Fascism in Scandinavia 1920-40 Ulf Lindström Department of Political Science University of Umeå S-901 87 Umeå (Sweden) ® 090-165000 Fascism in Scandinavia 1920-40 Ulf Lindström Fascism in Scandinavia 1920-40 Avhandling för filosofie doktorsexamen som med tillstånd av samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Umeå Universitet framläggs till offentlig granskning fredagen den 3 juni 1983 kl 10.15 i hörsal C, samhälls- vetarhuset. Ulf Lindström Fil. kand. - 2- CONTENTS Guide to Tables, Figures, and Charts 4 Chapter One: Big Changes, Small Changes, No Changes, and Fascism 6 1.1: Scope and Framework 6 1.2: Economic Development and Political Response: Theoretical Remarks 9 1.3: Economic Development, Political Response, and Beyond 16 Chapter Two: Fascist and Nazi Parties in Scandinavia 22 2.1: Introduction 22 2.2: Genealogy 23 2.3: Organization 31 2.4: Ideology 36 Chapter Three: Fascism and Nazism in Scandinavia: Antecedents 51 3.1: Introduction 51 3.2: Nationalism 52 3.3: Anti-Capitalism 63 3.4: Anti-Democratism 72 3.5: Anti-Socialism 85 3.6: Racism and Anti-Semitism 103 3.7: Conclusions 109 Chapter Four: Classes and Crises: Conflict or Consensus? 112 4.1 Introduction 112 4.2 The Scandinavian Interwar Economy: Ups and Downs (and Ups) 115 4.3 The Bourgeoisie 116 4.4 The Petty Bourgeoisie 137 4.5 The Farmers 145 4.6 The Functionaries 158 4.7 The Working-Class 164 4.8 Conflict or Consensus? 175 4.9 Big Interests Make Small Government Big 180 4.10: Conclusions 188 Chapter Five: Scandinavian Fascism at the Polls 191 5.1: Introduction 191 5.2: The Setting: Conflict Dimensions in the Scandinavian Party Arena 193 5.3: The Socioeconomic Profile of the Nazi Vote 197 5.3.1: Rural Nazism: Southern Jutland, the East Inland, and Värmland 199 5.3.2: Urban Nazism: Stavanger and Gothenburg 211 5.4: The Socioeconomic Profile of the Semi-Fascist Vote 216 5.5: The Party Political Origin of the Nazi and Semi-Fascist Vote 221 5.6: The Extreme Right Vote: A Jumble of Idiosyncracies? 224 - 3- Chapter Six: The Response of the Agrarians and Conservatives 230 6.1: Introduction 230 6.2: Adaptation and Rational Choice 231 6.3: The Agrarians 236 6.3.1: The Electoral Arena 237 6.3.2: The Internal Arena 242 6.4: The Conservatives 248 6.4.1: The Electoral Arena 249 6.4.2: The Internal Arena 254 6.5: Conclusions 262 Chapter Seven: The Response of the Scandinavian Party System 265 7.1: Introduction 265 7.2: The Crisis Agreements: Highlights 267 7.3: The Crisis Agreements: Why? 270 7.4: The Crisis Agreements: Impact 286 7.5: Conclusions 294 Chapter Eight: Why, Then, No Fascism in Scandinavia? 297 8.1: Introduction 297 8.2: Nine Reasons Why No Fascism in Scandinavia 298 Acknowledgements 309 Footnotes 310 Appendices 337 References 339 - 4- GUIDE TO TABLES, FIGURES, AND CHARTS Figure 1.1: Party System Dynamics in Interwar Scandinavia 18 Table 2.1: Estimated Number of Members in the Scandinavian Nazi Parties 32 Figure 2.1: The Spatial Pattern of Scandinavian Nazi Party Organization 34 Chart 2.1: Ideological Profile of the Scandinavian Nazi Parties 37 Chart 2.2: Ideological Profile of the Scandinavian Semi-Fascist Parties 38 Figure 4.1: Development of the GNP in Interwar Scandinavia 115 Chart 4.2: A Developmental Typology of Assessing the Position of the Scandinavian Bourgeoisie 118 Table 4.1: Stockmarket Statistics for Interwar Scandinavia 125 Table 4.2: Members in the Employers' Federations and their Workforces in Interwar Scandinavia 127 Table 4.3: Defense Appropriations in Interwar Scandinavia 133 Table 4.4: Urban Bankruptcy Proceedings Commenced in Interwar Scandinavia 141 Table 4.5: Organized Craft and Trade in Interwar Scandinavia 143 Table 4.6: Surplus in Interwar Scandinavian Agriculture 148 Table 4.7: Forced Sales of Property in Rural Interwar Scandinavia 149 Table 4.8: Farms by Size of Holdings in Interwar Scandinavia 150 Figure 4.2: Agricultural Indebtedness and Farmsteads Organized within the DFA, NFRA, and SNRU 152 Table 4.9: Number of Members and Percent Farmsteads Organized within the DFA, NFRA, and SNRU 152 Table 4.10: Members in White-Collar Unions in Interwar Scandinavia 161 Table 4.11: Labor Market Statistics for Interwar Scandinavia 169 Table 5.1: Correlates of Nazi Voting in a Hypothetical Setting 195 Table 5.2: Parliamentary Elections in Scandinavia, 1928-1940 198 Figure 5.1: The Regional Strength of the Scandinavian Nazi Parties 198 Table 5.3: The Scandinavian Nazi Parties by the Sectorwise Distribution of the Local Economy 198 Table 5.4: DNSAP Members 1930-1935 and NS Members 1933-1939 by Class 199 - 5- Figure 5.2: The Spatial Distribution of the Nazi Vote in RuScan: Southern Jutland, the East Inland, and Värmland 200 Table 5.5: Party Votes by the Sectorwise Distribution of the Local Economy and Agrarian Owner Structure in RuScan 200 Table 5.6: Three Explanatory Models of RuScanian Nazism: An Empirical Test 203 Table 5.7: Nazism, Non-Conformism, and Teetotalism in