Talk:European Workers Party

Furious hate campaigns against Olof Palme
In his edit, anonymous user 172.194.74.72 reacts against the previous wording as being POV according to his edit remark "replace POV language". The original wording was


 * The EAP launched furious hate campaigns against the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Olof Palme...

end the modified wording is


 * The EAP was sharply critical of the Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Olof Palme...

By this post, I will justify my changing this wording back to the original.

On an on-going basis, the Swedish Government releases various publications. One type of these publications is the so called (sw) Statens offentliga utredningar (SOU), which translates into Swedish Government Official Report. When it comes to the Swedish Wikipedia, the SOU:s are considered to be non-controversial and almost clinically NPOV. In the [http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/108/a/450 SOU 2002:91. Magnus Hjort: ''Hotet från vänster. Säkerhetstjänsternas övervakning av kommunister, anarkister m.m. 1965-2002](The threat from the Left. The Swedish Security Service surveillance of communists, anarchists etc. 1965-2002''), the following paragraph is found, referring to the development of the EAP from 1982 and onwards:

It became increasingly common in the media to characterize the EAP as "fascist" or "right-wing extremist". One reason for this was the pronounced anit-sovietism (of the party), its extreme Palme hatred, and its adherence to anti-semitic jargon and conspiration theories.

Further, a few days after the assassination of Olof Palme, Swedish diplomat Sverker Åström was adjoined to the Police investigation acting as Foreign Policy expert. Sverker Åström wrote the following on the EAP, and its possible murder motives, to the Police investigation:

The violently reactionary group, that calls itself EAP and that is governed from the USA by a totally bizarre person, has for years run a violent campaign against Olof Palme. According to available information, the internal discipline among the young followers is tough, and they are trained to fanaticism...

Finally, if the party was just sharply critical of Olof Palme, as at least half the Swedish population was at the time of the assassination, why would the police have been so interested in the party? The answer is that anybody who took notice of the EAP the months, the years and the decade, before the murder of Olof Palme definitely remembers them as more than sharply critical - they did indeed run a furious hate campaign against Olof Palme.

Therefore I change the wording back.

--Astor Piazzolla 13:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That being the case, the expression should be sourced. "Furious hate campaigns" is not neutral, encyclopediac language. I would suggest you quote the Swedish Government Official Report. --172.190.95.144 05:57, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Dear Mr. 172.190.95.144. Let me ask you a personal question: Are you the same person that uses the IPs 172.196.220.254 and 172.194.74.72? Whether or not that is the case, is it a coincidence that all three addresses - connected to people only interested in LaRouche articles and typical LaRouche topics - are registered in Virginia, US? You see, the link LaRouche/Virginia can give rise to an interesting hypothesis... Anyhow, I would be much more interested in discussing to you if you were not an anonymous user. I don't know if you lived in Sweden in the 70's and the 80's, I don't know if you are Swedish, and I don't know if you are a LaRouchian or not, so I am not sure that we share the same intellectual references. But this is the case: I don't have the time now, but I will wikify this article and I will give you all quotes needed to validate the usage Furious hate campaigns as a neutral term. The EAP wrote for instance the following in New Solidarity in 1975:


 * The Swedish people is governed by a maniac, a mentally disordered murderer, who turns up in the dark, bitter winter night and who snuggles up to his victim with an ax in his hand. This smelling eructation from a dead world, offspring of a mentally ill military aristocracy...


 * The article was illustrated with a painting depicting Olof Palme as the the Reaper with the cowl and the axe, naming him The Devil of the Devil. Therefore, it is not POV to name the activities of the party as Furious hate campaigns. My intention is to wikify the article and to merge my writings on the talk page to it. --Astor Piazzolla 09:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a user name now, so there should be no confusion. Your theories about my location and motives are wrong. I am not suggesting that you be nice to LaRouche. I am just suggesting that in an encyclopedia, if you need to use very strong language, it is better to quote a source than to publish your own value judgment, no matter how correct it may be. Also, I don't think that it is proper to link from the article to the talk page. If the information is important, it should just be in the article. The talk page is for discussion. --ManEatingDonut 06:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You are correct, and I am sorry if I offended you by my assumptions on location and motives. As I mention above, I intend to wikify the article in due course. My conjecture - that the adjective furious is appropriate and not POV - I still consider to be valid. I will quote the sources in the article eventually. By the way, just being curious, why are you interested in the EAP? --Astor Piazzolla 07:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not especially interested in the EAP. I am interested in LaRouche, because I think it is difficult to distinguish fact from fiction when various publications report on him. A lot of it is self-contradictory. I was reading through the articles on the "LaRouche template" and I noticed that the language on this one was a bit outside what I would consider appropriate for an encyclopedia article. --ManEatingDonut 22:23, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect translation of name
In the LaRouche publications, they always translated EAP as "European Labor Party." They also had a "U.S. Labor Party" in the 70s, as well as a "North American Labor Party" in Canada and a "Mexican Labor Party." In addition, there were EAPs in Denmark, Germany, Italy and France. --172.191.201.152 21:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is correct that there were several EAP:s in other countries than Sweden. However, the Swedish EAP is the only one of these that still exists. The term European Workers Party is an exact translation of Swedish Europeiska Arbetarpartiet, where the "s" in Workers signifies plural and not genitive. Hence, European Workers Party is a translation, while European Labor Party is the American denomination of the party. Further, in Sweden, the existing title of the article is the common denomination of the (Swedish) party. For instance, during the Olof Palme assassination investigation, this term was the one commonly used by medias covering it - both by English speaking journalists and others. --Astor Piazzolla 07:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Swedish far right
We have sources that characterize this group as belonging to the Swedish far right. Are there any that dispute the affiliation? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:41, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I think that it is fine to put this issue in the body of the article, but I oppose having it in a template or category, which lies beyond the reach of NPOV because there can be no rebuttal. I have been through this argument in diverse articles. In the case of the term "far right," it is generally not only pejorative, but also very vague. The Wikipedia article Far right, which is linked to the template, says: "These categories are not universally accepted, and other uses exist, making comparative use of the term complicated." The term, however, is often associated with racism or opposition to civil rights. I don't think this can apply to the Workers Party-- see this and this. There are other policies which they support which would be considered liberal or left. I object to the haste with which political organizations which may be quite complicated are placed in simplistic categories, often for POV-warfare reasons. --Marvin Diode 14:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither of the sources you provided dispute that this group is a far right political party. We shouldn't make that determination on our own, based on anecdotal information. Rather we should just summarize what reliable sources say. ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 18:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The point that I think you are missing here is that a category is an entirely different matter than a summary of reliable sources. To be placed in a category, the question should be beyond dispute. BTW, I don't profess to be a speaker of Swedish, but I believe that this article in Expressen calls the EAP left-wing. Perhaps we have some good Swedish speakers here that can confirm this -- Babelfish and Google Translation don't deal with Swedish. --Marvin Diode 21:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
 * If there's a dispute then please let us know. Regarding the "Expressions" article, what is the Swedish term for "left wing"? ·:· Will Beback  ·:· 23:01, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

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Renaming article with an apostrophe?
the party is called the European Workers' Party, not the European Workers Party, so surely this should be the title. we can always keep European Workers Party as a redirect. i don't want to rename the whole article without checking first though so thoughts? 𝐗𝐚𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧 talk sandbox contribs 20:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)