Hjalmar Branting

Karl Hjalmar Branting (1860-1925) was a politician, statesman, and Prime Minister of Sweden from the third term of office Socialdemokrat: 1920, 1921-1923 and 1924-1925.
Branting along with August Palm and Axel Danielsson founded and led the Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti in 1889. He was the first Swedish PM elected through universal suffrage.

Biography

A child is a professor, Branting was educated at the University of Stockholm and Uppsala. He developed a scientific background in mathematics and astronomy assistant at Stockholm Observatory, but gave up his devotion to scientific work to become a journalist in 1884 and began to edit the newspapers and the Social-Demokraten Tiden. His decision to publish an article by the more radical socialist Axel Danielsson - denounced by opponents as a piece of insulting religious sensitivities - generating political convictions for blasphemy, and prison sentences for men. Branting was jailed for three months in 1888.


Together with August Palm one of the main organizers of the Swedish Social Democratic Party in 1889, and the first member of Parliament from 1896, and for six years only.
In the early years of the 20th century, Branting led the Social Democrats in opposing the war to keep Norway united with Sweden. When the crisis came in 1905, he created the slogan "Hands off Norway, the King!" Social Democratic Party organized resistance to the call-up reserve and a general strike against the war, and is credited with a considerable share in preventing one.
Hjalmar Branting accepted Eduard Bernstein's revision of Marxism and a socialist reformer, advocating a peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. He believed that if workers are given a voice, this can be achieved by parliamentary means. Branting supported the February Revolution in Russia in 1917. He pro-Menshevik and defend the government of Alexander Kerensky, who he even personally visited in Petrograd.


When the Revolution broke out in October the same year, Branting condemned the Bolshevik seizure of power. 1917 saw a split in the Swedish Social Democratic Party on this question, and the youth league and the revolutionary party broke away and formed the Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden, led by Zeth Höglund. This group soon became the Communist Party of Sweden. Zeth Höglund and then returned to the Social Democratic Party, and wrote a two-volume biography of Hjalmar Branting.


As Prime Minister he brought Sweden into the League of Nations and personally active as a delegate in it. When the question of whether the Åland should be handed over to Sweden after Finnish independence from Russia grew up, he let the League of Nations to decide the issue. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1921 for his work in the League of Nations.
Branting Branting is commemorated by a monument in Stockholm. Also in Gothenburg, there are tram and bus exchange named after Branting, in Sweden it is Hjalmar Brantingsplatsen. In Copenhagen, streets named after him.