At a paperback store downtown? Naaaah.
I'm somewhat younger than Utvik, and I certainly never belonged to the KPS, but I did encounter the group around 1990. My recollections of this small Communist party are very different from those of Utvik. Perhaps they had a more polished image (relatively speaking!) when I encountered them, than when Utvik had decided to join the fray? Utvik describes the small pro-Albanian party as a crazy obedience cult, and in an interview with the Swedish daily Expressen compares them to the Baader Meinhof gang. My impression was vastly different: a dogmatic left-wing group which, when push came to shove, didn't do much out of the ordinary: anti-racist organizing, campaigns against cutbacks, running for local union office, etc. But yes, they really did like Joe Stalin and Comrade Enver...
I don't deny that Utvik's recollections of the KPS are interesting, but unfortunately they are often unreliable. Utvik has interviewed a number of elderly ex-members of the group. I happen to know who they are, and have talked to other ex-members myself. Both "Henrik" and "Lars" remained Communists even after being expelled from the KPS - something they don't mention when Utvik interviews them. Instead, they cast themselves as cult victims. Please. "Karin" gives the wrong date for her defection. "Lars" sets "Karin" straight, but distorts the case of "Henrik", claiming that "Henrik" wasn't really expelled for political reasons, but rather for personal ones. Another curious detail is that "Karin" and "Lars" don't agree on how many members the KPS really had - "Karin" says hundreds, "Lars" says 50 at most. Yet, "Lars" and "Karin" were both members of the KPS Central Committee before being expelled! Why don't they agree even on trivial facts?
Utvik also reports some pretty wild rumours about the KPS stealing and smuggling machinery from Sweden to Albania. Purportedly, the KPS leader Persson and his crony "Gunnar" spent the money on heavy drinking bouts while on vacation in Italy. Really? I've heard jucier stuff about some of "Henrik's" buddies. And no, I don't believe them either...
I know who you are, comrades. Or should I call you CITIZENS?
:P
Another problem with "Med Stalin som Gud" is that it never really explains why a 17-year old boy from a small country town in Sweden would join a dogmatic (or barking mad?) Stalinist sect/cult/group. And yet, the back matter promises an answer to this question. None is forthcoming. Utvik is a Communist already when the story gets started, although a member of the more moderate KU (the youth wing of the Euro-communist VPK, the respectable reds in Swedish politics). He seems to have joined the KPS because he disliked the tepid message of the VPK/KU, wanting the raw stuff instead. Well, he sure got it. Besides, it's unclear how "moderate" his KU comrades really were. They seem to have supported the Soviet Union and East Germany! That's hardly Euro-communist. Sounds more like official Communism to me, which makes me wonder why Utvik left the KU in the first place. Weren't Brezhnev and Honecker hard enough for him?
Ironically, Utvik seems to have been too "far out" even for the KPS, admiring the Baader Meinhof gang, preaching armed struggle at a civics class "election meeting" in senior high, and constantly creating petty trouble when serving in the military (the officer just sighed and discharged him - Sweden has never been at war since 1814. In the United States, he would have been court-martialled). He also slept around with at least one party comrade. If the KPS was a crazy cult, Utvik seems to have fitted right in. Eventually, the KPS more or less expelled him...
There are no reflections about these facts in the book. Instead, Utvik paints himself as the innocent victim, conned by the nefarious KPS and their secretive Central Committee. Apparently, the party refused to grant Utvik candidate membership because of "Trotskyite" tendencies, but one of the defectors kindly informs him 25 years later that "individualism" was the real reason. This confirms my impression: the teen Commie was too unruly for his older peers. "Trotskyite tendencies" was simply the (usual) pretext. (Are we to believe Utvik, the KPS had convoluted rules for membership. Our author was neither a "full" nor a "candidate" member, but a kind of worker-ant at an even lower rung of the hierarchy. It's unclear whether this was because of his youth, or for other reasons. To all intents and purposes, however, he did belong to the group.)
Can I prove any of the above? Of course not. Not unless you give me the same powers as Enver Hoxha's secret service (I don't want it, thanks).
These are my own, subjective recollections and impressions of the KPS, the defectors and of Utvik himself. However, since Utvik's book contains a disclaimer, stating that "Med Stalin som Gud" is *his* subjective story, I might as well chime in with my own.
Incidentally, I have nothing personal against "Henrik", "Lars" and the other people queried by Utvik. They might indeed be fundamentally good guys. Nor do I have anything against Utvik, whom I never met (I think). However, it does look strange to an onlooker that ex-Stalinists are just as liberal with the truth as Stalinists...
Perhaps it's just as good that this work stays untranslated.
