Sweden's Left Party evolved from a revolutionary Bolshevik splinter group into a modern socialist force.

Countries & Cities · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Born from a 1917 split with the Social Democrats over the Russian Revolution, the Left Party has spent over a century navigating internal purges, Cold War pressures, and shifting ideologies. Though it has never held national government, it remains a pivotal, influential player in Swedish parliamentary politics today.

The party's origins trace back to 1917, when the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (SSV) broke away from the Social Democratic Party. This schism was driven by the SSV's support for the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and opposition to Social Democratic cooperation with liberals. By 1921, the group adopted the name Communist Party of Sweden (SKP) in alignment with Comintern theses, purging thousands of members in the process. The early decades were marked by intense factionalism, including the 1929 expulsion of a majority of the party membership by the Comintern, which led to the formation of rival socialist organizations.

The Second World War proved particularly volatile. The SKP supported the Soviet Union during the Winter War and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, leading to widespread repression by the Swedish government. Thousands of communists were interned in camps, and the party's publications were effectively banned. Despite this, the party saw a post-war surge, reaching a historical membership peak of 51,000 in 1946. However, the onset of the Cold War and the purge of communists from trade unions forced a strategic pivot toward a 'united front' with the Social Democrats, a move that sparked significant internal dissent and further purges of hard-line factions.

A major ideological transformation began in 1964 under chairman C.-H. Hermansson, who steered the party toward Eurocommunism and Nordic popular socialism. This shift was underscored in 1968 when the party became the first in the West to publicly condemn the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia. Renamed the Left Party in 1990, the organization has since moved away from its communist roots. While it has never joined a national cabinet, it has frequently provided critical parliamentary support to Social Democratic governments, maintaining its influence as a staunch opponent of privatization and a proponent of public expenditure.

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