Arvid Lindman - Biography

Biography

Arvid Lindman was born in Uppsala, Sweden as the son of managing director Achates Lindman and Ebba Dahlgren. His career as a naval officer 1882-92 reached its peak in 1907 when he was appointed as Rear Admiral in the naval reserve. During his political career following this he became known primarily as "the Admiral". Lindman was CEO of Iggesunds Bruk from 1892 to 1903 and of Strömbacka bruks AB between 1903 and 1923. In 1904 he also became Director-general of Televerket.

He had in 1902 declined the post as Minister of Finance in Boström's second cabinet but started a political career in 1905 when he became both Minister of the Navy in Lundeberg's broad-based cabinet and a member of the Riksdag's first chamber.

When Staaff's liberal cabinet fell on the question of suffrage, Lindman became Prime Minister of a moderate-conservative government. Through great political skill Lindman managed to solve the question of suffrage through the decision on universal suffrage for men according to the principle of double proportionality, that is with proportional elections for both chambers. During the six years in government he oversaw a number of reforms in the areas of industry, schools and social politics. A defence committee was appointed, decisions was made to build up the navy and the international position of Sweden was confirmed in the Nordic- and Baltic Sea agreements. Political and economic opposition resulted in the general strike of 1909. But the strike failed, and the right-wing government could stay in power.

The extended suffrage contributed to a success for the left-wing parties, the liberals and the social democrats in the election for the second chamber in 1911. Lindman transferred to the second chamber where he was chairman for the second-chamber right 1912-35, with an interruption in 1917 when he became Minister for Foreign Affairs in Swartz's cabinet. As a leading right-wing politician he had given advice to the King about the creation of the Hammarskjöld and Swartz cabinets, with the goal of blocking the more hard-edged conservative leader of the first-chamber right, Ernst Trygger.

During the years 1913-35 Lindman was chairman for the national organisation for the right-wing parties, the General Electoral Union, and as such was a driving force in the work to modernize the party organisation, especially after the constitutional change in 1918 which instituted universal male suffrage. Among other things he hired an airplane to take him on speaking tours of the country and introduced the political poster.

After a hard electoral campaign in 1928, when the Social Democrats had made great losses in the election, Lindman formed a right-wing government in minority, after the liberals and the freeminded had turned down the King's request for a broader center-right majority government. Among the things this government did, the calling of the conference on peace in the workplace (a move to try to end frequent strikes and lock-outs) in 1928 is worth mentioning. The government resigned in 1930 after the freeminded and the social democrats had blocked the proposition for raised customs duty on grain, the goal of which was the strengthening of the agrarian sector.

Lindman was a modern kind of party leader, who with involvement and eloquence turned directly to the voters. Both as an industrialist and as a politician he was very energetic and goal oriented. He was a pragmatic conservative without losing his principles. He was a good political peace-broker, who could sought a policy of compromise with his political adversaries. During the growth of the anti-democratic movements in Europe he acted as a guardian for the principles of government by the people, and he spoke out strongly against nazism and fascism. When his party's youth organisation started organising uniformed fascist action groups in the 1930s, he saw to it that they were expelled from the party. The "honest thanks over the battle lines" from the social democratic leader Per Albin Hansson when Lindman resigned as party leader in favor of the younger academic and professor Gösta Bagge in 1935 was an expression of the wide ranging respect that he had.

Lindman died in an aircraft crash on 9 December 1936, when the Douglas DC-2 in which he was travelling crashed into houses near Croydon Airport just after taking off in thick fog.