The Left Party Drops "Communists" From Its Name (1990)
In 1990 the party dropped "the Communists" from its name and cut communism from its programme, continuing as the Left Party.
- Correction Economy V In 1990 the party dropped 'the Communists' from its name and removed communism from its programme, becoming simply the Left Party.
Why this verdict?
V had been 'the Communists' — Vänsterpartiet Kommunisterna — with Marxism-Leninism and communism in the party programme. The 1990 congress voted explicitly to remove communism from the name and programme. A congress vote deciding the change before it takes effect is the clearest form of correction: mandate exists, voters warned through open process.
For decades the name carried “the Communists” and the programme carried communism. Both said the same thing: this party stood in the communist tradition, and voters and rivals read it that way.
In 1990 Vänsterpartiet dropped both. The members struck “the Communists” from the name and took communism out of the programme, and the party went on as the Left Party.
So the cut hit two things at once: what the party called itself and the doctrine it had been founded on. That double move is why this entry pairs well with how we read a value shift — a party choosing not to keep calling itself what it no longer wanted to be.
The sources back two specific things: a name with no “the Communists” and a programme with no communism, from 1990 on. This entry covers that change in the name and the programme and nothing about where the party headed afterward.
Related entities
On the values timeline
- you are here1990Economy · In 1990 the party dropped 'the Communists' from its name and removed communism from its programme, becoming simply the Left Party.
- 2008Economy · In December 2008 the Left Party committed for the first time to join a binding Red-Green coalition government with the Social Democrats and Greens if they won the 2010 election.
- 2021Economy · Brought down a sitting Social Democratic prime minister over market-rate rents — the first no-confidence vote to succeed.
- 2024EU · At its May 2024 congress in Jönköping the Left Party dropped its long-standing active demand that Sweden leave the EU, keeping exit only as a last resort.
- 2024Security & defence · After Sweden joined NATO in 2024, the Left Party stopped demanding an immediate exit and accepted membership as a reality, while pushing to keep distance and bar nuclear weapons.
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