Maoism in the Developed World

Finally, there was the Mao Tsetung-Knedson, a Danish group that joined in signing a “Joint Communique” calling for the establishment of an orthodox Maoist International loyal to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four.[405] However, once the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement had been established in response to that call, there is no indication that any Danish group was affiliated with it.[406]

The Norwegian Workers Communist Party

As in the case of Denmark, Maoism in Norway did not originate directly from the pro-Moscow Norwegian Communist Party (NKP), but rather from dissident members (particularly among the youth) of the Socialist People’s Party, the “chief rival” of the orthodox pro-Soviet Communists in the Far Left of Norwegian politics.[407]

The Socialist People’s Party (SF) came into being in 1961, established by members of the Norwegian Labor Party who opposed that party’s support of NATO. It “had its initial basis in a small group of intellectual dissidents whose primary interest had been foreign policy.” In parliamentary elections later in 1961, “contesting in six districts … it polled nearly as large a vote as the Communist Party polled in nineteen districts, outpolling the Communist Party in every district where the two parties competed. It elected two members of Parliament.”[408]

In 1969, the youth group of the SF, the Socialist Youth Association (SUF) broke with the Socialist People’s Party, declaring itself Maoist and taking the name SUF (Marxist-Leninist). The SUF (ML) controlled the Norwegian Student Association. However, a U.S. State Department source reported in 1971 that the SUF (ML) “deferred plans for creating a new political party following its reassessment of the situation in the wake of the poor showing of the Swedish Maoist KFML in the September 1970 national elections.”[409]

A formal Norwegian Maoist party, the Workers Communist Party (AKP) was not in fact set up until late 1972. It was then established, according to Eric S. Einhorn, as “an amalgam of various Maoist groups that arose in the late 1960s, mainly as splinter groups from the SF and NKP youth organizations.” Its long-term chairman was Paal Steigan.[410]

The AKP published a weekly newspaper Klassekampen (Class Struggle). It also put out a theoretical journal, Rode Fane (Red Flag).[411] Although originating principally among students, it widened its support considerably in the 1970s. Eric S. Einhorn said that “the AKP has succeeded in gaining influential positions in several issue-oriented and interest organizations. Members have dominated the Oslo University Student Association for several years and have gained some important positions in trade union locals, although the larger unions as well as the Norwegian Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisasjonen; LO) is firmly controlled by Laborites. With the growing importance of issue organizations in Norwegian politics, the strength and influence of the AKP may be far greater than meager electoral results.”[412]

The Party did participate in the parliamentary elections during the 1970s using the name Red Electoral Alliance. Although not faring very well in national elections, it was interested in them principally “as a forum for propaganda.” It was reported to have made “small gains” in the municipal elections of 1970.[413]

The AKP was “consistently pro-Chinese” during the 1970s.[414] Eric S. Einhorn reported that The AKP continued its close attention to events in China and its regular communications with the Chinese Communist Party.” The Chinese party sent congratulations to the AKP early in 1978 on the Norwegian party’s fifth anniversary. In the Spring of 1978, an AKP youth and student delegation visited China and “met with Chinese officials in several cities.”[415] AKP Chairman Paal Steigan visited China and Kampuchea in 1979, being in the latter country shortly before the Vietnamese invasion.

The changes in China following Mao Tse-tung’s death did not alter the AKP’s loyalty to the Chinese party and regime. It supported China in its short armed conflict with Vietnam in 1979, and denounced the invasion of Kampuchea by Vietnam in that same year. It attacked the military activities of both the United States and the USSR, and “continued attention was directed to Soviet-Norwegian disputes.”[416]