Prehistoric
Times
Human life has existed continuously in Sweden
since the end of the last Ice Age more than 12,000 years ago. At first
men came to the area as small groups of nomadic hunters using implements
of bone and flint. About 2500 b.c. agriculture and cattle-raising were
introduced, and with these came a more settled life and an increase in
population, especially in the region of Lake Mälar and in the southwest.
Bronze was used on a large scale about a thousand years later and was associated
with the emergence of a culture dominated by a noble class. In the middle
of the first millennium b.c. the Bronze Age culture declined, but at the
same time iron implements began to appear. At first these were imported,
but later Swedish smiths manufactured them from deposits of iron found
in bogs. Trade with Mediterranean peoples developed again when the Romans
extended their power northward early in the current era. A period of unrest
in Sweden followed the collapse of the Roman Empire. The unrest has been
traced to the emergence of the first identifiable state in Sweden¾the
kingdom of the Svear in the Mälaren region, with its center near the
present town of Uppsala. By the end of the eighth century, Svear kings
appear to have extended their rule over much of southern Sweden and established
settlements on the southeast coast of the Baltic.
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The
Viking Age
The settlements of the Svear kingdom formed
bases for the advance of the Vikings. Some Swedes took part in Danish and
Norwegian raids on settlements in western Europe, but the main energies
of the country's merchant warriors were directed along the rivers
of Russia in search of contact with the rich Arab world. The merchant warriors
established a dynasty in Kiev, which ruled much of European Russia until
the coming of the Mongols. In the 11th century Scandinavia returned to
its former isolation. By then Svear kings of Uppsala ruled all the settled
areas of modern Sweden (see Table 1)
except the southern and western coastal regions, which remained under Danish
rule until the 17th century. The first Christian missionary, Anschar (Ansgar),
came to Sweden in 829, but it was not until the end of the 11th century
that King Olaf Skötkonung was baptized and the great pagan temple
at Uppsala was destroyed.
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The death about 1060 of King Olaf, the last
of the Svear kings, was followed by more than a century of strife among
contenders for the throne. During this period, Eric Jeduarsson became king.
According to legend Eric led a crusade into Finland, which became part
of the Swedish kingdom. Eric, who was slain by a Danish prince in 1160,
became the patron saint of Sweden after his death. The last king in the
dynasty of St. Eric was Eric Ericsson. During Eric's reign, the dominant
political figure was the king's brother-in-law, Jarl (Earl) Birger, who
did much to encourage commercial ties with the rest of northern Europe.
Jarl Birger also built forts around the coast to protect it from pirates,
and one of these forts became the nucleus of the town of Stockholm. Upon
the death of Eric, Jarl Birger's son Waldemar (Valdemar) became king in
1250, beginning the Folkung dynasty. Jarl Birger continued to rule the
country as regent until his death in 1266. Nine years later Waldemar was
deposed by his brother, Magnus. Magnus strengthened the power of the crown
at the expense of the nobility, but he also helped to define that class
by granting it privileges such as exemption from taxation in exchange for
military service. Sweden, however, never had a fully developed feudal system,
and its peasants were never reduced to serfdom.
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The
14th Century
In 1290 Magnus was succeeded by his son,
Birger. Birger and his brothers quarreled, and in 1319 Birger's three-year-old
nephew, Magnus, who was already king of Norway, was elected to the throne.
During the reign of Magnus, the old provincial law codes were replaced
with one code for the whole country, and the island of Gotland, with its
great trading center of Visby, was lost to the Danes. Magnus was finally
overthrown by the nobility. The overthrow of Magnus was supported by a
remarkable figure of the period, St. Bridget, who founded a religious order
that still survives. In her Revelations, many of them of a political nature,
St. Bridget provided Sweden with its greatest piece of medieval literature.
Albert of Mecklenburg succeeded Magnus, but he was soon deposed when he
tried to seize power from the noble magnates. The magnates invited Margaret,
the widow of Magnus Ericsson's son, and regent to the king of Norway and
Denmark, to choose a sovereign. Because Margaret's son had died, her great-nephew,
Eric of Pomerania, became king of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. In 1397
Eric was crowned in Kalmar, from which the new Union of Kalmar took its
name.
