Per Albin Hansson

Per Albin Hansson (28 October 1885 – 6 October 1946) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1932 until his death in 1946. He succeeded Hjalmar Branting as leader of the Social Democratic Party (SAP) in 1925 and represented Stockholm in the Riksdag from 1918 to 1946. Widely regarded as one of the fathers of modern Sweden, Hansson led the country through the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Hansson shaped both the political and social development of Sweden in the 20th century. He introduced the concept of Folkhemmet (lit."the People’s Home") in 1928, a political vision that defined the Swedish welfare state. Built on ideas of social security, egalitarianism, and social inclusion, he promoted reforms aimed at improving living standards, expanding public services, and developing the social safety net. His governments oversaw major initiatives in housing, employment policy, defence planning, and social insurance, transforming the Social Democratic Party into the Sweden’s dominant political force.

Per Albin Hansson was born on 28 October 1885 in Kulladal, a neighborhood in the Fosie district in Malmö, Sweden, the son of Carl Hansson, a bricklayer, and his wife Kersti Persdotter. He was the younger brother of the director general, newspaper publisher, and politician Sigfrid Hansson [sv] (1884–1939).

Hansson participated in establishing the Social Democratic Youth League (SDUF) in 1903 and presided over it as party chairman between 1908 and 1909, a period in which universal male suffrage and proportional representation was to be gradually enacted by conservative Prime Minister Arvid Lindman, later a rival of Hansson. Influenced generally by Karl Kautsky's views on socialism, Hansson succeeded Hjalmar Branting as editor-in-chief of Social-Demokraten ("the Social Democrat") in 1917, and was subsequently appointed as Minister for Defence in the country's first Social Democratic cabinet in 1920, following a Liberal-Social Democratic coalition enacting equal suffrage for both men and women (in effect as of the 1921 election). Hansson held this office in all of Branting's three cabinets between 1920 and 1925 (years which saw eight governments), performing numerous cut-backs on military expenditure. Upon Branting's death in 1925, Hansson became party chairman. However, is legitimacy as chairman remained under dispute, and was only fully embraced as chairman in 1927, when he become head of the Riksdag faction, and was later formally confirmed as Branting’s successor at a 1928 party congress.

After losing power to Carl Gustaf Ekman's Free-Minded National Association in 1926, Hansson worked from the opposition bench and, although heading what was to remain the largest party of the Riksdag to date, faced a major setback after cooperating with the Communist Party in the infamous election of 1928. Not until the 2010 election would the Social Democrats and the Communists (the latter changed name in 1995 to the Left Party) would the two parties run in tandem again.

In opposition to the second Lindman cabinet, despite being equally as pragmatic and staunchly anti-fascist, Hansson pressed for the introduction of a welfare state rather than wide-scale nationalizations. He called his vision Folkhemmet ("the People's Home") in a Riksdag debate on 18 January 1928.

The foundation of the home is togetherness and empathy. A good home knows no privileged or underprivileged, no favourites and no step-children. There no one looks down on another, no one tries to gain advantage at the expense of others, the strong do not oppress or plunder the weak. In a good home there is equality, kindness, cooperation, helpfulness.

In August 1932, with only a few months leading up to the 1932 election, prime minister Ekman resigned over a recently-surfaced corruption scandal involving the recently deceased industrialist Ivar Kreuger. The Social Democrats made gains, which altogether gave them 104 Riksdag seats and 41.7% of the popular vote. Though this left them short of a majority, the party benefited from the inability of the liberal parties (themselves unable to form a single faction until 1934), the conservatives, and the agrarians to form a stable administration of their own. This inability gave Hansson his chance; he courted and eventually obtained support from the Farmers' League through promising an agriculture policy favoring the interests of the League (kohandeln), although he stopped short of giving League parliamentarians any cabinet posts.