Furthermore, he had attempted to emphasize a Norwegian road to Socialism and a fairly broad, progressive coalition in Norway. This tendency was reminiscent of the approach sponsored by Gomulka in Poland and others who had now been purged or were in the process of being attacked. Therefore Moscow clearly supported the Løvlien faction, criticised the nationalistic Furubotn group, and in all probability denied him any kind of support when he went to Moscow in 1947. Such limited Soviet CP involvement was probably all that was needed to ensure Løvlien's success in the general atmosphere of Stalinism.

Gilberg's account is largely descriptive, and lacking in discussion at important points of the causes of major events.(24) Objections can also be made to a shortage of references to sources and the use of anonymous sources on important points.(25) His book is the only available English-language study of Norwegian Communism.(26)

Paul Knutsen

Apart from Terje Halvorsen, Paul Knutsen has been the most productive writer on specific NKP problems in the period from 1945 to 1950. The subject of his Master's dissertation was the 1948 clash at Herøya, an industrial centre and Communist bastion.(27) In 1977 he published parts of the dissertation under the title ``Statsbærende og opposisjonell kommunisme'' (constitutional and oppositional Communism) (28), in which he deals specifically with the nature of what he calls the party's radicalization or turn to the left around 1948. Knutsen is critical of historians who have taken it for granted that this radicalization implied a change-over from a reformist to a revolutionary Communist line. Knut Einar Eriksen, for instance, is criticised for claiming, ``without sources or argumentation'' that the party suddenly became revolutionary in 1948.(29) On the other hand, Knutsen agrees with Eriksen that from 1945 to 1948 the party stood for a social democratic line. Broadly speaking, the reason given for describing the party profile as social democratic is that ``in important areas'' during that period, the party's views ``coincided with those of the Norwegian Labour Party''.(30) Like Halvorsen, Knutsen considers the conflicts besetting the party at the time; on the basis of an analysis of developments in the local Herøya party, he sees in the turn to the left in 1948 a transition, not so much to a revolutionary approach as to revolutionary phraseology.(31) He sees the Furubotn wing as the chief centre of what he calls ``oppositional reformism''(32), but makes an important reservation with regard to the political clashes in the party:(33)

How far it is justifiable to speak of an actual division on matters of principle between the two wings is in any case an open question.