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As regent, Margaret ruled Scandinavia until
her death in 1412. When her great-nephew, Eric, came of age to rule, he
made himself unpopular in Sweden by interfering with the rights of the
nobles and by involving Sweden in his quarrels with the Hanseatic League
of northern Germany. In 1432 a revolt of the lower classes, led by Engelbrekt
Engelbrektsson, broke out in the iron-mining district of central Sweden,
whose exports were being hampered by a Hanse blockade. After the uprising
Eric fled the Swedish throne and lost the thrones of Norway and Denmark.
His nephew Christopher of Bavaria was chosen to succeed him in all three
countries of the union. Christopher died eight years later, and the Swedish
magnates then chose one of their own number, Karl Knutsson, while the Danes
and Norwegians elected Christian I of Oldenburg king. Karl, who held the
title Charles VIII, died in 1470 and his nephew Sten Sture made himself
regent. Christian I tried to win the Swedish throne, but he was defeated
by Sture's army at the battle of Brunkeberg in 1471. Until 1520 Sweden
was effectively ruled by a series of regents. The last of these, Sten Sture
the Younger, quarrelled with and imprisoned the powerful archbishop of
Uppsala, Gustavus Trolle. Trolle sought revenge and persuaded Christian
II, the new king of Norway and Denmark, to invade Sweden. Christian II
defeated Sture, entered Stockholm in triumph, and was acknowledged king.
Encouraged by Trolle, Christian II permitted the execution of 82 nationalist
leaders loyal to Sture in what became known as the Stockholm blood-bath.
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Vasa
Period
Further persecution of Sture's adherents
led to a rebellion in the province of Dalarna (Dalecarlia). The revolt
spread, and soon Christian II had lost control throughout Sweden. In 1523
Gustavus Vasa, the chosen leader of the insurgents, was elected king of
an independent Sweden, and the Union of Kalmar was finally brought to an
end. Meanwhile, in Denmark, civil war broke out when the nobility and clergy
deposed Christian II in favor of his uncle, Frederick, duke of Holstein.
Frederick and Gustavus Vasa joined forces to defeat Christian II. These
wars forced Gustavus into debt, and he began to look upon the great wealth
of the Swedish Catholic Church as a source of revenue. By this time the
Reformation had reached Sweden, where the Lutheran reformers were led by
Olavus (Olaus) Petri, who helped to translate the Bible into Swedish. The
Catholic Church in Sweden had supported Christian II in his attempt to
rule Sweden, and Gustavus used the Reformation to curb the power of the
church. In 1527 he persuaded the Riksdag of Västerås, the estates
of nobles, clergy, burghers, and freehold peasants, to confiscate most
of the Church lands. The Riksdag also made bishops dependent on the king.
Gustavus patronized the Lutheran reformers and appointed a new archbishop
to replace the powerful Gustavus Trolle. Gustavus faced considerable aristocratic
opposition to his ecclesiastical policies and centralization efforts. Despite
a series of rebellions, Gustavus was strong enough by 1544 to proclaim
the Swedish crown hereditary in the house of Vasa.
Gustavus was succeeded by his ambitious
son, Eric XIV. Eric sought to take advantage of the collapse of the Livonian
state, formerly ruled by the Teutonic Knights in the southeast Baltic,
to create an empire giving Sweden control of lucrative Russian trade routes.
This brought about war in 1563 with Denmark, which had similar designs.
Before the war ended, Eric, who had become mentally unbalanced, was deposed
by his half-brother John, who became John III. After concluding peace with
Denmark in 1570, John III attempted to bring about a reconciliation with
the papacy. The Pope refused to agree to John's terms, but John, who had
married a Polish princess, allowed his son Sigismund to be brought up as
a Catholic and secured Sigismund's election to the Polish throne. John's
Catholicizing policy was opposed by his brother Charles. After John's death,
the Lutheran Confession of Augsburg was accepted in Sweden at the Convention
of Uppsala. Charles then deposed his nephew Sigismund and became king in
1604 as Charles IX.
