I haven't read this old gem for decades, but I tried to refresh my memory by reading an extensive summary of it on the web. “Behöver vänstern gå i terapi?” is a book written by Janne Josefsson, who much later became Sweden's most famous investigative reporter. His co-writer is Mats Zetterberg, a rock musician. Back in 1976, the year of publication, both authors were posited on the far left end of the political spectrum. Today, at least Josefsson sounds more right-wing.
As I remember it, the book is fairly bizarre. It's title means “Does the left
need therapy?” The authors answer in the affirmative, and after reading their
interviews with various more or less deranged faux revolutionaries, the reader
will probably agree. The far left groups described are strongly puritanical and
“proletarian”, to the point of condemning commercial chart music. One member of
a small Stalinist group had to attend concerts with Ike & Tina Turner in
secret! An interest in fashion, poetry or classical art was considered
“bourgeois”. Watching or playing soccer was alright, though. Most members of
KFML(r) and FK (two of the featured groups) came from middle class backgrounds,
but attempted to “proletarianize” themselves by wearing cheaper clothes,
consuming snus (a special kind of tobacco popular in Sweden) and taking shabby
jobs (the shabbier the better). Politically, the people interviewed sound
ultraleft. They call Sweden “fascist”, see Social Democracy as the main enemy,
and want to “kill” individual capitalists.
One anecdote is downright comical. During a visit to Enver Hoxha's Albania,
members of the Maoist SKP spent their free time on the beach, singing and
dancing, which was roundly condemned by the Albanian hosts. By chance, the
super-Stalinist KFML(r) had sent its own delegation to the country
simultaneously. It naturally backed the puritanical Albanian comrades, who also
demanded that women should wear skirts while men must be clean-shaven!
How much of the above is true? Personally, I think the two authors have a
skewed sample. Most of their interviewees seem to be current or former members
of the Third Period Stalinist KFML(r), a notoriously dysfunctional group.
Including more members of the Trotskyist RMF or the Maoist (Hua/Deng) SKP may
have led to different results. While their politics may have been “out there”,
I never heard similar scare stories about their organizations. Back in the
days, I wouldn't have feared for somebody's personal sanity if he or she joined
the Trotskyist-controlled “trade union opposition” at Volvo or some
Maoist-controlled tenants union, but the KFML(r) was something else again. I
can't vouch for the FK, but then, nobody seems to understand what that group
was all about anyway.
Josefsson's and Zetterberg's solutions to the psychological problems of the
hard left are unclear, but seems to have a broad family likeness with Maurice
Brinton's attempted synthesis of Marx and Reich (Brinton's “The Irrational in
Politics” is reviewed by me elsewhere). The left must overcome its alienation
through progressive psychotherapy and realize that everyday life, too, needs to
be liberated. The revolution must be total and affect sex, feelings and the
private life of the individual, not just politics in the strict sense.
Obsessive full time activism is criticized. Simultaneously, the authors point
out that the workers are alienated and oppressed, too, and that this strong
oppression explains why the left has not been able to reach out to the broad
masses. Somehow, I get the impression that the “oppression” the authors talk
about is what everyone else calls “boredom”…
Today, Josefsson's and Zetterberg's book is mostly considered a curiosity, if
it's even mentioned at all. It's one of those peculiar seventies books you really
don't know what to do with, up there with Jan Myrdal's and Lars Gustafsson's
“Den onödiga samtiden” or Björn Ahlander's “Revolutionens anatomi”. I'm not
sure how to rate it, but three stars sounds like a reasonable reformist
compromise…
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