at the time huntford wrote, sweden was a nation under the yoke of the social democratic party of sweden, which had ruled the country's government for over 40 years. huntford argues that this had led to the complete dominance of socialist thought at all levels of the government, including the bureaucracy and the judiciary, which were all controlled by a powerful interconnecting network of social democratic labour unions, lobby groups, and partisan organizations. he also points to the fact that these networks made it very difficult for non-socialists to achieve any position of real power in sweden, but noted that few swedes seemed to view this massive politicization of their state with any concern.