Set Persson

Following the Ådalen massacre in 1931, Persson led a 10-day general strike in Söderhamn during which clashes with the police erupted.

Persson was arrested and charged for having taken part in organizing the rally, and sentenced to four months of involuntary labour.

He served as editor for local and trade union matters for the party publication Ny Dag.

In 1948 he declared publicly that the Stockholm police would not follow the central anticommunist guidelines when recruiting new policemen.

After the conclusion of the Second World War, the idea that a peaceful transition to socialism was possible gained ground in the international communist movement.

There was a growing trend in the Communist Party of Sweden to seek to create alliances with the Social Democrats and to give more emphasis to the parliamentary struggle.

In the 1952 parliamentary by-elections in Jämtland and Kristianstad, the party had decided to withdraw their lists, in order to enable that Social Democrats would not lose the elections.

The party leadership argued that communists had to make an effort to "ensure a labour majority in the Riksdag".

The party took an initiative to create a broad-based youth movement, looking at similar developments in countries like Finland.

An issue of high symbolic importance was the decision of the party to promote joint May Day rallies with the Social Democrats.

Yet another issue was the decision of the party to give financial support to the "labour press", which was essentially in the hands of the Social Democrats.

Persson fiercely exposed his criticism, particularly towards the new party chairman Hilding Hagberg, whom he branded as an opportunist.

In a highly emotional conclusion of the debate, Persson declared his resignation from the party in a speech to the congress.

Although Persson in the 1950s had emerged as the leader of the most hardline faction within the communist movement he was, paradoxally, amongst the first to publicly criticize the human rights situation in the Socialist Bloc.