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On 4th of November, the 100-year anniversary of the Communist Party of Norway (NKP) was observed. Multiple events took place on the anniversary, with communists and revolutionaries from Norway as well as other countries participating.
The event inaugurating the day was a seminar on the history of the Communist Party of Norway and the necessity of its reconstitution. There were also greetings presented at the seminar, from the International Communist League.
The Communist Party of Norway was founded the 4th of November 1923, as the Norwegian section of the Communist International, after it underwent a hard two-line struggle in The Norwegian Labour Party. As an integrated part of the International Communist Movement and under the leadership of Lenin and e Stalin, the Party forged together thousands of workers in Norway into a cohesive force in hard struggles. The Communist Party of Norway is the organized vanguard of the working class in Norway and will lead the proletariat in struggle until Communism.
In the period 1970-1975 the revisionist degeneration of the Party was the precursor of some important events: First the vanguard of the left in the Party was expelled through criminal processes, then the Party was dissolved to promote the new Socialist Left Party (SV), with the majority of the Party’s members joining this social-democratic project, and finally the Party was “reconstituted” in 1975 as a Brezhnevist Party, that upheld the leadership of the social-fascist and social-imperialist “CPSU”.
Thus the “NKP” of today can is devoid of the characteristics’ a real Communist Party, Only the Communist Party can lead the class struggle of the proletariat, unite the working people around the proletariat, and lead the socialist revolution to victory, establish the dictatorship of the proletariat and lead the development of the society onward through cultural revolutions until Communism. New Democratic and Socialist Revolutions are imperative to terminate the imperialist system that inflicts on the world, war, starvation, poverty and misery, and plant seeds for the classless communist society.
The legacy and history of the party
The modern proletariat crystallised in Norway during the 1800-hundreds in line with advent of industrialization, particularly in the second half, where the proletariat organized it self in unions and eventually established the first Labour Party in the country.The left in the Norwegian Labor Party (DNA) captured the leadership in 1918, in an international and national form marked by the World War, the October Revolution, and established a powerful workers’ council movement in our country. Under the leadership of the left, the Labor Party became a member of the Communist International in 1919. But the the right opportunists, under the leadership of Martin Tranmæl, gave a crippling blow to the resolutions of the Communist International. Tranmæl masked his arguments in “left”-radical phrases, but the content was right opportunism. His main demand was “national independence” for the Party, which the right opportunists propagated in opposition to internationalism and democratic centralism in the International.
Several years of bitter struggle entangling struggle between the left and right opportunism in the DNA lead in the end to a split on the extraordinary national conference on the 2nd to 4th of November, 1923. The right opportunists used trumpcard on nationalism in the form of autonomism and a demand of “self determination” from the Comintern and was for a one sided focus on economic struggle, against proletarian discipline and democratic centralism and pitted the masses up against the leadership by slandering them. The left in the Party tried, together with the center, to arrive at a compromise, but the Tranmæl-wing sought splitting
The armed proletariat was engaged in direct struggle against the enemy in Germany, only four years after the social democrats murdered the great communist leaders Luxemburg and Liebknecht in 1919, and the conference took place only barely two weeks after the red uprising in Hamburg. Thousands of red workers, men, women and children, sat in the concentration camps of the enemy on Finland. The young Soviet State courageously battled against terror and isolation campaigns. Amidst this development the right advocated DNA abandoning its post, its place in the ranks, and split the political unity of the working class.
The struggle in DNA did not take place isolated from this broader context. The Communist Party of Norway was from birth a baby of the international struggle against reaction, imperialism and revisionism. A large minority at the national conference of the DNA rejected right-opportunism and social-chauvinism. The left, who represented the proletariat, chose the Communist International and the International Proletariat, left the split conference, and organised themselves on the 4th of November as the first conference of the Communist Party of Norway, Norwegian section of the Communist International.
From the first moment the Party integrated in great struggles and organized a large chunk of the deepest and broadest masses in Norway. The communists played a constructive role in the iron strike in 1923. In the Menstad battle in Skien in June 1931, the communisst led a militant demonstration of 2000 workers that confronted strikebreakers and police. When the red workers triumphed the bourgeois State installed military departments to crush the struggle. Leading members of the Party were thrown in prison.
NKP organized thousands of working class women in the housewife associations,with many going on to become Party members. The Party united its self with the working class women as a champion of women’s rights, particularly economical and social rights that have been very important for the masses of working class women. The Party also played an instrumental role in organizing the struggle of the forest workers in the poorest parts of the country, particularly Hedmark.
