Communist Party of Norway
by Per Lothar Lindtner

Dear Comrades,
First I`ll give my thanks to you Greek comrades. On behalf
of the Communist party of Norway I will hereby also give
thanks to all participants in this, for us Norwegians, 2nd
conference in Athens. The aim of these conferences must be
stronger links for peace, justice, solidarity, real
democracy and thus reopen the doors for the historical
necessity of socialism/communism all over the world. During
the conference, 13 months ago, we were confronting the
bombing of Yugoslavia. Now we know better than at that time
that this was part of a more aggressive strategy on the
part of the TNCs and their dependents in the national and
super-national governments. It was part of their common
striving for globalism, really a return to old-fashioned
imperialism. A photo-exhibit, delivering testimony for the
crimes of the "out of area war" against Yugoslavia was
shown in Oslo, ten days ago, from the 10th to the 14th of
June.. This travelling "exhibit" was initiated by an
Armenian church in New York/US and has already visited
China, Japan and 16 other European countries, as far as we
know. It gives more visual insight into the cruelties which
took place in Belgrad and other densely populated
Yugoslavian areas from March 24th till the beginning of
June 1999. The exhibit was organised and supported by
people who were the vanguard forces in the Norwegian
anti-war movement during this last Balkan war. We look upon
this kind of political work as extremely important.
Social-democratic or "Central-political" based Norwegian
governments usually talk big about their international
initiatives for peaceful solutions in different parts of
the world, for instance in the Middle East. And we are used
to its big talks about such initiatives. Thanks to Norway`s
position as a rich oil-producing nation in the
North-Atlantic area, we have the possibility, however a
small country, to play an independent role for peace and
justice all over the world. Therefore we, communists and
activists in the peace movement, are ashamed of our
government`s attitude during the "war on Kosovo", and the
majority of its supporters in the Norwegian parliament. The
shameful participation of Norway in this war, was not only
a historical break with old, good and peaceful traditions
of a people, being for more than 400 years suppressed by
Danish and Swedish upper class institutions. But at the
same time, I think, it was the beginning of the political
awakening of the Norwegian working class, in which, as
mentioned by our comrade Tarald B. Ellingsen here last
year, most people still believe in the absolute "truths" of
the big media, directly or indirectly dominated by the
interests of the capital forces.
In accordance with this we see the distinct connection
between the statements made by the conference, 21th-23th of
May 1999, and the war going on. We therefore continue to
demand repeatedly from our own and all other war-crime
governments, at least to take part in the peaceful
rebuilding of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia !
Our party is at present, a small party, but still we are
equipped with great ideas and optimistic ambitions. The NKP
was established in 1923 as an answer to the majority of
right-opportunists within the Norwegian Labour Party,
leaving the 3rd International. This communist international
was, as we know, established a few years earlier by the
anti-war forces around Lenin, Luxembourg, Liebknecht and
many other famous opponents of the opportunism of the war
those days. We are proud of our party`s history for many
reasons. First of all because we have held firm
class-positions, not only on the international tasks, but
also on the national and even more local conflicts for the
interests of working class. The fight for their interests
has been supported by Norwegian intellectuals, since the
birth of our party. The famous Norwegian poet, Nordahl
Grieg, grew up in my hometown Bergen in Western Norway,
says imperatively in the opening lines of his poem "To the
Youth !" from 1936, strongly supporting the anti-fascists
all over the world those days: "Go into your time " !
Thus we Norwegian Communists always have emphasized
alliances on the current tasks with democratic forces
outside the working-class movement. As we did, especially
in the anti-fascist resistance for independence,1940-45, in
the post-war peace movements and in the broad
red-green-yellow-white-blue alliances against Norwegian
membership in the Common Market (EEC) in 1972 and the then
transformed European Union (EU) of 1994. Both times, when
the EU was debated, our party really played an important
part. First of all in importance was our activity in the
trade-unions, in which the social-democratic left forces
also opposed the idea of "freedom for the multi-nationals".
In both campaigns before the referendums on Yes or No, to
the EEC in 1972 or EU in 1994, it was of vital importance
to develop anti-monopoly and socialist argumentation,,
being discussed at the same time all over Europe. It was
obvious to us, in 93-94, when the Maastricht Treaty was
also part of the agenda, that we had to argue more
offensively, not only for unity facing the monopolies
undermining democratic rights , but also for socialist
alternatives to a Europe and a world, ruled by monopoly
capital. The majority of Norwegians voted No to the EU,
also in 1994, once again with a significant margine. But
the Swedes and Finlanders were squeezed. We know for
certain that the time periods for the cuncurrent electoral
campaigns in the three countries were fixed in a
manipulatory way. In our neighbouring countries there had
till then not been developed such broad and deep
anti-monopoly alliances already from the 60-70s, because
the question was not on their agenda in that period. This
fixing of time was, in our opinion, a result of
consultations among the political authorities within the
three countries, already in 1993. They were obviously
afraid of another Norwegian No, preceding the referendums
in Finland and Sweden. Therefore the day of election in
Norway was to take place last in the three countries in 94,
actually on November 28th. In our opinion these two
victories still are significant examples of the most
succesfull anti-monopoly fights in our common international
history.