the East Inland and Värmland 207 Figure 5.3: Ethnicity and Nazism in Southern Jutland 210 Table 5.8: Elections in Stavanger and Gothenburg, 1928-1936 212 Table 5.9: The NS and SNP in Stavanger and Gothenburg by Party Vote in 1931(L) and 1928(P), respectively 212 Table 5.10: Local Government Expenditure on Relief Works and Unemployment Benefits in 10 Major Swedish Cities and the Combined Expenditure in all 114 Cities, 1928-1932 213 Table 5.11: Party Votes by the Sectorwise Distribution of the Local Economy. Pearson correlation Coefficients 217 Table 5.12: Two Explanatory Models of Agrarian Right-wing Extremism in Denmark: An Empirical Test. Pearson correlation coefficients 220 Table 5.13: Vote Transitions and Inter-Party Correlations in Scandinavia 222 Chart 5. 1 : Dynamics Conducive to the Strength of Extreme Right-Wing Parties in Interwar Scandinavia 227 Figure 6. 1: Sources of Political Communication Bearing on Party Behavior in the Electoral and Internal Arenas 236 Chart 6. 1 : Sources and Outcome of Organized Discontent Among the Scandinavian Farmers' Movements During the Thirties 237 Chart 6.2: Sources and Outcome of Organized Discontent Among the Scandinavian Conservative Movement During the Thirties 248 Chart 7. 1 : The Scandinavian Crisis Agreements: Highlights 268 Chart 7.2: Cabinet Formations in Interwar Scandinavia 291 Chart 7.3: The Scandinavian Right Before and After the Crisis Agreements 295 Chart 8.1: Nine Determinants of Fascist Response in Scandinavia 299 - 6- CHAPTER ONE: Big Changes, Small Changes, No Changes, and Fascism "Ingenting är ändå någon­ ting för en nihilist." H. Tikkanen Finnish Novelist 1.1: Scope and Framework Scandinavian fascism was met with limited success, to judge by electoral records. At the most, Nazi parties polled two percent of the vote in the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish interwar elections respectively. Why did extreme right-wing parties do so poorly in Scandinavia? That is the query to which this study addresses itself. In a comparative European perspective the right-wing débâcle in Scandinavia is surprising. Many of the conceivable determinants of Continental fascism were also present on the Scandinavian theater. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in particular were hard hit by the aftermath of the 'Black Thursday' on Wall Street in 1929. Unemployment peaked just as high in Denmark and Norway as in Germany and Finland, neighboring countries where fascism gained momentum. On top of this, the agricultural sector had been beset with difficulties ever since the recession of the early twenties. Common to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden was also the multiparty system with its built-in problems of ensuring stable and lasting coalition cabinets. - 7- Apparently, this explanatory framework on the rise of fascism needs to be qualified in order to account for the Scandinavian case(s). A three-way working-hypothesis guides our line of inquiry; (i) the Scandinavian economy went from bad to worse during the early thirties, which (ii) furthered a right-wing turn of the ideological climate, which (iii) was to be accommodated within the Conservative and Agrarian parties, and what sentiments among the electorate the fascist parties were cultivating, e.g., a distrust in the efficiency of parliamentary democracy, lost much—if not all—of their potential for growth in the wake of the Social Democratic-Agrarian fCrisis Agreements.1 All this leads us to the general assumption that the established political structure handled both the origins and expressions of the extreme right-wing challenge in a way that, metaphorically speaking, served to pull the rug from under the feet of the Scandinavian Nazi and semi-fascist parties. Politics does make a difference. While previous attempts at explaining the whys for the rise of fascism in Europe have tended to stress economic factors, this study puts emphasis on how the Scandinavian society responded politically when exposed to difficulties likely to foster discontent of the right-wing cut. And, knowing that the instances of economic crises not resulting in the appearance of extremist parties by far outnumber the reverse case, we believe that the already existing parties must hold much of their fortunes and misfortunes in their own hands. Thus, our framework draws heavily on what is known as the adaptation process in theories of social systems, cf., further 1.3 below.* Fascism did fail in Scandinavia—as well as in most of Europe— in the sense that none of these parties were to have much influence on, let alone within, the executive branch of government. This is not to say, though, that fascism as a political-sociological topic is irrelevant for Scandinavia. Most of the values and ideas that the extremists were to advance during the thirties were not novel to the Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes (see Chapter 3).