Carl Rudolf Löwstedt: the first Swedish democrat?

This blog is part of a series on 'Democratic Identity in the Age of Revolutions'. Click here to see other posts in the series.

In 1867, a Swedish newspaper mockingly commented on the overuse of the latest buzzword. Every liberal-minded person wanted to be a ‘democrat’, endowing the word with so many different meanings that it had become all-encompassing and practically meaningless: ‘There is nothing more elastic than the word “democratic” in the vocabulary of modern politics.’ Indeed, the newspaper editors exclaimed, even the Egyptian Sphinx had now become a democrat! This had not always been so. Before the 1840s, the labels ‘democrat’ and ‘democratic’ were rarely used in Sweden, and when they were, it was either pejoratively or exclusively within elite circles. How, then, did the concept of democracy become widely adopted as a political identity in nineteenth-century Sweden? In this post, I will explore this process by examining the career of Carl Rudolf Löwstedt (1820-1904), arguably one of the first Swedes to affirm his political identity as a ‘democrat’.

The death of Löwstedt’s father, a court painter, was the first step in what would lead to his four-decade career of political activism. Aged only nine years old, the loss plunged Löwstedt and his family into financial distress. Because his family could not afford the school fees, Löwstedt spent only one year at school (thanks to a charity) before becoming a tailor’s apprentice. While lacking formal schooling, his connection with this trade offered him a lifelong community and important connections; it also enabled him to undertake a journeyman’s travels, a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages, which would form the foundation of his own political identify. He left Sweden at nineteen and worked his way through the German states and Switzerland until he reached Paris in 1843.

When he returned to Sweden three years later, Löwstedt had honed his tailoring skills, mastered French, picked up a political ideology, learnt to run an association, and become part of a large international radical network. Of particular importance was his personal acquaintance with Étienne Cabet, the messiah-like leader of the Icarian communist movement in Paris. Unlike Marxist communism, which viewed religion as a source of oppression, the Icarians saw religion as a resource to reshape society in the name of equality. Communism, in this vein, was about living like the first Christians — indeed, Jesus himself had been a communist! Löwstedt adopted this identity wholeheartedly. He also established connections with three other Swedish communist journeymen (one of whom was also a member of the ‘League of the Just’ – a Christan, communist, international revolutionary organisation - in London). In 1846, they returned to Sweden, intent on reforming a society dominated by a conservative monarchy. In particular, they wanted full citizenship, defined as the right to participate in national elections. The privilege depended on achieving the rank of master but this path was increasingly unattainable, and many journeymen found themselves permanently relegated to the position of wage workers.

Löwstedt did not immediately adopt the label democrat. Rather, at this early stage of his political career, he identified himself as a communist. Upon his return, he engaged in a flurry of activities to promote this cause and was instrumental in bringing both Icarian and Marxist communism to Sweden. In 1847 he established a ‘Scandinavian Society’ together with other radical workers. Ostensibly a fraternal and educational society, this was a cover and base for recruitment for a secret communist organisation. Löwstedt also led the work of translating communist and socialist literature into Swedish, and published a Swedish Communist credo that same year. He was probably one of the anonymous translators of Marx’s and Engels’ Communist Manifesto into Swedish, published in December 1848. It was largely true to the original, although notably the key phrase ‘Proletarians of all countries, unite!’ was translated as ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God!’.

Despite this burst of radical activity, the attempt to build a popular movement for reform never took off. Still intent on achieving full citizenship for workers, he now changed tactics. Looking for a wider appeal he joined forces with the socialist student Fredrik Borg, who became a lifelong friend and ally. Inspired by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's anarchistic socialism, Borg moved from Lund to Stockholm in the Autumn of 1847, together with two friends, intent on becoming leaders of a national movement for parliamentary reform. Out of their alliance, ‘Arbetareföreningen i Stockholm’, was founded between the years 1849-1850, a society open to all workers, with the Norwegian Thrane movement as a key inspiration. Borg launched the newspaper Reform as the voice of the new society, while Löwstedt, after an internal power struggle, emerged as the leader of the organisation’s day-to-day business. This new society was initially successful. Membership increased rapidly within a few months from 90 members to around 300.

The Old Town in Stockholm, the area in which Löwstedt lived and worked for much of his political career.

The first affirmation of democracy in Swedish history might have been not so much of an act of defiance against an authoritarian regime as a compromise. The society officially adopted the label ‘democrats’ for themselves following a legal offensive against the Arbetarföreningen by the authorities. Borg was arrested for blasphemy on 16 May 1850, with the prosecutor urging capital punishment. Although eventually acquitted, the lengthy legal proceedings, during which Löwstedt and 56 other participants were interrogated by police, had a chilling effect on the movement. Borg and his fellow students left the society, and membership was reduced to a core of perhaps 40 individuals led by Löwstedt. It was in this context that Löwstedt and the remaining members adopted the label ‘democrat’.

Löwstedt, may have adopted a democratic identity as a defensive move, but it was not merely a front. For him and the Arbetarföreningen, this concept offered a terrain upon which new alliances could be built. Unlike other labels, like ‘proletarian’, ‘democrat’ offered a more inclusive identity that could unite diverse groups of workers and cultivate support from more well-off, liberal reformers. For Arbetarförenignen the choice of a democratic identity helped position them against their main rival for working class support, Franz Sjöström, a self-described socialist whose deeply antisemitic rhetoric Löwstedt opposed.