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Gustavus
Adolphus
In 1611 war broke out again with Denmark,
and in the midst of the war, Charles IX died. His young son Gustavus achieved
peace with the Danes by paying a heavy ransom for return of the vital
fortress of Älvsborg, near the site where the city of Göteborg
was soon to grow up. Gustavus then turned his attention to Estonia, which
Sweden had long been defending against Russian attacks. After forcing the
tsar to recognize his claims to the province and to Ingria, which linked
Estonia to Finland, Gustavus invaded Livonia, which was held by Sigismund,
who still claimed his right to the Swedish throne. In 1618 the Thirty Years
War broke out in Germany, and the hard-pressed Protestants turned to the
Scandinavian monarchs for help against the Catholic emperor. In 1630, after
concluding a truce with Poland, Gustavus landed in Pomerania. In 1631 he
defeated the Catholics at Breitenfeld in Saxony and marched into southern
Germany, but in the following year Gustavus was killed at the battle of
Lutzen.
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Queen
Christina
After the death of Gustavus, Axel Oxenstierna,
leader of the nobles, governing on behalf of Christina, the six-year-old
daughter of Gustavus, continued the war in alliance with France. During
the long peace negotiations of 1643, Sweden invaded Denmark, which had
been defeated earlier by the emperor's forces, and forced the surrender
of Gotland and the province of Halland. By the Peace of Westphalia in 1648,
Sweden also acquired Western Pomerania and control of the mouths of the
Elbe and Weser rivers. Sweden's remarkable success in the Thirty Years'
War may be partially attributed to reforms instituted by Gustavus and the
nobility, including the creation of an efficient central bureaucracy and
the reorganization of local government under county governors. The Riksdag
was provided for in the constitution for the first time, and the wealth
of the country was increased through encouragement of copper and iron exports.
Gustavus also revived the moribund University of Uppsala with generous
grants from the royal estates. After Christina came of age in 1644, she
pushed Oxenstierna to one side and assumed power herself. But in 1654,
for reasons that remain obscure, she renounced the throne in favor of her
cousin Charles of Zweibrücken.
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Charles
X
Trained as a warrior, Charles X was determined
to end the threat from Poland, which was still ruled by a Vasa. He also
sought to extend Sweden's control along the southern shore of the Baltic.
While Charles was occupied in Poland, Denmark declared war on Sweden. Charles
hurried home and forced King Christian IV to make peace and to cede the
Danish provinces on the eastern side of the Øresund. Not content
with these gains, Charles renewed the war, but in 1660 he died suddenly.
The regents who ruled for his young son Charles XI made peace and managed
to preserve most of Charles' conquests.
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Charles
XI
The almost continuous warfare since the
beginning of the century strained the monarchy's financial resources and
forced the regents to sell or grant away a large part of the lands that
Gustavus Vasa had taken from the Church. Despite the sale of crown lands,
the regents had to seek subsidies from foreign powers. A subsidy treaty
with France involved Sweden in a war with Brandenburg and Denmark in 1674,
and all Sweden's German possessions were occupied. With French support,
Sweden managed to extricate itself from the war in 1679 without serious
loss. By then, Charles XI had gained absolute power with the help of the
lesser nobles, the burghers, and the peasants, all of whom were jealous
of the wealth and influence acquired by the regents. Charles pursued a
"reduction policy," confiscating most of the royal estates lost under the
regency and thereby reducing the power of the aristocracy. The great increase
in revenue that the "reduction policy" brought to the crown made it unnecessary
to ask the Riksdag to grant any additional taxes, and the estates continued
to meet only infrequently. Charles' policy of neutrality helped Swedish
merchants capture much of the trade through the Baltic during the last
two decades of the 17th century. The most important items of this trade
were Swedish iron and tar and Russian hemp and flax, essential for the
navies of the great European powers.
