Factional Strife in the Norwegian Labour Party 1918-1924

Abstract

Factional strife was endemic in the Norwegian labour movement during the first decades of this century. To begin with there was opposition to the centralized trade union leadership and agitation in favour of industrial militancy. An opposition group, Fagoppositionen av 1911, was formally constituted by delegates from various parts of the country meeting in Trondheim three years before the outbreak of the First World War. Its spokesmen were active in advocating not only militant strike tactics but also intransigent attitudes in Parliament and municipal assemblies. They made little headway, however, until the later stages of the war, when increasingly difficult economic conditions created a mood in their favour. Allied with the more intellectual Socialist Youth Movement and inspired by the October Revolution in Russia, they staged an offensive at the beginning of 1918. At the party's National Congress in April, they succeeded in obtaining a majority and took over the party leadership on a programme that envisaged the possibility of revolutionary action. The moderates refused to collaborate with them and organized their own opposition group, remaining within the party, however. The new leaders declared their intention to join the Communist International when the latter was proclaimed in 1919, but only the following year was it revealed what this would imply. The struggle over Norwegian membership in the Comintern produced a double split. First the moderate opposition broke away and launched its own Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1921. The majority remained formally united on a revolutionary programme and presented