The KPS was a small but notorious group. They never stood in elections, but they were difficult to miss. The group supported Enver Hoxha's regime in Albania, and regarded Stalin as a great revolutionary leader and thinker. The group operated a number of bookstores, which sold works by Hoxha and Stalin, some of them in Swedish. Guys, where did you think I picked up all my Stalinist books, which I have been reviewing here at Amazon? At a paperback store downtown? Naaaah.
I'm somewhat younger than Utvik, and I certainly never belonged to the KPS, but I did encounter the group around 1990. My recollections of this small Communist party are very different from those of Utvik. Perhaps they had a more polished image (relatively speaking!) when I encountered them, than when Utvik had decided to join the fray? Utvik describes the small pro-Albanian party as a crazy obedience cult, and in an interview with the Swedish daily Expressen compares them to the Baader Meinhof gang. My impression was vastly different: a dogmatic left-wing group which, when push came to shove, didn't do much out of the ordinary: anti-racist organizing, campaigns against cutbacks, running for local union office, etc. But yes, they really did like Joe Stalin and Comrade Enver...
I don't deny that Utvik's recollections of the KPS are interesting, but unfortunately they are often unreliable. Utvik has interviewed a number of elderly ex-members of the group. I happen to know who they are, and have talked to other ex-members myself. Both "Henrik" and "Lars" remained Communists even after being expelled from the KPS - something they don't mention when Utvik interviews them. Instead, they cast themselves as cult victims. Please. "Karin" gives the wrong date for her defection. "Lars" sets "Karin" straight, but distorts the case of "Henrik", claiming that "Henrik" wasn't really expelled for political reasons, but rather for personal ones. Another curious detail is that "Karin" and "Lars" don't agree on how many members the KPS really had - "Karin" says hundreds, "Lars" says 50 at most. Yet, "Lars" and "Karin" were both members of the KPS Central Committee before being expelled! Why don't they agree even on trivial facts?
Utvik also reports some pretty wild rumours about the KPS stealing and smuggling machinery from Sweden to Albania. Purportedly, the KPS leader Persson and his crony "Gunnar" spent the money on heavy drinking bouts while on vacation in Italy. Really? I've heard jucier stuff about some of "Henrik's" buddies. And no, I don't believe them either...
I know who you are, comrades. Or should I call you CITIZENS?
:P
Another problem with "Med Stalin som Gud" is that it never really explains why a 17-year old boy from a small country town in Sweden would join a dogmatic (or barking mad?) Stalinist sect/cult/group. And yet, the back matter promises an answer to this question. None is forthcoming. Utvik is a Communist already when the story gets started, although a member of the more moderate KU (the youth wing of the Euro-communist VPK, the respectable reds in Swedish politics). He seems to have joined the KPS because he disliked the tepid message of the VPK/KU, wanting the raw stuff instead. Well, he sure got it. Besides, it's unclear how "moderate" his KU comrades really were. They seem to have supported the Soviet Union and East Germany! That's hardly Euro-communist. Sounds more like official Communism to me, which makes me wonder why Utvik left the KU in the first place. Weren't Brezhnev and Honecker hard enough for him?
Ironically, Utvik seems to have been too "far out" even for the KPS, admiring the Baader Meinhof gang, preaching armed struggle at a civics class "election meeting" in senior high, and constantly creating petty trouble when serving in the military (the officer just sighed and discharged him - Sweden has never been at war since 1814. In the United States, he would have been court-martialled). He also slept around with at least one party comrade. If the KPS was a crazy cult, Utvik seems to have fitted right in. Eventually, the KPS more or less expelled him...
There are no reflections about these facts in the book. Instead, Utvik paints himself as the innocent victim, conned by the nefarious KPS and their secretive Central Committee. Apparently, the party refused to grant Utvik candidate membership because of "Trotskyite" tendencies, but one of the defectors kindly informs him 25 years later that "individualism" was the real reason. This confirms my impression: the teen Commie was too unruly for his older peers. "Trotskyite tendencies" was simply the (usual) pretext. (Are we to believe Utvik, the KPS had convoluted rules for membership. Our author was neither a "full" nor a "candidate" member, but a kind of worker-ant at an even lower rung of the hierarchy. It's unclear whether this was because of his youth, or for other reasons. To all intents and purposes, however, he did belong to the group.)
Can I prove any of the above? Of course not. Not unless you give me the same powers as Enver Hoxha's secret service (I don't want it, thanks).
These are my own, subjective recollections and impressions of the KPS, the defectors and of Utvik himself. However, since Utvik's book contains a disclaimer, stating that "Med Stalin som Gud" is *his* subjective story, I might as well chime in with my own.
Incidentally, I have nothing personal against "Henrik", "Lars" and the other people queried by Utvik. They might indeed be fundamentally good guys. Nor do I have anything against Utvik, whom I never met (I think). However, it does look strange to an onlooker that ex-Stalinists are just as liberal with the truth as Stalinists...
Perhaps it's just as good that this work stays untranslated.
Checking the commentary function.
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