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Great
Northern War
The accession of Charles XII to the throne
at the age of 15 encouraged the rulers of Russia, Denmark, and Saxony-Poland
to form an offensive alliance against Sweden. Despite his youth, Charles
XII proved to be a brilliant military leader, and he soon forced Denmark
out of the war and defeated the Russians outside Narva. He then turned
south, put his own candidate on the Polish throne, and compelled Augustus
of Saxony to make peace in 1706. His subsequent Russian campaign, however,
ended disastrously at Poltava in the Ukraine in 1709. His army was forced
to surrender, and he fled to Turkey. For five years, Charles tried in vain
to persuade the Turkish sultan to invade Russia. After the Swedish defeat
at Poltava, a coalition against Sweden was formed by Prussia, Hanover,
Denmark, and Russia as well as Saxony, whose former ruler had regained
the Polish throne from Charles' candidate. Soon after, Charles returned
to his realm, but by that time he had lost all his German territory. Charles
fought on until he was killed during a campaign in Norway in 1718. Charles'
sister Ulrika Eleanora and her husband Frederick of Hesse won the crown
but only at the price of granting a constitution that placed political
power in the noble-dominated Riksdag. The war ended with a series of treaties
in 1720-1721 depriving Sweden of all its overseas possessions except Finland
and part of Pomerania.
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Era
of Liberty
Under the guidance of Chancellor Arvid Horn,
who avoided foreign entanglements, Sweden recovered rapidly from the ravages
of war. A party of nobles, who called themselves the Hats, dreamed of revenge
on Russia with the help of France, and in 1738 they captured power in the
Riksdag and forced Horn to retire. In 1741 the Hats launched a war against
Russia that proved to be disastrous, and they were able to make peace in
1743 only by agreeing to accept a Russian nominee, Adolphus Frederick of
Holstein, as heir to the Swedish throne. The Hats managed to retain
power for some time, but their position weakened when economic difficulties
beset the country. Their rivals, the Caps, were strongly represented in
the non-noble estates and gained control of the royal council in 1765.
Attempts by the Caps to deal with inflation were unsuccessful, and their
social program, aimed at reducing the privileges of the nobility, led to
bitter struggles.
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Gustavus
III
When Adolphus Frederick died in 1771 there
was widespread support for political change to restore tranquility to the
country. Gustavus III, son of Adolphus, took advantage of the situation
and staged a coup d'etat in 1772. Gustavus forced the estates to consent
to a new constitution reducing their powers. Early in his reign, Gustavus
carried through many important reforms: the quality of the judiciary and
the civil service was improved, the currency was stabilized, and the defenses
of the realm were strengthened. But the king's growing absolutism aroused
opposition, especially among the nobles, and eventually a clique of nobles
plotted to do away with the king. Gustavus was mortally wounded at a masked
ball in 1792, an event immortalized by Verdi in his opera Un Ballo in Maschera
.
The death of Gustavus III marks the end
of a great age of Swedish culture. The naturalist Carl von Linné
(Linnaeus) laid the basis for the modern system of botanical nomenclature;
the scientist turned mystic Emanuel Swedenborg founded his New Church;
the sculptor Johan Sergel executed work in neoclassical style as fine as
anything to be found in Europe at the time; and the poet-musician Karl
Bellman wrote his famous cycle of poems, Fredman's Epistles . Gustavus
III took great interest in his country's artistic life, particularly in
opera and drama. To counter French influence and the growing use of the
French language among educated Swedes, Gustavus wrote plays in Swedish
and founded the Swedish Academy to encourage use of the Swedish language.
Gustavus IV, son of Gustavus III, lacked
his father's abilities. In 1809, after Russia had occupied Finland pursuant
to Czar Alexander I's agreement with Napoleon at Tilsit, Gustavus IV was
deposed by his nobles. His uncle Charles was elected to succeed him after
agreeing to a new constitution that restored the balance of power between
the Riksdag and the crown. Since Charles had no children, the estates chose
one of Napoleon's marshals, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, as heir to the Swedish
crown in hopes of obtaining French help in recovering Finland, then a Russian
grand duchy. Bernadotte arrived in Sweden in 1810 and adopted the name
Charles John. He then proceeded to arrange an alliance, concluded in 1812,
with Russia against France. The loss of Finland was to be compensated for
by taking Norway from Denmark, then allied with the French. After Charles
John forced the Danes to cede Norway to Sweden, the Norwegians proclaimed
their independence, but finally agreed to a dynastic union allowing them
a degree of autonomy.
