Kämpa Tillsammans, who are they?

This is what I translated from that wikipedia article. It's a bit rough, and there were a few words that I did not understand, so there are a couple of untranslated Swedish words in there.

I'm Norwegian so I can read and understand Danish and Swedish. I actually did not know them before someone mentioned them recently here. I haven't read any of their stuff yet, but they seem quite interesting especially since they're so close to home. And as far as I know there are no equivalent groups like Kampa Tilsammans in Norway, but then again I haven't lived in Norway for quite some time.

that would be excellent dude. you could post that wikipedia summary you did to the library as well, called "an introductino to Kampa Tilsammans" or something?

thanks!

they help edit this:
http://www.riff-raff.se/en/
don't know if they might have the interview there already?

nah just click create content and post it, we'll edit it and tidy there. thanks mate!

I am a member of Kämpa tillsammans! so feel free to ask me any questions you may have.

And a few other things:
Marcel is also a member, he have written some texts that is translated to english - as Hamburgers vs Value and the refusal/withdrawal stuff.

Khawaga - I was in norway 3 weeks ago and spoke for some people at Agitatoria about workplace investigations and blogging. The daily paper "klassekampen" made an interview with me. Its published in the Kim Müller blogg - http://kimmuller.wordpress.com/category/intervjuer/

On another note on the blog - the post about a waiter waiting table for the swedish king hit the top list for most viewed post that day (on wordpress swedish blogs)

There is some people in sweden that is working on an anthology with our texts.

Sure, do that.

maskade means "go-slow" or something like that. it was one of the words that I was unsure about. But go-slow is what Kim translated it as. I guess we just missed it when we went through the text.

You want to update John?

I'll read through the pamphlet and see if it's worth translating.

Someone submitted Hamburgers and Value, but we already have it. Need to merge those two and keep the old url.

John: Sorry, we got no logo or anything like that.

I am currently working with a blog that will be as an archive with all our texts (in particular those not written in swedish). Just give me a few days and it will be up. And a note of that, if anyone finds some texts from us thats not on the archive, please let me know, I know for sure that there is a least one text in greek on the internet and maybe some stuff in hindi as well, but i dont know how to find it.

I can go through some of our swedish texts as well and write a short introduction on them, so if I have some time to translate (even if me english isnt good enough i can help out) people can say what material would be interesting.

Samma fiender, samma kamp- is a booklet in swedish that is 40 pages, its takes up stuff like neoliberalism, the globalization of the economy and some crisis theory, and tries to make a more up-to-date analysis of the class composition, however, its already 11 years old.
http://www.motkraft.net/fil/25

And a note on Maskade - in swedish is a verb that is perhaps more widespread then go-slow, for example, maska kan be an individual action, you can "maska" on the football field, that would mean stalling or delaying the game. If you want to invent a new word it could be translated to "worming" - to act like a worm, moving very slowly. So i guess go-slow is the english term in this case?

I don't mind translating, so if any texts are selected I am more than willing to help.

Kämpa tillsammans

I will go thru some of the texts we have written, to show the different categories they fall into. And I will but some extra effort to explain the texts only publiced in swedish (as the ones that will follow).

The early texts
Samma fiender, samma kamp (same enemies, same struggle) was not the first text that was published, but it was the first we started working on and a longer booklet and our analysis gradually deepend and developed a lot during the work. In this text we introduced the concept of class composition to the swedish audience. We started working with the text as we felt the need to understand the new era that had occurred in sweden. The fat post-war years was finally over when the crisis hit sweden in the beginning of the 90s, this made the unemployment percentage quickly rise from about 2 to 10% (it also triggered the almost non-existing swedish extra-parliamentary movement to become a force to be reconned with). This crisis had of course widespread impact an all levels on swedish society, it almost enden wild cat strikes, made a much bigger part of the swedish working class “precarious”, and it set of violent right and left wing activity (political violence was very rare during previous decades). As we then said “the compromise between the national capitalists and the workers movement is over and reformisms is dead”. The Keynes-fordist mode of accumulation was over.