Both times the fight was developed as a combined fight for
Norwegian independence together with democratic goals. This
was in our opinion only possible because of the communists`
and leftists` agitation among the Norwegian workers. And
our party, nevertheless small in the beginning, grew
stronger during these campaigns. And also the unity between
the Agrarian party (Senterpartiet), the Left Socialists and
the Communists grew stronger during these campaigns.
Today we are confronting the same tendencies of sneaking
Norway in through EU`s backdoor, based upon the fact that
Norway was already made member of the European Economic
Area - treatment (EEA). Already in 1993, and a year before
the electoral campaigns on membership, Norway was put into
this constitutional position, in an unconstitutional way by
the social-democrats and the general right-forces. I`m
sorry to tell you , we have to be prepared for the same
kind of tactics in the near future.
Why ? Basically their is a link with the general tendencies
in capitalism on world-scale. The Neo-liberal or what we
call the market-fundamentalist way of privatisation turns
the values of a country over into the hands of
international buyers and sellers of stocks. This system has
got its Norwegian supporters, too, specially through the
so-called Progressive Party (Fremskrittspartiet). Through a
mix of half-racism and neo-liberal talk, a great part of
the population, also workers, are manipulated to think
their interests will be solved by these right-wing forces.
In times of war and aggressive racism it`s useful to be in
the Marxist and Leninist tradition. We know from our
classic, Karl Marx, that surplus value is not produced by
the owners of the means of production; the traders, the
speculators or the shipowners, but by labour power; the
working woman and man. By means of the labourers` work new
values are created. But they don`t belong to them, but to
the owners, the capitalists. It`s time for us now to use
this simple knowledge in our agitation and propaganda.
Another classic, Lenin, also said something about
capitalism, monopolies and imperialist wars in 1916 during
the WW1. Today we are confronted with a renewal of
capitalism as a totally world-dominating social-economic
system, as it was before the Russian revolution in 1917.
The growing tendencies of inner-capitalist hypercompetition
for the super values all over the world are turning more
obvious and destructive every minute. A right-wing threat
of brown colour is getting more visible.
But communists do not only feel or think, they try to act
in accordance with their way of understanding. We see with
our open eyes the daily weakening of the fundamental basis
of peoples`welfare everywhere, and we see the developing
crisis of capitalism worldwide. The growing gap between the
wealth of Norwegian capitalists united with the
oil-producing Norwegian state and the poverty on the hands
of the local administrations all over Norway is by now
discussed intensively among people.
In the NKP`s principle programme of 1995 we strive to make
the anti-monopoly strategy deeper, more concrete and thus
stronger. This isn`t possible without at the same time
rebuilding the CP of Norway in itself,which is our task No.
1. Under the conditions of steady renewal of anti-communism
in all medias, and the ongoing discrimination and
neglecting of the communists from public political life it
is our No. 2 to publish our weekly paper, "Friheten" (The
Liberty), first established in 1941 in illegality.
In the last year our subscribers and readers have had the
opportunity, not only to take part in alternative
information on the Balkan war. But we have consequently
tried to turn our paper into an organiser and agitator for
a new way for Norway. Thus we have with small forces turned
the eyes on the developing new anti-EU-fight, the fight for
women`s rights and through our Communist Youth League,
which is now intensifying its work for the strengthening of
the party`s positions among the youth. We have the last
year concentrated on developing campaigns on the questions
of housing costs, better and juster tax structure, and
above all we have supported the workers, not only athrough
our activities in the trade-unions but also indirectly
through our anti-monopoly argumentation on the questions of
the EU, MAI and WTO to set limits on the owners greed. The
last wage settlement was a defeat for the right-wing
social-democrats. Their position within the leadership of
the trade-unions got heavy hits by the workers` No-vote
majority in April 2000. Not of less importance at this time
was also the agitation from our party`s press-campaign.
Comrades, together we have to develop anti-imperialist and
anti-monopoly forces. Then the unity of communists is a
must ! And I know for certain that our way is true and
just, when we work together with common people who daily
suffer from this system. We have a long tradition, but we
still have to be conscious of the many mistake makers and
mistakes from our own ranks. On the other side we should be
proud of our victories. For example the victory of the
Norwegian and Swedish working class when stopping the
imperialist war aginst Norway in 1905. This was also
emphasized by Lenin as an example of progressive democratic
solutions of the national question those days.
When Nordahl Grieg turned communist in the early 30s it was
a main task to prevent a new war. Hitler`s and Mussolini`s
bombing of Spanish cities made it clear for all people,
believing in real democracy, that terror from heaven could
be the prelude of total human disaster. Let me finish with
my own - not too professional - translated quote from
another four lines from his above mentioned poem "To the
Youth !": War is contempt for Life - Peace is creating -
Let`s throw ourselves into the fight - So Death be
unremunerating !

Thank you, comrades !