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The
19th Century
During the peaceful years after the Napoleonic
Wars, Sweden's economy slowly developed and a middle class, favorable to
liberal ideas, gradually became influential. Charles John, who became king
in 1818, strongly opposed middle-class demands for more economic freedom
and political power, but his son Oscar I was more sympathetic to these
demands. While the political system changed little during Oscar's reign,
the shackles imposed on industry by the guild system were removed. Oscar
also sympathized with the Scandinavianist movement, which sought to bind
Sweden, Norway, and Denmark more closely together in the face of threats
from German nationalism and Russian absolutism. Sweden sent military aid
to the Danes during the struggle with Germany over Schleswig-Holstein in
1848-1850. Scandinavianism was to some extent a manifestation of the Romantic
Movement, which brought with it a revival of interest in Swedish cultural
life about 1810. Outstanding representatives of the Scandinavianist movement
were the poet Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846), later bishop of Växjö,
and the poet and historian Erik Geijer (1783-1847).
By the late 1860's there was great dissatisfaction
with the old four-estate Riksdag, and in 1866 it was replaced by a modern
bicameral diet. Conservative bureaucrats dominated the first chamber and
farmers made up most of the second chamber, which was elected on a narrow
franchise.
At the end of the 1870's, large-scale importation
of Russian and North American grain into Europe drove down prices and caused
considerable hardship among Swedish farmers, who still formed an overwhelming
majority of the country's inhabitants. Economic difficulties, together
with the land hunger caused by a population increase since the 18th century,
resulted in a great emigration in the late 1880's. Emigration slowed in
the 1890's as more jobs became available in industry. After the mid-19th
century, technical inventions and improved communications permitted exploitation
of the great forests in the north of Sweden and of the iron ore deposits
in Lapland. With industrialization came the growth of a working class responsive
to the doctrine of socialism. The Social Democratic Party, formed in 1889,
won its first seat in the Riksdag in 1896. The membership of dissenting
religious groups grew after the removal of old legal restrictions aimed
at preserving the monopoly of the state church. The temperance movement
also gained many adherents.
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Early
20th Century
At the end of the 19th century, relations
between Sweden and Norway became increasingly strained. In 1905 Norway
declared its independence. About this same time, a true party system began
to emerge in Sweden, and with it came progress toward the establishment
of parliamentary government. The Liberal Party was formed in 1900, and
its leader, Karl Staaff, was called upon five years later to form a cabinet.
The land-shortage crisis had been largely overcome, thanks partly to development
of cooperative dairy farming. The fluctuations of the business cycle, however,
led to conflict between business and labor, culminating in a general strike
in 1909.
Sweden remained neutral during World War I and was not
seriously affected by the war until the Germans began unrestricted submarine
warfare in 1917. This led to shortages of food and fuel, and rationing
was introduced. After the war, a series of political reforms widened the
electorate to include nearly all adult men and women.
In 1914 the Social Democrats became the
largest party in the Riksdag's second chamber, and in 1920 their leader,
Hjalmar Branting, formed a government. Branting's government lasted only
a few months, and throughout the 1920's no party was able to secure a majority
large enough to rule effectively. Despite political instability, the country
prospered and Sweden became one of Europe's richer powers.
In the early 1930's Sweden was hit by the world depression.
Serious unemployment strengthened the Social Democrats, who came into office
under Per Albin Hansson in 1932. Lacking a parliamentary majority, they
made a pact in 1933 with the Agrarian Party, promising to help agriculture
in exchange for support for social legislation.
