CRISIS IN THE DANISH CP
By GEORG MOLTVED
### PREFATORY NOTE
The following article just missed the deadline for our last issue. Its solid facts are unchanged by its late appearance, but to update it, the following subsequent events may usefully be noted: office was overfulfilled. Branches have been formed throughout the country, and a congress was called for the end of April to adopt a programme and elect a regular leadership.
Doish unist Part then are next elecentatives
In the of both
Communist
Parties.
In the next
Stalinists will be eliminated.
The weakness shown by the new party has been that in fighting against Stalinism, it has set reformist trends its strength will come from the fact that it will be obliged to admit revolutionary groups to member.
ship and to function in accordance with democratic principles.
March 1959
One of the countries where the settlement of ist school, received no directives in the onnosite accounts with Stalinism occurred with particular clarity is Denmark, not only because of the country's smallness, but also because the man who had headed the party for 30 years was driven into opposition and for this reason aroused particular attention for the policy of the opposition.
The Communist Party of Denmark, after the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, made a spectacular advance, not because of the skill and foresightedness of its chiefs, but thanks to the skilful and disciplined intervention of rank-and-file Communists in the fight against the German forces of occupation - an action which is not questioned even by the bourgeois participants in this resistance struggle. But recruiting was helped also by the victories of the Soviet Union and partly also by hopes of the development of a revolutionary current in a series of capitalist countries, especially Germany and France.
The Communist Party, which previously had had only three members in the parliament, won 18, entirely at the expense of the Social-Democracy, which during the occupation had been more than passive — indeed, opposed — to the liberation struggle. But soon the rank and file of the Communist Party underwent great disappointments. Although they had carried on the resıstance struggle without chiefs (these were all in German prisons), they loyally gave back the political leadership to the old chiefs, who showed a surprising lack of desire to continue the struggle. A certain retormism, of long standing in the party, had a new flowering. Without concern for the class struggle, the chiets made propaganda for the continuation of the collaboration carried on with the bourgeois during the years of the resistance into the political life of the future. We do not know whether the Soviet Union had provided the direct stimulus to such a policy; but the leaders, educated in the Stalinsense either. Soon the party was strongly suffused with reformism, a utopian idea of slipping peacefully into socialism solely by parliamentary work. The shift to the right, this bowing down to the bourgeoisie, did, however, bring about a certain desolidarization from the Soviet Union The whole thing had an air of Social-Democracy about it.
This lack of realism and an unequivocal desolidarization from real socialism, combined with the hesitations and vacillations leadership, atter some years caused a decline in the partys intluence and authority. The large number of social-Democrats who had joined i1 went back to their old party, and the most outstanding Marxists either abandoned the party in great disappointment or were expelled if they made an audible criticism. When the fiasco was obvious, the party received the advice from the Soviet Union to keep less to the right and above all to keep close to the Soviet Union. That meant, not an abandonment of reformism, but the firmer use of Stalinist terror in the party, with expulsion of all Leninists. This policy led to an even greater desertion from the party, till the explosion finally came as a consequence of the XXth Congress at Moscow and the later settlements of accounts with Stalinism in Poland and Hungary. The majority of the members reacted by resignations: the number of members fell from 50,000 in 1946 to 11,000 in 1957. But a revolt broke out inside the party as well. The gagged members found their voices again. Part of those who had resigned, together with Left Social-Democrats and some Trotskyist groups, formed a new Socialist Party which, apart from some victories in municipal elections, had no imortance, partly because it did not know how to work up a clear .. socialist programme, but above all for lack of skilled leaders.
It was then that Aksel Larsen, head of the CP
50 for many years, found the moment ripe for revolt. It is true, he himself had been the most zealous about reformist policy, but at the same time an adversary of the over-strong influence of the Soviet Union on the party. In his youth, in Moscow, he had supported the Trotskyist Opposition and had been banished to a province in the North, and then exiled, after running the risk of losing his right to membership in the party. Bukharin saved him. For six years he was not accepted by the Soviet Union. Nevertheless he very quickly became the chief of the Danish party, which was then almost falling to pieces. As its chief he showed great faculties for organization by pulling the party together again and won a considerable popularity in the working class, showing much oratorical talent as a member of parliament.
For several years he and some other party leaders carried on a clandestine struggle amainst Stalinism, unnoticed by the party members, because party loyalty forbade any disagreement becoming apparent. He saw quite clearly that the party was heading toward decomposition, and he at least did not want to accompany it into ruin. After the Hungarian crisis his protests coincided with those of several others, and he was to make his opposition overt. It went beyond the question of Hungary and led to denands for party democracy and the right to criticize the Soviet Union. His appearance in the arena of the opposition was the signal for all the other oppositions, both the Marxist-Leninist groups and the purely reformist groups, to hoist their colors. The open revolt in the party could be calmed only by calling a special congress for October 1958.
