Anton Nilson Anton Nilson ( 11 November 1887 – 16 August 1989 ) was a Swedish militant socialist and convicted murderer . Nilson was born and grew up in a peasant region in Skåne , the southernmost province of Sweden . He became a construction worker in 1906 , by which time he had already become a class conscious young socialist . Amalthea bombing . In the summer of 1908 the workers in the docks of Malmö went on strike for better conditions . The police and military were called in to keep order , and the employers took in British strikebreakers to do the job . This was considered highly provocative by the striking Swedish workers . The British strikebreakers were temporarily living on a ship called " Amalthea " . On the night between 11 and 12 July , three young unemployed workers , including Anton Nilson , put a bomb outside " Amalthea " . The bomb exploded , killing one and wounding 23 of the British strikebreakers . Anton Nilson was sentenced to death . His two accomplices Algot Rosberg and Alfred Stern were sentenced to penal labour for life . Before his execution , Anton Nilson was pardoned and , like the others , given forced labour for life . The first reactions in Sweden to the bomb attack on the " Amalthea " were those of horror and disgust followed by condemnation , including from the workers movement . However , after a while public opinion sided with Anton Nilson , Algot Rosberg and Alfred Stern , and a massive campaign was launched to have them freed . Thousands of international meetings were held in their support , including some 600 meetings amongst workers in the United States , organised by the Industrial Workers of the World and with Joe Hill as a leading participant . A petition containing some 130 , 000 names was handed to the government and Supreme Court of Sweden , asking for the release of the three young men . An attempt to free Anton Nilson by force from the prison in Härnösand took place on May Day 1917 , when 10 , 000 workers marched to the jailhouse . Guards with machine guns were stationed on the walls and the military was called in . The prison guards were ordered to shoot Anton Nilson if necessary rather than letting him escape . Eventually the masses demonstrating outside the prison gave up and walked away . Finally , in October 1917 , Anton Nilson and the two others were pardoned . It was the first decision made by Nils Edén ' s appointed coalition government of Liberals and Social Democrats , which under the following two years would institute democracy and women ' s suffrage in Sweden . In the Russian Revolution . As Anton Nilson was released from jail , the Bolshevik Revolution had just started in Russia . Without hesitation , and nowhere else to go , Nilson went to visit Russia in company with the Swedish communist leader Ture Nerman . Anton Nilson decided to join the Red Army , fighting as a pilot in the civil war . Nilson helped organize the air defense of Moscow , later taking command of the air force on the Baltic Front . For his services his comrades elected him to receive an award from Leon Trotsky . At the rise of Stalinism , Anton Nilson decided to return to Sweden in 1926 . He would always consider Stalin as a traitor to the revolution , saying : " Stalin took the state police , which had been formed against the counter - revolution , and turned it against socialists . . . " and an adherent to the fascist model of a police state . His departure from the Soviet Union may as well have saved him from the Great Purges during the 1930s . When Nikita Khrushchev took over the leadership of the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 , Anton Nilson considered it a positive development . For the rest of his life , Nilson toured Sweden agitating for Swedish Communist rule . He also became revered as one of the Swedish Labour Movement ' s heroes and his portrait is to be found at the headquarters of Landsorganisationen . His 100th birthday , during which Anton Nilson himself held a speech lasting for several hours , was celebrated by several Social Democratic members of the Swedish Cabinet . Anton Nilson lived to be 101 years old .