Tage Erlander
Tage Fritjof Erlander was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden and leader of the Social Democratic Party from 1946 to 1969. During his record-long premiership, Erlander was an architect of the "Swedish Model" and oversaw a major expansion of the welfare state, marked by social equality, economic growth, and the development of extensive public services. Referred to as "Sweden’s longest prime minister" for both his towering height and his unprecedented 23-year tenure as head of government, he was known for his moderation, pragmatism, self-ironic humour, and modesty.
Born into poverty in Ransäter, Erlander later studied at Lund University. He was elected to Lund's municipal council in 1930 and, in 1932, was elected as a Member of the Riksdag. Appointed as a member of the World War II coalition government in 1944, Erlander rose unexpectedly to the leadership upon the death of Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson in October 1946, maintaining the position of the Social Democrats as the dominant party in the country. Known for his moderation and pragmatism, Erlander often sought approval from the liberal-conservative opposition for his policies, de facto dropping all pretences of wide-scale nationalizations whilst introducing reforms such as universal health insurance, pension additions, and a growing public sector, although stopping short of raising tax levels above the average OECD levels at the time. Until the 1960s, income taxes were lower in Sweden than in the United States.
For most of his time in power, Erlander ran a minority government of the Social Democrats. From 1951 to 1957, he instead ran a coalition with the Farmers' League. For most of his time in office, the Social Democrats held a majority of seats in the upper house, allowing Erlander to remain in power following the 1956 general election, when the right-wing parties won a majority. A snap election in 1958 then reversed this result.
In foreign policy, he initially sought an alliance of Nordic countries, but without success, instead maintaining strict neutrality while spending heavily on the military. Erlander's mandate coincided with the post–World War II economic expansion, in Sweden known as the record years, in which Sweden saw its economy grow to one of the ten strongest in the world, and subsequently joined the G10.
In the 1968 general election, he won his seventh and most successful victory, with the Social Democrats winning an absolute majority of the popular vote and seats in the lower chamber. Erlander resigned the following year during a process of major constitutional reform, and was succeeded by his long-time protégé and friend Olof Palme. He continued to serve as a member of the Riksdag until he resigned in 1973. Afterwards, Erlander continued to speak on political matters and published his memoirs. He died in 1985. He was considered one of the most popular leaders in the world by the end of the 1960s, and one of the most popular prime ministers in the history of Sweden.
Early life and education
Tage Fritjof Erlander was born in Ransäter, Värmland County on June 13, 1901, on the top floor of the house today known as Erlandergården. His parents were Alma Erlander and Erik Gustaf Erlander. Erik Gustaf was a teacher and cantor who married Alma Nilsson in 1893. Erlander had an older brother, Janne Gustaf Erlander, an older sister, Anna Erlander, and a younger sister, Dagmar Erlander. Erlander's paternal grandfather, Anders Erlandsson, worked as a smith at an ironworks, and his maternal grandfather was a farmer who held a public office in his home municipality. On his maternal grandmother's side, Erlander descended from Forest Finns, who migrated to Värmland from the Finnish province of Savonia in the 17th century.According to Erlander, his father was very religious, supportive of universal suffrage, pro-free market, anti-trade union, and liberal. Erlander also said that his father became increasingly anti-socialist as he aged, speculating that his father was unhappy with his son's eventual election to parliament as a member of a socialist party.
The Erlander family was initially poor, although Erik Gustaf was able to make money through selling homemade furniture and exporting lingonberries to Germany. As a child, Erlander lived on the second floor of Erlandergården, and attended school on the first floor. He later attended schools in Karlstad, living in a boarding house for children of clergymen. He was reportedly a good student in high school.
From 1921 to 1922, Erlander carried out his mandatory military service at a machine gun factory in Malmslätt. In September 1920, his father enrolled him at Lund University rather than Uppsala University, as he felt Lund was more affordable. As a student at Lund, Erlander was heavily involved in student politics and met many politically radical students. He was exposed to societal and economic injustices, and began to identify with socialism. Beginning in autumn of 1923, Erlander read the writings of Karl Marx. He met his future wife, fellow student Aina Andersson. They began working together in the chemistry department in 1923. He also met and studied natural sciences with fellow student and future physicist Torsten Gustafson, who would later serve as an advisor on nuclear affairs to Erlander during his premiership. In addition to his scientific studies, Erlander also read some economics, and was an active member of Wermlands Nation, where he was elected Kurator in 1922. In 1926, he led student opposition to celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lund. He graduated with a degree in political science and economics in 1928.
