It didn't happen here

"Fascism in Scandinavia 1920-1940" by Ulf Lindström is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, and it shows. An extreme abundance of facts, strange diagrams, home-made abbreviations, and a somewhat awkward English (the author is Swedish) all conspire to make this relatively short book a hard read. It's difficult to digest even for Scandinavian readers, since the author has given all local parties, organizations and government agencies English names and somewhat confusing English abbreviations. Thus, Lindholm's Nazi group in Sweden is simply referred to as "Swedish Nazi Party" or "SNP", names never used in real life.

That being said, "Fascism in Scandinavia" is nevertheless a quite interesting read. Lindström sets out to investigate why fascism never became a mass movement in Sweden, Norway or Denmark. At least on the surface, Scandinavia was a fertile ground for fascism. All the usual ingredients of the fascist worldview were present: nationalism, non-socialist anti-capitalism, anti-democratism, anti-socialism, racism and anti-Semitism. These weren't always fringe beliefs, either.

In Sweden, the Conservative Party were sceptical to both parliamentary democracy and free market capitalism well into the 1930's. The farmers' organizations demanded "anti-capitalist" protectionism while also opposing leftist socialism. Several daily papers supported the far right Conservative Youth League, including its anti-Semitism. The Agrarian Party (which was quite large) was openly racist, demanding an end to immigration that could harm the racial stock of the Swedish people. Even the Social Democrats supported "racial biology". Similar examples can be adduced from Denmark and Norway. Add to this the Great Depression, weak governments, bickering parliaments, and an increasing polarization between left and right (such as the Swedish "Cossack elections" of 1928 or the on-off revolution-mongering of the Norwegian Labour Party), and the question suddenly seems very pertinent indeed. Why didn't it happen here?

A closer look at the Scandinavian theatre reveals a more complex picture. For instance, Scandinavian nationalism was usually non-expansionist. The national conflicts over Schleswig (between Denmark and Germany), Åland (between Sweden and Finland) and East Greenland (between Denmark and Norway) were quickly defused. The Danish Nazis - somewhat ironically - capitalized on anti-German nationalism in the Danish-German border region of South Jutland, but the movement to regain former Danish lands lost to Germany remained isolated to this particular province. Also ironically, the nationally homogenous character of the Scandinavian countries, with few national minorities to bully, also made muscular nationalism something of a non-issue in established politics. The general public considered anti-Semitism, at least in its Nazi German form, to be crackpot.

The peasantry was split into different factions, many of whom were allied with urban interests. For this reason, the protests of the farmers tended to be less militant than the fascists (who had a farmer orientation) had hoped for. This made it difficult for the fascists to capitalize on the urban-rural divide and farmer discontent. While Swedish and Danish farming communities were hierarchic (which could have favoured the fascists), Norwegian farmers were often strongly egalitarian and supported various non-conformist churches and causes, which tended in a "liberal" direction. The bourgeoisie in Norway and Denmark was liberal and pro-market, and so was the top bourgeoisie in Sweden (which contradicted the protectionist-authoritarian streaks in Swedish Conservatism). In Sweden and Denmark, the labour movement was centralized and "reformist", i.e. Social Democratic and pragmatic. This made negotiations between Big Labour and Big Business a natural option to try out. The Norwegian Labour Party (which at one point had actually joined the Communist International), once in government also became a pragmatic force. This made it difficult for the fascists to sustain a "red scare" in Scandinavia.

During the Great Depression, Scandinavian workers and farmers were badly hit, while the bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie and "middle class" weren't affected to the same extent. It's also interesting to note that real wages for those workers who managed to hold on to a job didn't fall during the Depression (!), and that the brunt of the crisis only lasted for about three years. During the Depression, society was mobilized. Special interest organizations recruited more members, became stronger and secured a place at the democratic bargaining table. This included labour unions, farmers' organizations, unions of white collar employees, artisans, etc. The interest organizations became a democratic complement to the political parties in the governmental process. A point lost on the author is the similarity between this and fascist "corporatism", but - of course - with the obvious difference that Scandinavian quasi-corporatism took place within a democratic framework, not that of an authoritarian regime.

The author believes that the Conservatives and Agrarians originally adapted to the demands of the far right in order to neutralize it at the polls. From the mid-1930's onwards, however, the Conservatives and Agrarians switched strategy and went on an all-out offensive against the fascists and semi-fascists (the latter were particularly strong in the Swedish and Danish Conservative youth leagues). In Norway, the Agrarians had at first contemplated an electoral alliance with Quisling's fascist group NS, but then shelved the idea.

What finally saved democracy, according to Lindström's narrative, were the Crisis Agreements between Social Democrats and Agrarians in all three Scandinavian countries. The Crisis Agreements strengthened the parliamentary governments by bringing together its principal (and potentially antagonistic) players, the labour parties "to the left" and the farmer-based agrarians to the right. At least in the short term, the Crisis Agreements favoured the farmers by introducing protectionism and hence higher prices for agricultural produce. Thus, the farmers - who could have become an important base for fascist mobilizations - were effectively neutralized. The workers gained public works to bring down unemployment. In hindsight, it's obvious that the fundaments of the post-war Scandinavian welfare states were laid already during the 1930's. (In passing, one of the chapters of this book starts out with the humorous quotation "He was a farmer who believed that all government spending on everyone else but farmers was creeping socialism". Right on!)

The *least* important cause of the fascist failure was the organizational and personal qualities of the fascists themselves. The constant splits of the fascist groups were the result of the counter-attacks by the established parties. In later history writing, fascist leaders Clausen, Quisling and Furugård were often ridiculed as bad copies of Hitler, but the author of "Fascism in Scandinavia" perceptively points out that all three were pursuing their college diplomas when Hitler was still peddling watercolour postcards in Vienna! Indeed, Quisling was the minister of defence in two Norwegian governments, before leaving the Agrarian Party to form the fascist NS. Lindström's central thesis is that the strength of fascist organizations and leadership are inversely related to the strength of pluralist democracy.

It didn't happen here. However, it's easy to imagine a situation in which it could have...