AKP/Norway

Norway is a very small and untypical country at the top of the world, not only geographically speaking. The bourgeois state is "stinking rich". It is a country with no foreign debt and without deficits. This is because of its oil. They can afford to spend considerable amounts for the working class. Therefore, the standard of living of the average working-class family is relatively high. Last year, there was the highest wage increase in the past twenty years. Unemployment is about 2.6%. If you include everything concealed behind certain measures, it is about 4%. That is not typical when compared to the rest of Europe. The political system in Norway is similar to the one that the comrade from Holland described yesterday. He was speaking about class collaboration. That applies to all Scandinavian countries.

In the 90’s we can observe, as in all Scandinavian countries, a new development. The so-called welfare state is being attacked. Sectors of education, health, finances and the banks are being privatised. There are considerable differences in people’s income in Norway. There is a growing polarization, but it is not as critical as, for example in France, Germany or in other European countries. Because of these special conditions in Norway, I would like to use my introduction to concentrate upon some features, that are of more general importance and that take the international framework of Norway into consideration.

1. Norway is a country which produces raw materials for imperialism. The most important are oil and natural gas. For three years, Norway has been ranking second in oil exports, only after Saudi Arabia. Natural gas deposits in the North Sea are very large and are very important for the European Union and the big European powers. This situation makes it possible for the imperialists to use Norway against the OPEC. They also use Norway to compete with Russia with respect to natural gas. In Norway a similar situation is developing to the one we experienced in Kuwait in the 1980’s. The country is being built up from the resources out of the oil business as was Kuwait. At the time, oil prices are being lowered. This has slowed down the development, but it is still continuing. The result is that in 5 to 10 years there will be an "oil-fund" controlled by the bourgeoisie of about 2 -4000 billion US-dollars. These enormous profits are being used to invest in oil production in the entire world. Statoil, the state controlled oil company, has formed a strategic alliance with British Petrol in their foreign business, for example at the Caspian Sea, in West Africa and Venezuela. I’m telling you this because Norway, although it is a small country, has a special position in the imperialist exploitation and control of important raw materials such as oil and gas.

2. With that I come to the second feature: Norway is an important lackey of US-policy, especially in the Third World. It is a so-called neutral country, not a member of the EU and it has a so-called liberal tradition. It is a small country and very friendly, for example to the Palestinians. It is possible to use Norway for particular measures. For example, when the imperialists are not successful in suppressing militant resistance, Norway is used as a mediator to counter uprisings on a political level. This can be observed in the Oslo Treaty for Palestine, etc. Some concessions are made to the Palestinians, but it serves mainly to implement a new sort of control on the part of the USA. Norway also played an important role in the negotiations in Guatemala and now they are also taking part in the talks in Columbia. My last example is, that they are active in the Balkans and in Kosovo. Norway has the chairmanship in the OSCE this year. Some liberation movements can, of course, take some advantage of the special role Norway plays, but it is very important that they are conscious of the main role Norway is playing in these negotiations.

These two aspects of Norway: providing strategic raw materials for the imperialists and playing the lackey of US-imperialism in the countries of the 3^rd World, have the result that Norway is, more and more, playing the role of an instrument for the great imperialist powers. The bourgeoisie of Norway thus are taking more and more a "comprador-like" position, threatening the rest of national sovereignty of the nation.

3. As for the third point: a progressive feature of Norwegian society is the reaction to the policy of the bourgeoisie. Norway’s people have a general anti-hegemonistic attitude. That also has something to do with their history. Norway was a Danish colony from 1389-1814. Then came Swedish rule until 1905. Not until this century did Norway become an independent state and in the Second World War it was occupied. In Norway a national feudal class never existed. The feudal class was mainly Danish. That is a feature of Norway that has to be understood in order to understand the consciousness of the people. That is also an important reason why Norway managed to keep out of the EU. By taking advantage of these factors, this is a potential for revolutionary work.

On the situation of the party: In the past year, we made great efforts to lead the struggle against right-opportunist influences within the progressive mass organisations in which the party works. After we led a successful struggle within the party against liquidationist forces from 1990-1992, we had to continue the struggle in the mass organisations, especially in the red electoral alliance. It also effected the front around our newspaper. We invested a lot of energy in the struggle against opportunist currents, in the electoral alliance as well as within the front around our newspaper. A struggle took place within the Electoral Alliance. This alliance includes a small number of Trotzkyite forces. These formed some alliances with a former part which had split from our party and are trying to change the political orientation of the Electoral Alliance. The Electoral Alliance is very important, because we do our parliamentary work through it. In 1997 we lost a seat in parliament. We lacked some hundred votes in Oslo out of the necessary 14,000. There is a good possibility that we will get it back in 2001.

As for the newspaper, it is not a party organ. The main owner is the party and the main editor is appointed by the Board. There the party has the majority. Dailies in the communist tradition have the tendency to go their own way because you have to produce something every day and the central committee cannot exercise its leadership over that directly. In the past two years, we led very hard struggles. We had to dismiss the editor in chief and to renew the entire editorial board. That cost us a lot of strength. We had to collect money and recruit 3000 new subscribers. Those were two special tasks in party building since 1997.

Now we have put on the agenda the task of placing more emphasis on party propaganda in addition to the Daily and we have also started a process of bringing our party program up to date. That will take place at the party congress before the summer and will be resolved in the year 2001. We think that there is great potential for the broadening of the revolutionary forces in Norway, but that it will also be hard work.