The degree of Furubotn's national popularity in 1923 can be seen in the tug-of-war which took place at the Labour Party Conference: the Bergen delegation was so reluctant to lose him that it opposed his nomination for Secretary(32), before finally giving way to what Arbeidet (1abour) called ``the unanimous demand''. Something similar took place in the elections to the youth organisation. Furubotn only agreed to run for chairman under pressure(33), and then won by an overwhelming majority. Among recollections from those February days in 1923, many are of Furubotn's rhetorical gifts. His political opponent Trond Hegna says that Martin Tranmæl was the only other person capable of holding an audience the way Furubotn could.(34) He spoke with the passion so characteristic of him, without a script - and for hours. Opponents and supporters alike kept quiet the better to hear him. In a commentary on his speech a Kristiania paper wrote: ``...we Norwegians always have to seek abroad for clear heads - either in Moscow or in Bergen...''.(35)

The popularity Furubotn enjoyed in large sectors of the labour movement in the early 1920s has since, interestingly enough, been retouched to the point of invisibility, probably because of his controversial role in more recent history. It is important to note how political mechanisms can have retroactive effects on historical research.

In 1921, the moderates left the Labour Party to form the Norwegian Social Democratic Labour Party, NSA.(36) In 1923, the Labour Party split again. The supporters of the Comintern left to form the Norwegian Communist Party, the NKP, to which Furubotn became General Secretary of the new party and in 1925 its Chairman.(37) The NKP was a member of the Comintern, and Furubotn accordingly went to Moscow on a number of occasions to discuss questions relating to the Norwegian and the international labour movement.

In 1927 he was elected to the Comintern's Presidium, and in 1928 to its Executive Committee.(38) This placed him right at the heart of the maelstrom of international Communism in Moscow. He was a Comintern leader, though not among the foremost: the NKP was too small, both nationally and internationally, for him to acquire real prominence. His period as Chairman of the NKP from 1923 to 1930 may have been one of the hardest times of his life, both personally and financially.(39) He became Party Secretary at a time of poisonous in-fighting in the labour movement. Besides, the movement was under a lot of financial strain, with extensive unemployment causing decline or stagnation in the unions. Movements which were regarded by organised labour as fascist (Norges Samfundshjelp, Fedrelandslaget) (Norwegian Social Aid, the Fatherland league) were making alarming progress. Fear of a Norwegian Mussolini can be traced in Furubotn's contributions to national conferences as early as in 1923. (40) He also experienced the party's inability to achieve a breakthrough as a nationwide party: on the contrary, from 1927 on it suffered a lasting and sometimes drastic decline, although maintaining a relatively strong position in Western and Northern Norway and in the counties of Hedmark and Trøndelag.

To top all this, a slanging match developed within the party, the likes of which can hardly have been seen in any Norwegian party before or since. The dispute concerned both personalities and policies. Minutes of Central Committee meetings or national conferences from 1923 to 1930 show the NKP to have been spending most of its time quarrelling about who represented the party's left, right or centre. This left little time for ``concrete tasks'', as Furubotn remarked in June 1926.(41) The vituperation occasionally grew so extreme that in 1927 the Central Committee even acquired bodyguards for a short time.(42) To a large extent, this inner struggle stemmed from the Oslo element at the top of the party. (43) Although the Oslo party was one of the weakest local parties in the country, the NKP leadership was largely dominated by Oslo people.(44) This Oslo dominance also meant that people from outside Oslo had difficulty in being accepted in the ``ruling'' Oslo circles.(45) This kind of regional and cultural rivalry could also give rise to personal clashes, and can no doubt be seen in other Norwegian parties as well. To add to these inner national conflicts, there was also the membership of the Comintern, which on a number of occasions interfered in the inner life of the party and played the various groups off against each other, while seeking at the same time to build up a core of leaders in the NKP who were loyal to it.