‘Democrat’ may have been a safer and less tainted identity, but Löwstedt incorporated into it a highly radical political agenda. In October 1850, Arbetarföreningen launched a new paper called Demokraten (The Democrat) as their platform. The society defined a ‘democrat’ åas a supporter of universal male suffrage and religious tolerance, committed to peaceful reform achieved through the ‘enlightenment’ of the working classes. While these goals may now seem innocuous, they were made in a society dominated by a conservative monarchy backed by the state church. This made the agenda of Löwstedt and his fellow workers an outright threat to the entire political order. Conservatives at the time vilified Arbetarföreningen in a vitriolic smear campaign, branding them as dangerous revolutionaries and ‘parasites.’

The members’ faith in the subjective experience of democracy is striking: the society did not openly link their definition of democracy with communism, but the influence of Icarianism remained strong, particularly in its emphasis on being animated by the true message of the holy scripture. Democracy was conceptualised as a means of achieving the salvation of mankind. Indeed, as one article ostensibly written by a female democrat explained, democracy was ‘a religion of love’. Love, certainly, was praised as the defining experience and motivation of the movement. Underlying this conceptualisation of democracy lay members’ experiences as journeymen in Paris. The Democrat explained democracy as a collective undertaking, in which workers from many different trades and backgrounds forged a bond of brotherly love through participation in associations. This brotherhood of workers was the future promised but unrealized by the 1848 revolution. 

Achieving democracy, in other words, was not merely about implementing legislative reform. As The Democrat explained, creating a democracy was to bring ‘the hopes and passions of the people’ into the political system. They sought to achieve this by replicating the spirit of the French working associations in Sweden and establishing the society as a ‘second home’ for its members. Workers could come after working hours and learn to cultivate a sense of brotherly love, equality, and unity by their desire to achieve citizenship. The emphasis on unity and refinement of feeling spurned Franz Sjöberg’s antisemitic socialism, which they regarded as hateful and demagogical. Arbetarföreningen also mirrored the political system they wished to create, with the board chosen through elections where every male member had one vote by secret ballot. To support political education efforts were made to create a library of newspapers and other political literature for its members. Female participation in the meetings of the society was encouraged to promote women’s education. Women were also given a discount on the subscription fee for the library. At the society’s launch party, a proposal to welcome women as full members was discussed, but no decision was made — tellingly, the question was deferred and never raised again. Running The Democrat proved a major undertaking for the society, since it was supposed to be written collectively by all members, and its poor editor, Frans Herman Widstrand, staggered under the workload generated by such an unwieldy process. Despite such difficulties, their paper achieved a respectable circulation of about 1000 weekly copies.

Vignette used by The Democrat. The slogan of the 1848 French revolution, ‘Freedom, equality, brotherhood’, sits above a hopeful image of a just and equal society in which the profits of new technology would benefit all. Digitised by National Library of Sweden.

Success was short-lived: in May 1851, the registered publisher of The Democrat, Adolf Petterson, was arrested and sentenced to exile for blasphemy following an article questioning the feasibility of Jesus transporting his earthly body to heaven during the Ascension. The last edition of The Democrat was published on 15 September 1851, after which the society fell silent. With the repression of the Thranite movement in Norway, the fall of the French Second Republic, and the dissolution of the London communists, Löwstedt and his fellow democrats also lost the international connections that had sustained them. Some members left for the U.S., but Löwstedt remained in Stockholm. Having failed to obtain citizenship through reform of the political system, he appears to have turned to working hard to achieve it from within. In 1858, he finally obtained the right to participate in national elections by obtaining the status of master tailor and burgher of Stockholm.

Löwstedt's decision to adopt a democratic identity in the early 1850s ultimately proved an unsuccessful attempt to disguise his more radical commitments. Two decades later, he again embraced a democratic identity, this time by joining the leftist ‘New Liberal Society.’ Löwstedt now became a movement veteran and campaign agent for a new generation of radical leaders who identified themselves as representatives of a ‘democratic party.’ Dissatisfied with the results of the 1866 Reform Act, which was designed to preserve the social and political order, the New Liberals began campaigning for further radical reform. This time they were also backed by a nationwide popular movement, as ‘Democratic Societies’ were formed across the country to support franchise reform. Löwstedt continued this work until 1881, after which he largely withdrew from politics.

As Löwstedt’s career illustrates, the adaptation of a democratic political identity in Sweden was not a linear story of progress towards the birth of modern politics. Throughout his career, Löwstedt remained consistent in his political beliefs; he never disavowed his communism and remained committed to the political inclusion of workers. Yet his democratic identity appears to have been a label he used, shed and reassumed according to the changing political climate. Nevertheless, his career does illustrate a broader cultural change. When he adopted the label ‘democrat’ in the early 1850s, he was ostracised for the choice. While the meaning of ‘democrat’ remained contested, by the late 1860s, it had become a positive identity that members of both the elite and the broader population eagerly claimed as a means of promoting franchise reform.

Alvar Blomgren, Stockholm University, Sweden