Grenseoverskridende sosialisme : Undersøkelser av den norske arbeiderbevegelsens transnasjonale historie 1920-55

Abstract

The Norwegian Labour Movement went through an astonishing ideological transformation between the First World War and the Cold War. In regard to the dominant labour party in Norway throughout this period, the Norwegian Labour Party (Det norske Arbeiderparti), the years 1920 and 1955 represent stark contrasts. In 1920 Labour was a ‘section’ of the newly established Communist International (Comintern) and accepted Leninist organisational principles foreign to the longstanding grassroots’ traditions of the Norwegian labour. Thirty-five years later, in 1955, the same party – and many of the same actors – had led Norway into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), directed towards the threat of Communism and the Soviet Union. At this point anti-Communist attitudes had hegemony in the ranks of the party and the trade union organisation. Through transnational perspectives, the doctoral thesis throws new light on this ideological transformation. The years 1920 and 1955 marks the periodical limits of the thesis’ three empirical articles, that all explore the Norwegian labour movement’s (first and foremost Labour’s) transnational entanglements, and how these contributed to its ideological turns of the period. Supporting these articles theoretically, and clarifying how they are interrelated, several adjoining chapters introduce the general historical theme, discusses advantages and challenges of adopting transnational perspectives and methods in the study of the Norwegian labour movement’s development, and provides a historiographical overview of the field. The central goal of this thesis is to contribute to a transnational turn in Norwegian labour history.