During the Second World War and the fascist occupation, the Party had 200 members martyred in struggle against fascist occupation. Thousands of communists and revolutionaries were sent to the concentration camps of the Nazis. Among the patronisers of Hitler-fascism in this injustice, as well as the genocide against Norwegian Jews and the oppression and persecution of countless other anti-fascists, was the Norwegian bourgeois police, the Norwegian bourgeois State, Norwegian capitalists that collaborated during the war, and the social democratic governments before, during, and after the war. The social-democratic governments, in collaboration with Yankee Imperialism and British Imperialism, persecuted communists, quelled the resistance, organized snitching in large scale, and perpetrated the suppression of revolutionaries and communists after the war. The social-democratic leaders did this manifesting the international conspiracy against the Soviet Union.
The cooperation with Furubotn did not crystallise sufficiently, and when Khrushchev snatched over the power in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with the death of Stalin in 1953, and consolidated revisionism in power of the Party with the Party Congress in 1956, the leadership of the Communist Party of Norway was not able to admit the modern revisionism. Instead the Party leadership became a revisionist center in the Norwegian Party. Despite sustained resistance from the left, lead by genuine communists like Kjell Hovden, Esther Bergerud, and comrade Osvald, revisionism and opportunism tightened its hold on the Party leadership.
The struggle in DNA did not take place isolated from this broader context. The Communist Party of Norway was from birth a baby of the international struggle against reaction, imperialism and revisionism. A large minority at the national conference of the DNA rejected right-opportunism and social-chauvinism. The left, who represented the proletariat, chose the Communist International and the International Proletariat, left the split conference, and organised themselves on the 4th of November as the first conference of the Communist Party of Norway, Norwegian section of the Communist International.
From the first moment the Party integrated in great struggles and organized a large chunk of the deepest and broadest masses in Norway. The communists played a constructive role in the iron strike in 1923. In the Menstad battle in Skien in June 1931, the communisst led a militant demonstration of 2000 workers that confronted strikebreakers and police. When the red workers triumphed the bourgeois State installed military departments to crush the struggle. Leading members of the Party were thrown in prison.
NKP organized thousands of working class women in the housewife associations,with many going on to become Party members. The Party united its self with the working class women as a champion of women’s rights, particularly economical and social rights that have been very important for the masses of working class women. The Party also played an instrumental role in organizing the struggle of the forest workers in the poorest parts of the country, particularly Hedmark.
During the Second World War and the fascist occupation, the Party had 200 members martyred in struggle against fascist occupation. Thousands of communists and revolutionaries were sent to the concentration camps of the Nazis. Among the patronisers of Hitler-fascism in this injustice, as well as the genocide against Norwegian Jews and the oppression and persecution of countless other anti-fascists, was the Norwegian bourgeois police, the Norwegian bourgeois State, Norwegian capitalists that collaborated during the war, and the social democratic governments before, during, and after the war. The social-democratic governments, in collaboration with Yankee Imperialism and British Imperialism, persecuted communists, quelled the resistance, organized snitching in large scale, and perpetrated the suppression of revolutionaries and communists after the war. The social-democratic leaders did this manifesting the international conspiracy against the Soviet Union.
Revisionism liquidates the Party
During the Second World War the revisionist Peder Furubotn usurped the central apparatus of the Party. From the position of non-elected “chairman” of the Party, he liquidated the army of the Party, the National Guard, and sabotaged the active resistance led by Asbjørn Sunde (comrade Osvald). Furubotn liquidated the independence of the Party by yielding to the bourgeois resistance front and the Labour Party government in London. His line was nationalist, and after the war he manifested a compromising path for peace with the class enemy, “reconstruction”, and increased “productivity”. His revisionism and opportunism was exposed by Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the NKP initiated a reckoning with the Furubotn-clique. This clique functioned as a faction in the Party, and consistently violated the democratic centralism. Their line was exposed as bourgeois-nationalist and Titoist, and in 1949 Furubotn and his cronies were driven out of the Party after undertaking hard two-line struggle.The cooperation with Furubotn did not crystallise sufficiently, and when Khrushchev snatched over the power in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with the death of Stalin in 1953, and consolidated revisionism in power of the Party with the Party Congress in 1956, the leadership of the Communist Party of Norway was not able to admit the modern revisionism. Instead the Party leadership became a revisionist center in the Norwegian Party. Despite sustained resistance from the left, lead by genuine communists like Kjell Hovden, Esther Bergerud, and comrade Osvald, revisionism and opportunism tightened its hold on the Party leadership.
The left won a temporary victory in 1967, in the struggle against the Vogt-wing in the Party leadership, that aspired a more revisionist line, but in 1970 the leaders of the left inside the Party was excluded. These had already reorganized under the name Marxist-Leninist Front (MLF), and raised the struggle to create a real Communist Party. MLF became a part of the new «Marxist-Leninist Movement» that also MLG and SUF (m-l) were a part of.
There was hard two-line struggle within this movement from the start. A petty-bourgeois clique springing out from SUF (m-l) won the leadership in the movement, and lead the founding of the AKP (m-l) [Workers Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)] in 1973. During few years these unfurled themselves as revisionists, and the revisionist development of AKP (m-l) culminated in the period from 1977 to 1984, where the Party plunged into a deep crisis. The Party leadership supported the revisionist Hua-Deng-gang when they usurped the power in the Communist Party of China in 1976. The national conference of the AKP(m-l) adopted a throughout revisionist Party program in 1984.
