Sweden/Finland: Social democrats cooperate in the fight againstcommunists
01 September 1998
The Swedish former Social Democratic Minister for Foreign Affairs Sten Andersson has confirmed on Finnish television that the Social Democrats in Sweden and Finland co-operated in the surveillance and registration of communists. "To not co-operate, would have been a breach of duty", Andersson claimed. "We know that with the immigration of workers from Finland to Sweden there came quite a few communists, who had been educated at the Sirola-Institute. The Sirola-Institute was a school for communist party members, who had - according to Andersson - specific missions in Sweden. The significance of these revelations is how the cooperation between the Swedish Intelligence IB and the Finnish Operation P was financed. In Finland Operation P did not receive any money from the state or the social-democratic party, but was hidden as "entertainment expenses" in the accounts of the some of the largest private companies.