The text tried to explain the crisis in an larger, international context. The rise of “neoliberalism”, the reasons for capitalist crisis (we were a bit confused about this and contradicted ourselves a bit, adopting both a operaismo and systematical overproduction analysis). What happened with the crisis was that a new class composition occured, and we said that this will lead to that the working class struggles increasingly will happen outside the unions, and outside of the workplace. This was very confusing to many of the swedish left, where union struggle is used as a synonyme for workplace struggle. Opposing other swedish leftists, we said that the standard state on the workplace was not peace but war, that conflict was an everyday occurance. We made slogans like “the class struggle begins when you clock in” and something that have stayed with us ever since - “For the sum the capitalist pays in wage, he wants as much work and goods as possible – the worker on the other hand wants the maximum pay for as little work as possible, this “law” is universal, its relevant all the time and everywhere. This extends to every “extra “toilet break, every theft and negotiating, every speed-up and reprimand. This is the struggle between work and capital.”

We published two other important text in 1998 that can be seen as off-springs to the much longer booklet. Massmilitans i 1800-talets Sverige (Massmilitancy in 19th centuary Sweden) and Ingen fred i klasskriget – revolutionära perspektiv idag (No peace in the class war – revolutionary perspektiv today) was both historical articles that investigated the militant struggles of the swedish proles earlier in history. The logic behind this was the conclusion from Samma fiender, samma kamp – when the composition of the class will become more like the pre-fordist era, the struggles also have the possiblilites to take up some of the very effective earlier forms used before.

Massmilitans i 1800-talets Sverige – takes a deep look at the different riots and strikes that happened up until 1917 (when Sweden was on the brink of revolution). We tried to analyze the “bread riots” in particular, they often occurred on the years when there was starvation, Looking into how they were organized we was first surprised how carefully planned they were, and the fact that they were very “including” - almost the entire poor community took part. Basically people gathered a mob and walked around and decided what should be the price of bread or flour (looting occurred of course but wasn´t so general). We looking into the composition of the class in those years and how it was obvious that the lessons learned in the bread riots was carried over to the later strikes.

In Ingen fred... we went deeper into the concept of class composition and the “social factory” analysis started in Samma fiender and further analysed the swedish current situation, but perhaps the most interesting thing that is looked into is the register method. The register method was a form of struggle that was used among the anarcho-syndicalists in the first half of the 20th centuary. It was most widespread and succesful among the construction workers and lumberjack (in the “Battle of Los” 800 lumberjacks defeated a force of 1100 scabs). This method was made so that the workers agreed upon how much they wanted for a work (building a house for example) and that that rate was not negotiable. In some areas it worked well, the anarchosyndicalist builder generally got 30-40% more pay for a work then the social democratic union managed to negotiate. We say that this form of struggle had interesting similarities with the autoreduction struggles of the italian 60s and 70s (where people decided there own busfare and stuff) but also with the bread riots described in the Massmilitans-article. One thing that i find interesting is that the SAC have started using the register method last year, this time concerning work by illegal immigrants.

A rather odd and funny article that came 1998 is “if you want peace, prepare for war!” - its some critical notes on non-violent direct action based on some traditional marxist concepts. It takes up the “use-value of the activists” as it critises middleclass activists for not understanding that the reason for them not being beat up is that they are valuebale workforce. It leans heavily on Strange Victories by Midnight Notes.

In this period we defined ourselves as autonomous communists (the term “autonoma” in swedish is often used both for autonomists and the “black block” autonomuos movement).

Phew, that was a long post, I will continue later with telling more about the more recent texts if anyone finds it interesting.

Forgot to tell you Kim that I added it to libcom as well.

http://libcom.org/library/no-peace-class-war

That is really interesting. Have any info on this (I saw something on SAC's website but it was very short)? Swedish or English?

Khawaga: This page have tons of info in swedish (and some in castellano) - http://coopsite.sac.se/utanpapper/registret/
In english there is a short article about the recent struggles that mentions the register-method here at libcom. When it comes to autoreduction there is the struggles for fare-dodging (planka) and squatting.

Tacks - I wouldnt know if we embody the theory... I am not sure I understand your question really, but 3 of the text published in english are work place reports and they basically is about the actual struggles at work and at unemployment institution that we have taken part in. But of course we draw some general conclusions from the struggles we take part in, its not like the shit that happens at my work is any different from what happens to thousands of other place everyday. We are not sitting in some ivory towers studying the struggles of the working class with binoculars. The working class is the focus for both the theory and the practice I guess. I hope my answer makes some sense, feel free to ask more.