There was no doubt but that the Stalinist wing would have the majority therein, although most of the members were evidently for the opposition. The chief of the party knew it too: it was not in vain that he himself had for several years worked out statutes and usages that rendered illusory the democratic rights of the members.
i strong point of the opposition was that almost ll the Gommunist trade-union leaders were with it. Everything indicated that Aksel Larsen would e expelled ai, the congress, especially when his most outstanding collaborator in the opposition, Kaj Moltke, who was the foreign politics editor of the party's paper, Land og Folk, was expelled shortly before the congress. Moltke was much more to the left than the party chief, an outstanding Marxist and a dangerous adversary, especially since he had a strong position among the membit diffany's position toward its chiet was a
Pospelor, the Soviet adviser who was present, advised expulsion for all members
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL critical of the Soviet Union, with the exception of Larsen, who must have no official functions - this in order not to destroy the party any more than was necessary. It aroused much attention in Denmark, and also in other countries, that the Soviet Union was openly meddling in the party of this small country. Never in the past had a Soviet delegation been present at a Danish congress; one now arrived which, through Pospelov, represented the very top of the Soviet party. (The previous year he had been in Italy to pacify the party there, and he had been named to lead the delegation to the Jugoslav congress not long before the Soviet Union threw Jugsslavia out into the exterior darkness again.) Pospelov was the collaborator and successor of Suslov, who, a few years before, had destroyed the Communist Party of Norway by methods previously unknown in the Scandinavian countries. Several months before the Danish congress, Aksel Larsen had been the victim of a violent attack in the newspaper of the Dutch party, De Waarherd, where the party chief, de Groot, accused Larsen of being an "enemy of the party' and a deserter to capitalism. This article was reproduced in Pravda without comment; Aksel Larsen knew then the position of the Soviet Union toward him and the opposition. It is probable that the leadership in the Soviet Union was afraid that the revolt in the Danish party would spread by chain-reaction to other coun tries and for this reason intervened, also so as to render what was left of the party still more devoted to the Soviet Union.
To expel Larsen meant even more action against an important member, because he was also a member of parliament, and, what is controlled all six Communist mandates. For his mandate was what is called a constituency mandate (the only one the party had at its disposal) which has to be won in order for it to receive supplementary seats. His expulsion would have the effect that the other five would not be reëlected in the next elections. But the sanction was carried out; Aksel Larsen himself provoked it. He did not stay in his old party, isolated and stripped of influence. At a theatre, performance, he had himself photographed by the press noose around his neck, a macabre allusion to the coming congress. He was expelled, not at the congress, but a fere days later, after having arranged meetings of his fractions in some cities in the country.
What is left of the party is now composed exclusively of Stalinists, completely subject to the conditions of the Soviet Union. It has been a costly business. For, whereas the party had to organize an annual collection to raise about 400,000 Danish kroner to pay the costs of the
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL apparatus, this could not be done during the revolt and was postponed. If it is taken into consideration that about half the members have left the party in the past two years, and that its press is having the need considerable contributions from be understood. The break-up of the party is probably going to continue. After his expulsion, Aksel Larsen announced the formation of a new socialist party, the People's Socialist Party, which, under this name, has been officially registered with the parliament.
Provisionally, Aksel Larsen is asking for written support for his parliamentary mandate, rather as a moral guarantee and as a means of agitation. He wants at least 15,000 signatures — which he will surely obtain. This Spring the party will begin its activity, when a programme will be distributed and discussed. More than half the members of the Communist Party have joined it, and the above-mentioned Socialist of Denmark is near a fusion with it. Several groups with a radical Marxist-Leninist viewpoint, most of whose members have been expelled from the DK P for their conscious Marxist attitude, have also offered their support to the new party. These groups are seizing this opportunity instead of working in isolation with possibility of doing practical work, a situation to which they were forced to subject themselves for many years. They will profit by the promised freedom of expression to form the left wing of the new party and will stand as sentinels against reformism.
In this settlement, what is remarkable is that neither Aksel Larsen nor the already mentioned trade-union chiefs had imagined setting up a new party, but only getting away from the DK P and awaiting developments. But the rank-and-file members poured into the arena. Various branches in the provinces and in Copenhagen were united in their demand for the creation of a new party. This happened in an almost explosive way. Aksel Larsen was driven forward, much farther than he had imagined. It was onl then that he decided to associate himself with the formation of a new party. This pressure from below is a trait full of promise for Marxist developments.
And what will these developments mean? First, that the role of the DK P is finished in
51 Danish politics and that its significance for the Danish workers' movement is reduced to a minimum. Next, that the new party, as tar as can be judged from declarations and analyses, wil be forced to observe democratic rules for tions and votes, and to leave the power in the hands of the members to a degree never seen in either the DK P or the Soviet Union. As the D KP has practised reformism to a considerable degree, the new party at worst will do the same; but, in the best of cases, it will be susceptible to Leninism, all the more so in that it is forced to admit the Marxist groups.
The opposition has declared, not only that is is opposed to the NA lU, but also that it is in tavor of total Danish disarmament - not a penny for militarism. This finds a deep echo throughout the whole working class and among large parts of the peasantry, where anti-militar -ism is traditional. The D K P's position had been absurd; it wanted military expenses reduced to half of whatever the NA TO asked.
Since Aksel Larsen, in full agreement with his leadership, has had strong reformist tendencies, it can well be feared that these will rub off on the People's Socialist Party. His aspiration was to fuse with the Social-Democracy or to collaborate with it, even to participate with it in bourgeois governments. For this reason, the Social-Democracy ought not to be embarrassed when it was the government, so as not to risk having it replaced by a bourgeois government. This is a tactic that is not unknown among other Communist Parties, in France for example, and that unquestionably is connected with the foreign policy of the Soviet Union, which does not want to see disorders, let alone revolts, in capitalist countries.
The Soviet Union, however, remains interested in keeping a Communist Party as an organ that it can use for Soviet propaganda, for the publication of Soviet magazines, for the organization of the trips of delegations, the exchange of lectures and art exhibitions, and, naturally, to be always at its disposal to explain and glorify the advances of the Soviet Union and other soat dio not prietrate ista rhe serials rations of these countries. It is to this that the Communist Party of Denmark is now reduced. January 1959