To borrow a term from the natural sciences, this dissertation adopts a holistic perspective, a comprehensive approach to the problem as a whole. The long-term national and international factors which affect it originated before 1945. Precisely because the genre chosen is biography, the presentation of the leading actor up to 1945 is of fundamental importance, with the insight it brings into the personal and political qualities and qualifications with which Peder Furubotn took to the stage in 1945. In addition to being the NKP leader, he represented a regional culture: for Western Norway, for rural Norway, and to some extent, in his mentality, for Bergen. He was not exclusively a political animal, having learned the craft of a joiner and been a trade union man for years. Basic ingredients of the NKP's history parallel this personal history. A totality of individual and organizational history provides an important methodological platform for Tannahill, among others. Before changing its course, the party leadership often seeks to find its political footing in the past. (82) In Tannahill's opinion, this is especially true if the party is in the process of adopting a standpoint independently of the Soviet Union.(83) Any moves towards independence in earlier party history have consequences for ensuing decisions:(84)

In sum, virtually all aspects of a Communist party's present position and posture are affected by the party's history. Past party policies, both international and domestic, past alliance strategies, past organisational patterns, and past modes of decision making tend to persist in the collective memory of the party and to be reflected in currently operative action programmes.

Section 2

This section provides a basis for the comparative approach and for assessing conditions in the NKP, and for defining the limits within which Communist leaders in various countries were obliged to operate.

Section 3

This section describes the conditions limiting what the party leader could achieve within the national party organisation: what restrictions he was up against or had to respect.

Section 4

We now have a number of structures indicative of the constraints on the party leader's freedom of action, as a counterpart to the opportunities presented by the situation from 1944 to 1947. Section 4 describes the actual attempts made by the leading actor to realise his own political ideas and the reactions his initiatives provoked within the organisation and outside it. An assessment is given of how successful or unsuccessful he was. What conclusions did he draw himself?

Section 5

The outer international context of Communist policy changed in 1947, with consequences for our leading actor and for the NKP which are also focussed upon. What were their reactions to the change in the external climate?

Section 6

The short-term factors affecting the relation between the main actor and his platform from 1945 to 1949 come together in the conflicts escalating in the party in 1948-49. The struggle to define party policy becomes visible, and events are traced chronologically and in detail.

Section 7

The time is now ripe for a discussion of the main problems raised in the dissertation and for a concluding assessment. A main point of departure is the long-term and short-term causes of the NKP crisis in 1949, the national and the international factors, the driving forces in the showdown. At the same time this is a definition of the main constraints on the party leader's activities. A comparison between Furubotn and Tito sheds light on the framework within which Furubotn had to operate. In an attempt to make Furubotn's profile even more distinct, the author contrasts him to other contemporary Communist leaders.