In the second half of the l970s, once new methodological perspectives and models had broken through in international research into Communism, the first half of the l980s was marked by numerous monographs on Communism applying the new views, notably carried and reviewed in the new inter-disciplinary review Communisme (1aunched in Paris in 1982). However, good methods are of little use to a researcher if he lacks the sources on which to test the methods. For obvious reasons, written sources from the war and from illegal activities during the occupation are scarce. Owing to the Communist Party principle that certain matters should be kept secret (central party resolutions, votes, relations with the Soviet Union), important source material is also missing for the postwar period. In this situation, scholars in a number of countries got together in the 1980s to solve the problems posed by the difficulty over sources. In Norway, for instance, there is excellent material from the 1940 to 1950 period, some of which is not available in other countries, in Furubotn's files. The comparative aspect has been gradually gaining in importance, because in a number of fields Communist Parties had a joint ``command centre'' in Moscow. To compensate for the lack of sources in the various countries, scholars resorted not only to comparative research, but also to oral sources. Other disciplines than history and comparative politics were also drawn on, such as sociology, social anthropology, etc. The study of sources from other Communist parties and of their reactions to particular issues made it possible to shed light on one's ``own'' Communist parties and see to what extent problems in particular parties were related to international Communism. This work took on a more organised forms from 1986 on, when a European project was established for the study of Communism from 1917 to the present.(81) The author is the Nordic representative on the steering committee of the project, and this dissertation is one of the first results.

Source material for this dissertation

Research into Norwegian Communism has not produced many publications, the main reason probably being the scarcity of source material beyond newspapers, minutes of Party congresses, hand-outs and the like. Besides, with the exception of the 1945-49 period, the Norwegian Communist Party has been small and accordingly not an attractive subject for research. The present dissertation makes use of every published item of source material which it has been possible to trace. Such sources no doubt provide a reasonable picture of how the party was viewed from the outside, and of how it wished to be viewed. These official party sources are essential when it comes to forming an impression of the political processes in the party and their public impact. Nevertheless, they amount to no more than what may be described as the traditional sources for the study of the Communist movement. The present dissertation though amounts to a breakthrough as far as sources are concerned, because former General Secretary Peder Furubotn's wartime and postwar files were placed at the author's disposal. They contain about 6,000 pages from the war and 10,000 pages covering the 1945 to 1950 period. For the study of Norwegian Communism from 1940 to 1950, these files are of fundamental importance, containing as they do correspondence, resolutions, reports, minutes etc. at Central Committee and General Secretary level. To a large extent, the files amount to the party's central archives. In addition, the author has been able to consult a variety of private files covering the 1942 to 1950 phase belonging to leading Communists of the time. Diaries and Central Committee minutes have proved impossible to find, the latter in particular a notable gap in the sources. On the other hand, the author has had access to Olaug and Samuel Titlestad's contemporary reports on top-level internal NKP meetings from 1945 to 1948. Amounting to some 200 pages, these reports are very valuable in the light they shed on the inner life of the Communist Party and on internal discussions of strategy and tactics. Most of the source material collected and utilised thus concerns the central decision-making processes in the party. One important exception is Samuel Titlestad's file, which also contains material relating to the West Norway district of NKP from 1945 to 1949, when Titlestad was the Party's District Secretary. Another important, though small, local file dates from Jon Jamtli's period as Secretary of the NKP's Mo i Rana branch in the North of Norway. The difficulty with the private files is the question of how representative they are. They all stem from persons who at one time or another were active on the Furubotn wing of the party. The author has attempted to correct the balance by using sources from the Løvlien wing, but according to the information he has received, little material exists from the period in question. There may nevertheless still be important NKP material held in private hands which is at present undisclosed. The Communist Party itself says it has no material that can shed light on the questions taken up here, and refers to the Furubotn files. In the long run the present ``Glasnost'' tendencies may alter this state of affairs, especially if scholars are given access to NKP files held in Moscow.