Warning to Sweden

Sweden's bald, bushy-browed, Social Democratic Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson should have been bowling or playing bridge with Octogenarian King Gustav in the Royal Palace as was his wont. The recent elections had produced no surprises. The Government Coalition had lost moderately to the left, but had still received 94% of all the votes cast.

But Berlin had raised a Red scare. Sweden was "the principle stronghold of Bolshevism in Europe." Boomed Berlin's radio: "Bolshevism has been able to establish new bases in Sweden. . . . [This] will have to be carefully watched by European powers fighting the Bolshevik enemy."

Sweden's conservative press reasoned fairly that the Communists won only 42 out of 1,520 council seats (a gain of 16). The real victors of the elections had been the Farmers, who gained 36 seats and now held 212. Prime Minister Hansson's safe Social Democrats still held 831 seats--an absolute majority. Even the anything-but-pro-Bolshevik Helsinki radio called Communist gains in Sweden "moderate and in no way surprising."

But Swedish Nazis also talked of the necessity of saving Sweden from Bolshevism, and with the menacing Berlin radio gnawing in their ears many Swedes lost their Scandinavian phlegm. Stockholm ordered the completion of what amounted to a general mobilization of nearly 600,000 men. One of Europe's two remaining neutral democracies prepared for the worst.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.