(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Åsmund Egge and Svend Rybner (ed.): Red Star in the North. Hurricane Academic, 2015
Red Star in the North is an English-language collaboration project between several Nordic researchers, published at the Northern Norwegian Orkana publishing house. The book deals with the history of the communist movements in the Nordic countries until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The anthology makes key contributions to the understanding of whether there is something one can call one Nordic Communism which was specific to the Nordic countries. For the undersigned, there was much new to learn, especially about the dramatic history of the Finnish Communist Party.
The origin of the parties. Morten Thing provides an interesting review of the roots of the Scandinavian Communists in the left-wing of the Social Democratic parties, who had contact with the Russian Bolsheviks because of their joint involvement in the anti-war movement. The First World War led many to conclude that only a socialist revolution could solve the economic crises in the wake of capitalism and prevent a new war.
The Finnish Communist Party, on the other hand, was formed by socialists who sought refuge in the Soviet Union following the defeat of the Socialists in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, while the Communist Party of Iceland did not see the light of day until 1930 and dissolved in favor of a wider socialist party in 1938. It is worthwhile Notice that the Finnish Socialist program was based on principles of free elections and independence from Russia.
Nordic branches. The Communist parties were organized in the Communist International (the Comintern) from 1919 until the organization was closed down in 1943. The Comintern served as a kind of mother party, with the national parties as a local team. Since the movement's main seat was in Moscow, the Soviets were given a very dominant position in the organization. The Moscow Theses, adopted in 1921, declared that all members of the International Party had to abide by the central decree of the Comintern.
In Norway, the majority of the Labor Party chose to join the Comintern in 1919. Åsmund Egge writes interestingly about how it was the split in the views of the Moscow Theses that led the Labor Party to opt out again in 1923, when the Communists formed the Norwegian Communist Party. The issue that triggered the dispute was the Comintern's demand to form a united front with the Social Democrats, which the Tranmæl wing of the Labor Party thought would lead to an unnecessary right-turn of the party. The schism was evident in the fact that after the split the Labor Party's Youth League chose to name itself "Left Communist Youth League".
Dictatorship and revolution. Tauno Saarela writes that although the Swedish and Danish Communists formally joined the principle of the necessity of an armed revolution, it was without enthusiasm, and they were "never willing to declare that the workers would start such a revolution. In their opinion, the revolution would be violent only because the capitalists would use all means to hold power. " However, among experiences with experiences from the civil war and the left wing around Arvid Hansen in Norway, there were clear tendencies to believe that power had to be won by violence.
Nor was there a uniform view of the dictatorship of the proletariat and what this would entail. While the Swedes and Danes emphasized that the dictatorship of the proletariat was of a temporary nature and could not be introduced without the support of the vast majority of workers, Arvid Hansen wrote in 1924 about the necessity of the "hard-working dictatorship of the working class". However, none of the Nordic Communist parties ever stated that the party would play a leading role during the dictatorship of the proletariat, but argued that it would mean increased democracy for the broad strata of the people. The stated goal was to establish a form of direct democracy following the pattern of the labor councils that emerged during the Russian Revolution.
Following a change in the Comintern in 1935, the communists emphasized the importance of defending bourgeois democracy against fascism, and in 1945 the communists briefly participated in unity governments in all the Nordic countries. After the Second World War, all the Nordic parties clearly committed to the expansion of democracy and a peaceful transition to socialism.
Destructive influence. The book clearly states that the Comintern's control of the national parties at times was very strong and destructive. The condemnation of the Social Democrats by the Social Democrats as "social fascists" of 1928 led to party divisions and dramatically reduced support in all the Scandinavian countries. From 1935 the Comintern decided that the Communists would instead form national peoples fronts with the Social Democrats, but the credibility of the Communists was weakened by the initiatives coming at the same time as the great terror of the Soviet Union. The terrorist effect on Finnish exile communists is appalling.
During the terror of 1936 to 1938, the secret Soviet police accused Finnish Communists of "nationalism" and espionage for Finland. Finnish newspapers and Finnish language teaching were banned, and almost all the leadership of the Civil War in 1918 was shot or sent to labor camps. As many as 20 Finnish communists may have been killed. Those who lived safest were those who volunteered in the Spanish Civil War or were imprisoned in Finland. Kimmo Rentola writes that those who survived were reminded of Stalinist terror as "a dirty and near secret, which gave personal wounds that can recall children's experiences of incest".
Communist war. There is little doubt that the times during and just after World War II were the golden moments of the Nordic Communist parties. Terje Halvorsen writes vividly about how the communists in Norway and Denmark fought primarily against the Nazis, especially after Germany declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941. In Norway, the NKP was the party that led the most active resistance struggle and lost the largest share of its members during the occupation. , and in Denmark, DKP became the most important force in the military resistance. In Finland, most Finnish communists fought interestingly enough against the Soviet Union during the Winter War 1939-40 – some of them also during the War of 1941-44.
In the first elections after the war, the communists gained 12,5 percent support in Denmark, 11,9 percent in Norway, 6,3 percent in Sweden, and the election alliances where the communists were 17,8 percent in Iceland and 23 percent in Finland. In the Scandinavian countries, the parties shrank rapidly afterwards, but the Finns' and Icelanders' alliances continued to influence the home countries' policies for a long time. The membership of the Communist Party of Finland was at its highest as late as 1980, with 51 139 members.
Mild treatment. The definitive emphasis of the book is on the work of the Communist parties up to and including World War II. The post-war era is treated very limpidly, despite the fact that it was during this period that the Communists most clearly developed policies and programs to realize a path to socialism based on the national and democratic traditions of the Nordic countries. It's a shame, because I would like to read more about the Communists' participation in the peace, environment and solidarity movement, and about the reactions to Khrushchev's settlement with Stalinism in the Soviet Union.
In Dag Solstad's novel High school teacher Pedersen concludes the protagonist by saying: "A Communist Party should be taken care of, I hope I have made the reader understand it. More uncertainly, however, I am wondering if he (or she, as we say) has understood the inner cheer in which I have written this story. " I miss this "inner cheer" Red Star in the North. One does not have a good understanding of why so many industrial and forest workers, peasants, fishermen, housewives and intellectuals spent so much of their lives fighting for these parties, in the fight against fascism, even with life as an effort. Communists deserved to be taken more seriously as thinking and feeling people, rather than being reduced to dry events and numbers.
Storaker is a peace worker and editor in
Socialist Future. aslakstoraker@yahoo.no
