Zeth Höglund

Carl Zeth "Zäta" Konstantin Höglund (29 April 1884 – 13 August 1956) was a leading Swedish communist politician, anti-militarist, author, journalist and mayor (finansborgarråd) of (1940–1950).

Höglund can be credited as the founder of the Swedish Communist movement. Zeth Höglund went on many meetings in Bolshevik Russia and was elected to the Comintern Executive Committee in 1922. In 1926, he returned to the Social Democratic party but still chose to define himself as a communist.

Zeth Höglund grew up in Gothenburg in a lower-middle-class family. His father, Carl Höglund, worked as a merchant in leather and later became a shoemaker. Zeth was the youngest of ten children. He was also the only son, and hence had nine big sisters.

His parents were very religious but disliked the church hierarchy and the way preachers and governments used religion to influence people. Höglund would later become an atheist.

Early on in High School, Höglund started considering himself a socialist and instead of his school books he started reading the German socialists Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Swedish socialists Axel Danielsson and Hjalmar Branting. He also read Nietzsche and August Strindberg.

He graduated from High School in 1902 with average grades. He soon got an internship with the liberal daily Göteborgs-Posten and was hired by that newspaper that fall.

The same fall Höglund started studying History, Political Science and Literature at the Gothenburg University. Here he met Fredrik Ström, a four-year-older student, also a radical socialist. They developed a close friendship that would last their whole lives.

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