Hvor vi altid kan være sammen

Abstract

The Danish Social Democratic propaganda movie The Dream of Tomorrow was produced for the first post-war parliamentary election in Denmark in October 1945 to illustrate the project of social happiness as inscribed in the new electoral program of the party, Denmark of the Future. The vision of a future welfare state in the program was informed by new conceptions of the feasibility of relatively far-reaching social reform within capitalism, but also by concerns about the post-war strengthening of the Communist Party as a rival to the traditional hegemony of Danish Social Democracy, promp­ting the Social Democratic leadership to emphasize the radical nature of the change envisioned by the program. In the movie this specific political conjuncture of programmatic renewal and tactically determined rhetorical radicalism was translated into a synthesis of a political orientation towards immediate change and a utopian narrative of imaginary social happiness, seeking to appeal especially to young workers radicalized by the experience of occupation and resistance during the war. The overall result, however, was an uneasy balance between a political reform program and a utopian vison tied to the main ideological coordinates of the present, projected onto a future in which history seemed to have ended.