Antimilitarism and Working for Peace in the 1920s and 1930s

By 1939, Social Democratic women in Sweden had a long tradition of work­ing for peace, and they had chosen various allies in their work. In addition to being loyal to the antimilitaristic attitude of their own party, they cooper­ated with socialist women in other countries, especially for International Women's Day (held annually around 8 March since the early 1900s).

As early as the First World War, Social Democratic women played key roles in promoting peace and pacifism. Prominent Social Democratic women, such as Anna Lindhagen, Signe Svensson (Vessman), Anna Sterky, and Agda Ostlund, took part in the “Women's Peace Sunday” action in 1915, an antiwar campaign that drew in women from the entire political spectrum, including liberals and conservatives. The action gathered 88,000 women who, in 343 different places throughout the country, agreed on a demand for neutral mediation between the warring parties. The address that was read out at all 343 peace meetings that Sunday noted that it would be unnatural for civilized countries to “periodically enter a state of war with intervals of peace that would be used for rearmament.” Instead, a new order must be established where “representatives of people of all countries” are provided with the opportunity to control foreign policy and disputes between countries are decided through arbitration—not fighting.⁶ Such actions were not extraordinary during the First World War; women in neutral countries throughout Europe clamored for peace and undertook all manner of initiatives to bring about an early end to the war and suffering.

At the end of 1918, in conjunction with President Wilson's attendance at the peace negotiations in Europe, the Central Co-operation Committee of the women's peace organizations collected names in support of Wilson's peace program. The Federation of Women Social Democrats was one of many women's groups represented in the Central Committee, alongside the Swedish Section of the International Women's Committee for Lasting Peace, the peace division of the White Ribbon Society, the Swedish women teachers' peace group, the committees of the National Association for Women's Political Suffrage, and the Liberal Women's Organization. A large public meeting was held in January 1919, and nearly 50,000 women's names were collected from all around the country in support of a just peace built on legal legislation, arbitration between nations, and the abolition of militarism.⁷ In the immedi­ate aftermath of the First World War and despite Sweden's neutrality in that war, Sweden's women called for universal peace. The Federation of Women Social Democrats, despite their radicalism in other areas, upheld a conven­tional message in this respect. Furthermore, much of the Federation's activities with regard to peace and antimilitarism remained within the shadow of the wider Social Democratic Party's initiatives. Nevertheless, it did so from a particular women's perspective and within the network of women's peace movements that had been so vocal during the First World War.

During the election campaign of 1924, the defense issue was a major preoccupation in Swedish politics. Importantly, this was the first time since the introduction of women's suffrage in 1921 that women had the oppor­tunity to participate in an election where defense issues were debated. Within the context of this charged atmosphere, the Federation rallied around the slogan “No More War” and organized another Peace Sunday.

While the Federation of Women Social Democrats lent its support to antimilitarism, the Social Democrat prime minister Richard Sandler at the same time encouraged the women to come up with something new in the sphere of peace, now that women were able to use their right to vote and thus were participating in public life. He was of the opinion that they should not resemble the men too closely; instead, they should be indepen­dent and make their own statements regarding peace work. He delivered this message during an information week sponsored by the Swedish branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in January 1925.10 As mentioned above, women's suffrage in Sweden came about late, and in 1924, when the defense issue was at stake, the women had only had the opportunity to vote once before in 1921. The result of the election of the Swedish Social Democrats in 1924 was a huge reduction in the Swedish defense system. In the following year, the Swedish Women's Left Wing Federation took a more radical pacifist standpoint as a result of Sandler's encouragement to march to the beat of their own drum.

To celebrate International Women's Day in 1930, the committee of the Federation of Women Social Democrats offered their local branches peace flowers to sell with the accompanying tag “Women's unanimous contribution—the assurance of peace” and hoped that within every branch a separate peace group would be formed.¹¹ During the same year, the com­mittee of the Federation also recommended that local branches order a course of study on peace issues from the Workers' Educational Association, which included the following subjects: “the necessity for peace work,” “the causes of war,” and “the elimination of war through peace work.”¹²

Although the study of peace was crucial to the Federation of Women Social Democrats, it was already apparent by 1934 that issues of war, mili­tarism, and peace had to be handled with care.