Marxists must project the left in the “ML-Movement” that left no stone unturned in combating revisionism and right opportunism. MLF struggled against the nationalism in the AKP (m-l), and for a Party based on the proletariat. The left of the AKP (m-l) struggled against trends inclining towards elections, dissolution of democratic centralism, reformism, bureaucratism and other manifestations of the revisionist line in the leadership. The final degeneration of the AKP (m-l) was first accomplished in 2007, when the Party was liquidated in favour of the Social Democratic Party.
Without a correct understanding of the Party, one does not imbibe that the Communist Party of Norway, founded on the 4th of November, 1923, was a Marxist-Leninist Party and Norwegian section of the Communist International was the exclusive Party of the proletariat. The Party is already founded, and thus cannot be founded again. The historical and political task for the communists it therefore not to found a “Communist Party”, but to reconstitute the Communist Party of Norway.
Revisionism is a form of bourgeois ideology which was verified by Lenin.. After Marxism had established control over the worker’s movement, bourgeois socialism permeated the movement as revised “Marxism”. With Khrushchev and Brezhnev this repeated itself in the CPSU and the International Communist Movement. Modern revisionism was disguised as “Marxism-Leninism”. After the coup in China in 1976 by the Hua-Deng-clique, modern revisionism in China disguised “Mao Tse-Tung Thought”. Today it is all the more important to resurrect the Communist Party, in context of confronting tide of neo-fascism, which has escalated on an unprecedented scale.
One must admire Red Banner’s vociferous denouncement of revisionism historically and today, and relentlessly shimmering the banners of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao and upholding Maoism when counter revolutionary wind is blowing in full swing. However it fails to comprehend how militarisation of Party, destroys it’s vanguard essence, turning it into a military organisation or combining role of Party with red army.
Red Banner also fails to uphold Chairman Mao’s contribution as an integral part and continuation of Marxism-Leninism., treating it as a separate entity. It equates peoples war, with establishment of Communism, which again violates essence of Leninism or proletarian ideology. Red Banner and ICL propagate concept of ‘Principally Maoism’ which negates s contribution of Marx and Lenin.
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*Freelance journalist
Marxists must project the left in the “ML-Movement” that left no stone unturned in combating revisionism and right opportunism. MLF struggled against the nationalism in the AKP (m-l), and for a Party based on the proletariat. The left of the AKP (m-l) struggled against trends inclining towards elections, dissolution of democratic centralism, reformism, bureaucratism and other manifestations of the revisionist line in the leadership. The final degeneration of the AKP (m-l) was first accomplished in 2007, when the Party was liquidated in favour of the Social Democratic Party.
Without a correct understanding of the Party, one does not imbibe that the Communist Party of Norway, founded on the 4th of November, 1923, was a Marxist-Leninist Party and Norwegian section of the Communist International was the exclusive Party of the proletariat. The Party is already founded, and thus cannot be founded again. The historical and political task for the communists it therefore not to found a “Communist Party”, but to reconstitute the Communist Party of Norway.
Revisionism is a form of bourgeois ideology which was verified by Lenin.. After Marxism had established control over the worker’s movement, bourgeois socialism permeated the movement as revised “Marxism”. With Khrushchev and Brezhnev this repeated itself in the CPSU and the International Communist Movement. Modern revisionism was disguised as “Marxism-Leninism”. After the coup in China in 1976 by the Hua-Deng-clique, modern revisionism in China disguised “Mao Tse-Tung Thought”. Today it is all the more important to resurrect the Communist Party, in context of confronting tide of neo-fascism, which has escalated on an unprecedented scale.
Wrong trends
Erroneously Maoist group Red Banner and International Communist League glorifies ‘Gonzalo thought’ and Chairman Gonzalo, failing to recognise gross errors and eclecticism of Communist Party of Peru. It advocates the un –Marxist trend of militarisation of the Party and Universality of Protracted peoples War, making it applicable in developed countries. like Norway.One must admire Red Banner’s vociferous denouncement of revisionism historically and today, and relentlessly shimmering the banners of Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao and upholding Maoism when counter revolutionary wind is blowing in full swing. However it fails to comprehend how militarisation of Party, destroys it’s vanguard essence, turning it into a military organisation or combining role of Party with red army.
Red Banner also fails to uphold Chairman Mao’s contribution as an integral part and continuation of Marxism-Leninism., treating it as a separate entity. It equates peoples war, with establishment of Communism, which again violates essence of Leninism or proletarian ideology. Red Banner and ICL propagate concept of ‘Principally Maoism’ which negates s contribution of Marx and Lenin.
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*Freelance journalist
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