From Peace Activism to Civil Defense Protests

The need for a civil defense strategy in Sweden was not investigated until 1936, and a law regulating civil defense did not appear until a year later. In 1934, while the appeal for international cooperation on peace was unfolding, Swedish authorities had not yet taken any measures concerning the vulnera­bility of the civilian population in the eventuality of aerial warfare.

During the early 1930s representatives of the various women's peace movements—but not the Federation itself—carried on a fierce dialogue with representatives of the army as to whether it was actually possible to build up a sufficiently satisfactory civil defense. The Swedish Women Left Wing Federation and the Swedish branch of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, for example, argued that gas masks were few and expensive and that air-raid shelters offered insufficient protection against chemical weapons. Because women made up at least half of the civilian community that was thenceforth to become involved in the prepa­rations for war, these two organizations believed that it was time for women to take a stand.¹⁴ While it was not immediately involved in these discus­sions, the Federation of Women Social Democrats was conscious of the debate and acknowledged that there was a need to discuss the role of civil defense in Swedish society. When, in 1935, they launched the campaign “Women's outlook on society—The future of humanity,” they used a poster that depicted a group of schoolchildren wearing gas masks. The text pointed out that Social Democratic women in all countries had a vital role in bring­ing about world peace and general disarmament:

If women's outlook on society had been strongly directed against the war, would the future of the human race look as it does now? If Social Democracy had been strongly established among women in all countries, would the future of the human race look as it does now? No! All countries would have had governments that would have been better versed in peace work and the representatives in Geneva would be concentrating on disarmament in all countries instead of on rearmament and the spreading of new methods of warfare that are devastating to humans.¹⁵

The Federation of Women Social Democrats was, therefore, keenly aware of the function of war and militarism in the Western world. Its members were, above all, antimilitary and propeace. In the context of the rising international tensions of the mid-1930s, however, it was one thing to acknowledge the barbarity of war and the necessity to abolish the produc­tion of armaments, and it was quite another to ignore the potential realities of future war for Sweden and Swedish women.