Journeymen travelling through Europe brought the socialist ideals with them to Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, mainly from Germany. Marxism itself had little influence on the practice of everyday politics.

The politics of Scandinavia’s socialist parties was defined above all by craftsmen and upper-class intellectuals, among them Sweden’s first social democratic cabinet minister and head of government, Hjalmar Branting. He maintained close relations to the moderate wing of the German social democrats and referred to his socialist education as being German.