Young Communists in Norway

The Youth Communists in Norway (UngKom) is the youth wing of the Norwegian Communist Party.The Youth Communists in Norway is a Marxist-Leninist organization. The UngKom prints and hands out the communist paper Kameraten(The Comrade) every month.The organization was formed after a conflict between the leaders of the Young Communists in Norway (NKU) and the Norwegian Communist Party resulting in some former members of NKU as well as some newcomers forming a new NKU together with the communist party [Statement of the Secreteriat of the Norwegian Communist Party 1st April 2006] . In 2008 the new NKU was forced by the court Oslo Tingrett to change its name and logo and therefore the organization became The Youth Communists in Norway.

History

The Youth Communists in Norway view themselves as the successors of NKU and claim that the history of NKU up until the forming of UngKom is the history of UngKom.

1903 - 1940

In 1903 in the city of Drammen as Young Social Democrats of Norway (NSU) as the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party. In 1923 they changed their motherparty from the Labour Party to the newly formed communist party, which was formed following a conlict on the membershi in Komintern.

In the 30's the youth league worked together with the communist party against strikebreakers, fascism and for the establishing of a national front to defend the country against fascism and nazism.

1940 - 1949

When World War Two came to Norway 9th April 1940, the youth communists prepared it's organization for illegal work in case the Nazi occupation lead to communist organizations being illegalized. This happened in August the same year, a month before the illegalization of the other political parties. In addition to the communists being the fascists' and nazis' main enemy, this happened because the communists were the only ones who refused to print Quisling's statement April 10th [The Norwegian Communist Party's newspaper Arbeideren April 10th 1940] and already the 16th April communists urged for armed resistance while the other parties urged for calm behavior [Hviteboka 1940, Second Edition, Forlaget Ny Dag, 1975.] Following the illegalization, the youth league's resistance sharpened with the creation of some of Norway's first illegal papers during the war [Død over de tyske okkupanter, First Edition, Informasjonsforlaget, 1998.] When the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 was violated, the Youth Communists intensified their activities further. In the period 1941-1945 the Youth League was part of numerous sabotage-raids against Germans and German-aiding production, several of their members also contributed directly in the war effort. One example of this is Dagny Siblund from Jabobsnes in Finnmark, northern Norway, who fled to the Soviet Union and received training there before being dropped in a parachute over Norway as Norway's first female parachuter [Død over de tyske okkupanter, First Edition, p. 60, Informasjonsforlaget, 1998.] . When the war came to an end and the occupation was lifted, the organization had gained so much popularity that several of the Labour Party's Youth Wing leagues joined the communist league instead.In the next few years the youth league would disagree so much with the communist party that it resulted in an open political conflict within both organizations between the so-called Furubotn-fløy and the Løvlien-fløy.

1949 - 2006

The youth league became less prominent in Norwegian politics as the communist party lost it's seats in the Storting. In 1967 a right-wing faction in the youth league was excluded from the communist party, but the faction had majority control over the central part of the communist youth league resulting in the youth league suspending to be the youth league of the communist party. In response to this the communist party established a new youth league called Communist Youth (KU) which took NKU's seat for a couple of years until NKU died out and they could reclaim the name and logo of the organization. NKU again became the youth wing of the communist party.

2006 - Present Day

In 2006 the communist party felt that the leading members of the youth league had failed miserably. The national meeting of NKU had not been held within required limits of their own written rules, possible members met no answer when trying to establish contact with the youth league and mail, including bills, were not opened. To which lengths this claims can be verified is uncertain [Court-resumeé of Oslo Tingrett] , but with these arguments the communist party re-established NKU in April-May 2006 together with the potential members and some former members of the youth league. In this process they called a national meeting for those wishing to re-establish the youth league, a meeting which was held on the 12th and 13th May. This resulted in a new more bitter conflict between the old youth league and the communist party, whilst the new youth league itself remained out of the conflict able to begin it's work as a youth league.

In 2007 the old youth league summoned NKP to court for theft of a political party. Although the NKP was not found guilty of stealing an organization, the court decided that the old youth league had the right to the name and logo of the Young Communist League of Norway. NKP was however commended for making steps toward re-organizing the youth league [Oslo Tingrett] , but the court pointed out that they should have involved the leadership of the old youth league as well. As a consequence the new youth wing of the communist party had to change their name into The Youth Communists in Norway.

Organization

Today, The Youth Communists in Norway is organized after the principles of the democratic centralism with one exception, and extra organ on top of the organization consists of both local leaders of the league as well as some prominent members from the communist party. The organization claims this is a part of the process of re-establishing the youth communists.

The youth communists today have offices in these cities:
*Oslo
*Bergen
*Trondheim
*Tromsø

External links

* [http://www.ungkommunist.no Home page of The Young Communists in Norway]
* [http://www.ungkommunist.no Home page of the Norwegian Communist Party]
* [http://www.bergenkommunist.no Home page of the Bergen division]
* [http://www.ungkommunist.no The Young Communists own history page, in Norwegian]

References