Last week, I introduced readers to the so-called IB affair of 1973. Today, I received an artefact from those days, when the intelligence service IB was denounced for engaging in surveillance of domestic communists. A fascinating document that speaks volumes about that era in Sweden, the slim volume Voices about IB collects opinion pieces, letters and poems written by left-wing activists, ordinary workers—and even children.
A plumber from Stockholm traces the jailing of the journalists Peter Bratt and Jan Guillou, who exposed IB, to reactionary power structures that remain intact despite decades of Social Democratic governance:
“Down with the throne, the altar and the money bag!” was the motto of socialists of a bygone era. After 40 years of “socialist rule,” everything remains as it was…
An elderly woman from Sweden’s west coast writes to Bratt and Guillou in prison, offering her help:
Perhaps you are in need of a grandmother? I hereby volunteer… When you are granted furlough, you may s…