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World
War II and Postwar Era
Although neutral, Sweden was more involved
in World War II than it had been in World War I. Swedish volunteers fought
against Soviet troops in the Russo-Finnish War in 1940. The Hansson government,
representing all parties except the Communists, reluctantly allowed German
troops to pass through Sweden to Norway. But Sweden also aided the
Danish and Norwegian resistance, and the Swedish Red Cross helped save
many Scandinavians in German camps. Raoul Wallenberg, a young member of
one of Sweden's wealthiest families, played an heroic role in the closing
months of World War II. Working out of the Swedish Legation in Budapest,
Wallenberg managed to save some 100,000 Hungarian Jews from Nazi extermination
by distributing Swedish passports, by operating "safe houses" under the
Swedish flag, and by bribing, bluffing, and threatening German officials.
Sweden joined the United Nations, as it
had joined the League of Nations a quarter of a century before. The onset
of the cold war severely tested Sweden's strict nonalignment policy. In
1948-1949 Sweden tried unsuccessfully to form a military alliance with
Denmark and Norway, but when those nations joined NATO, Sweden, fearing
that closer ties with the Western bloc might give the Soviet Union an excuse
to absorb Finland, did not follow them.
Political life in the 1960's and 1970's
revolved mainly around domestic issues. The high taxes imposed to pay for
greatly extended welfare services were the biggest issue. In the late 1970's
a new set of ecological issues, especially nuclear power, became important,
and controversies diverged from the traditional socialist vs. non-socialist
lines. Thus the Center and Communist parties favored speedy abandonment
of nuclear energy, the Liberals and Moderates favored continued reliance,
and the Social Democrats were divided.
In the 1968 elections the Social Democrats won majorities
in both chambers of the Riksdag for the first time since 1940. This event,
together with the replacement in October 1969 of Tage Erlander, prime minister
since 1946, by the vigorous young Olof Palme, set the stage for more radical
policies. In the 1970 elections the Social Democrats failed to carry their
majority into a reformed single-chamber Riksdag, but they continued governing
with the support of the Communists. In 1976 a coalition of the Center,
Moderate, and Liberal parties won a narrow majority and formed a government
with Center Party leader Thorbjörn Fälldin as prime minister.
In 1982 the Social Democrats won national elections with a small plurality,
and Olof Palme again became prime minister. For the Social Democrats, the
elections represented a vindication of their social policies.
By the early 1980's Swedish political debate
had come to focus on such concerns as a near-cessation of economic growth;
Sweden's decreasingly competitive position in world markets; the pressures
of inflation and budget deficits; and the emergence, for the first time
since the 1930's, of enough unemployment (4 percent in 1982) to cause social
problems. The Palme government, backed by the unions, pressed its "Third
Way" program between communism and capitalism with annual levies on profits
and wages. These went into 24 regional "wage-earner funds" that were used
to buy common stock in private firms for the benefit of labor.
In February 1986 Olof Palme was shot and
killed on a Stockholm street. Sweden, proud of its open society in which
leaders could mingle freely with the public, was deeply shocked. In 1989,
three months after his conviction in the case, a drifter was released on
appeal when the investigation was shown to have been partly fraudulent.
No other suspect emerged, and the justice system was widely criticized.
Ingvar Carlsson, Palme's deputy and successor, faced growing labor strife
and a scandal over foreign arms sales. Environmental concerns grew when
fish and seals turned up dead on Sweden's coasts in 1988, and after Carlsson's
government was returned it committed the nation to lower emissions of greenhouse-causing
gases.
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Integrating
with Europe
Sweden's watershed year came in 1990 as
a world recession began. Near-full employment had led some firms to pay
bonuses to retain workers, eroding cherished wage parities. This development,
coupled with a high rate of worker absenteeism, further hurt productivity,
and industrial employment fell 27 percent in 1989-1992. In a major philosophical
shift, the Social Democrats cut back social spending and state jobs. Sweden
opened up to foreign investment and in July 1991 applied for membership
in the EC. Voters that fall gave the Social Democrats the least support
in almost 60 years, and a four-party nonsocialist coalition took power
under Carl Bildt of the Moderate (Conservative) Party. Bildt further cut
social spending, but as unemployment topped 7 percent in 1993 large sums
were allotted to worker retraining and to faltering banks
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