Thanks Kim and Kattmannen. I checked out the SAC site on the register method and it is very interesting stuff.

ronan: First on SAC and unions - we have a very pragmatic view on unions and not an "anti-union" stance, so we are union members (some SAC, some LO) and when we got problems at work that the union is able to solve using legal methods then we don´t decline those solutions. But our general view is that self-activity is the long-term strategy for a successful working class struggle (and that would mean no representatives). So we use what ever tactic is avaible to win a fight but have no illusions about the unions. And on a very concrete level our relationship with SAC is good, that is maybe not so strange since SAC even have pushed for non-union struggles and faceless resistance in it´s reorganization the last years. So basically we usually get along fine with the reorganizers and not so fine with the "party builders". We have spoken at SAC and SUF meetings at many occasions, the syndicalist press publish our articles and we stand in SAC picket lines. Some would say we have had influence in the reorganization of SAC but I wouid like to say that we have rather reach similar, but not exactly the same, viewpoints on class struggle on behalf of that we come from the same class struggle current - the class struggles that have developed since sweden have got a class composition with much higher unemployment ("the rise of the precariat" as some would put it). The newly published article is a bit about that - looking at what kind of struggles that occurred in history where the class composition was more similar to the present situation, and since the register and autoreduction is back on track I would say we were right

On the bigger issue of unions - as long as we will have to sell our work there will be unions, and I don´t really seem them as being revolutionary, but that doesn't mean they will be totally useless on a daily basis. The power of the class, both in the single workplace and in society at large, is still based on the self-activity of the class, and a successful struggle will result in unions or parties negotiating some reforms but since the basis of the reforms will still be the actual ongoing struggle I am not so bothered by the unions - as long as its member realise that they have achieved the results thru their own activity and not by some brilliant leaders.

And the last questions, which is very good indeed! I agree to some point, I don´t think the revolution will start just like that. I am not so sure it will mean big, formal organizations, organizations like workers council and strike committees occur in bigger fight and they are to some extent formal I guess, but they tend to dissolve themselves when their is no need for them and not form parties or unions (at least that is my understanding). I think mass organizing without formal leadership is very possible but also very hard. The single biggest example that I know of is from the Kamunist Kranti article Self Activity of Wage-Workers
Towards a Critique of Representation & Delegation, I include an interesting passage:

"With mounting legal dues and increasing hardships, workers had hesitatingly started looking for alternative courses of action. Initially a small group of workers in Sept.’96 had on their own demanded back wages from the state labour department officers. Slowly, in affinity groups of 5-8, workers complaints to the state officials increased. And very soon the working of the labour department and district administration was almost jammed when 300 small groups of workers separately started approaching the officers. Legal obligations of separate dates and hearings were done away with, but then talking to hundreds of workers at the same time was another impossibility. Like the management, the district officials desperately tried to foist leaders on workers, but failed. Faced by this stubborn refusal to accept anyone as leaders, district officials then tried their best toinstigate workers to violence. They failed again.

Another facet of this incident is that collecting a crowd by giving a single date to 300 affinity groups facilitates the spread and legitimization of the ageless rhetoric of unity and delegation (for negotiation with management and administration). This was attempted by the district administration. But an interesting metaphor to counter this arose from within the crowd outside the administration office. A worker responded to the call for “unity and delegation” by calling out that - “Bees united in a hive can easily be smoked off and their honey taken away. But if affinity groups of bees swarm about, no one dares to touch their honey”.

Then the management tried to create leaders and instigate strikes through summary dismissals of workers. But even when the number of dismissals reached a hundred, the workers neither made leaders nor took to violence.

With this stepping up of pressure by management, leaders and state officials, the workers of Jhalani Tools in August’97 started taking very simple steps to take their predicament to more than 300,000 co-workers in Faridabad & Delhi. Overcoming hesitation, fear & shame, some workers in small groups of 8-10 started standing along various roads during morning and evening shift hours with hand written placards. This was done to engage in discussions with workers of other factories without any intermediaries. They have been doing this daily since Aug’97."