From 1928 to 1929 he completed his compulsory military service in the Signal Corps and eventually went on to become a reserve Lieutenant. Erlander's first major job was a member of the editorial staff of the encyclopedia Svensk upplagsbok from 1928 to 1938. In 1930 Tage and Aina married, although in his memoirs he stated that they both opposed the institution. They spent their first few years of marriage apart, as Erlander was working in Lund while Aina was working in Karlshamn, and they only saw each other on holidays. Their first son, Sven Bertil Erlander, was born on May 25, 1934, in Halmstad, and their second son, Bo Gunnar Erlander, was born in Lund on May 16, 1937.
Early political career
MP and state secretary
Erlander joined the Social Democratic Party in 1928, and was elected to the Lund municipal council in 1930. He was involved in improving poor city housing, lowering unemployment, and installing a new bathhouse. He served on the council until 1938.He was elected as a member of the Riksdag in 1932, for Fyrstadskretsen, which he would represent until 1944. He began making political connections, and attracted the attention of prominent Social Democratic politician and Minister for Social Affairs Gustav Möller. In 1938, Möller appointed Erlander as a state secretary at the Ministry of Social Affairs. After Erlander became a state secretary, he and Aina, with their children, moved to Stockholm. In 1941, Sweden's Population Commission was created under Erlander's leadership. He served as its chairman, and it put forward proposals on grants and regulations of daycare centers and play schools.
As a state secretary, Erlander was one of the most senior officials responsible for the establishment of internment camps in Sweden during World War II. Various types of camps were set up, primarily to house and detain refugees and foreigners arriving to Sweden, to house interned German and Allied military personnel, and to replace the military draft for pro-Soviet Communists and others who were viewed as unreliable and hostile to Sweden's political system; instead of being stationed in the armed forces, they were conscripted to work camps organized to build infrastructure. Writing in his memoirs in the 1970s, Erlander downplayed his knowledge of the camps, as, according to journalist Niclas Sennerteg, Erlander knew about their existence long before he claimed and was integral to their design and function.
In 1942, Erlander and Möller initiated a nationwide census of the Swedish Travelers, a branch of the Romani people.
In Hansson's government
Erlander ascended to Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson's World War II coalition cabinet in 1944 as a minister without portfolio, a post he held until the next year. Following the 1944 general election, he began representing the Malmöhus County.In the summer of 1945, as part of Hansson's post-war cabinet, he became minister of education and ecclesiastical affairs. It has been suggested that Erlander was chosen for the position due to his lack of experience with educational policies, as he was not associated with factional divides regarding debates over Sweden's educational system. Erlander was initially skeptical about accepting the role, but he eventually grew accustomed to it, despite not holding the office very long.
Erlander largely left ecclesiastical matters to other politicians, instead focusing on tangible educational reforms. Influenced by his experiences at Lund University, he proposed larger investments in research and higher education. He was a major driving force behind successful laws providing free school lunches and textbooks. On October 29, 1945, Erlander was visited by Austro-Swedish nuclear physicist Lise Meitner, to discuss Sweden investing in nuclear physics and technology following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1946, Möller introduced a new pension proposal, a uniform one which would lift all pensioners above the poverty line, which Erlander and Minister for Finance Ernst Wigforss opposed, but it passed in the Riksdag.
At the 1945 Social Democratic party conference, Per Nyström presented a motion to update Swedish schooling. The conference was split on how much schooling should be mandatory, with some arguing it should only extend to elementary school. Despite the disagreements, the conference requested the party executive create a special committee to develop school programs. The committee was divided on whether students should be separated by abilities, a practice known as streaming. It never reached a consensus, but finished a draft for a new school program requiring nine years of universal mandatory education, although it was never submitted to the party. In 1946, Erlander, as minister of education, created a second committee, the Schools Commission, despite the first one being still active. This new committee, chaired by Erlander, was composed mainly of appointed party members. By 1948, after Erlander had become prime minister, the second committee also proposed nine years of mandatory schooling, but the question of when to begin streaming was still debated.