During the 1930s, the Swedish political landscape became increasingly dominated by the Social Democrats, who had governed since 1936 in coalition with the Agrarian Party. This Government collapsed in December 1939 due to disagreements over foreign policy and Finland. There were ‘activists’ within the Cabinet and the wider political community who wanted a more vigorous stance in supporting Finland. The Finns were resisting Soviet pressure to concede territory to improve Russian defence, a position which quickly developed into the Russo-Finnish Winter War. The most prominent of those activists was Foreign Minister Rickard Sandler whose Finnish policy was strongly opposed within the Cabinet, leading to his resignation. Among his strident critics was party colleague and Finance Minister Ernst Wigforss. Wigforss feared that further commitment to Finland would lead to Swedish hostilities with Russia, the geopolitical enemy that the military establishment longed to attack and the ideological enemy that the right-wing politicians yearned to eliminate. Two weeks of tough negotiations by Per Albin took place to bring the other parties into a broad-based Coalition Government. This was not a simple coming-together of political rivals under the banner of national unity to deal with the problem of the Winter War and the wider Allied-German conflict. Rather, it was the result of some prolonged bargaining, particularly with the Conservatives. The resulting wartime Coalition Government was to last until the end of July 1945, its durability tested by many external and internal stresses and strains. How did Swedish institutions and politicians operate to form a working democracy?