Roald Halvorsen (1914- ) was a printer(33) and held several important trade union offices. He had been a member of the Oslo workers' association, which supported the Labour Party, since 1935.(34) He was quick to join the resistance, and in 1943, by which time he had been responsible for a lot of illegal publications, he arrived at Furubotn's underground headquarters. He was soon given leading party responsibilities. He went to Sweden in 1944 to represent the party there at the same time as he was co-opted to its Central Committee.(35) Shortly after the war he was made chairman of the party's youth organisation.

Kjell Grude Kviberg (1914-76)(36) also came from the AUF, where he had been very active in Arbeidernes Fotolag (the workers' photographic society), which was part of ``Sosialistisk kulturfront'' (the socialist cultural front). He quickly began working for the underground press. After a short time he was given important work to do in the editing of illegal NKP papers, and became the editor of Friheten just after the war.

Samuel Titlestad (1912-95)(37) was chairman of the AUF in Bergen and the county of Hordaland in 1940, and a member of its national executive. He fought as a soldier in April 1940 and began resistance work the same summer. In the winter of 1940-41 he came into contact with Furubotn through Nils Langhelle, the Labour Party chairman for Bergen and Hordaland. In addition to his active wartime experience, his work in the musical field, among other things as deputy chairman of ``Hordaland Musikklag'' (the Hordaland musical society), gave him a wide network of contacts. As a leading Labour Party and AUF figure in Western Norway, Titlestad was also important to Furubotn in his relations with the Labour Party, as well as being put in charge of the NKP centre's security. He joined the NKP in 1943, and was co-opted to its Central Committee in 1944.(38) At the end of the war, he became chairman of the NKP's farming committee. He was thoroughly acquainted with the world of farmers and small-holders, having qualified as an agronomist and spent many years as a tenant farmer.

All four of these young men had come to rapid prominence in the NKP after undertaking demanding underground assignments for the party. In 1945, they were fresh and unfamiliar faces, with the possible exception of Arnulf Egge - whose co-operation with Haakon Meyer in 1940 weighed against him. Their youth, and the fact that they were relative unknowns, led some political observers - and subsequent commentators - to believe that they were colourless Furubotn lackeys. The truth was that they thought very highly of Furubotn as leader of the NKP, and had also become closely attached to him personally and politically during their underground struggle. Some had lived in close proximity to him, not only while engaged in political activities, but also in everyday life or when on the run from the Gestapo. Their wartime comradeship had welded them together, and to a large extent led them to think alike politically. No doubt the difference in age gave Furuboth greater authority than would otherwise have been the case, but Egge, Halvorsen and Titlestad in particular were strong leaders in their own right whom the old guard of the NKP had to reckon with. After a closer look at the group around Furubotn in 1945, one has to scrap the black-and-white picture of the autocratic party veteran with the flock of inexperienced youths at his feet, a picture which also conceals the fact that in the Furubotn wing, too, there were both cultural and regional differences, like that between what can be called the Eastern Norway wing (Egge, Halvorsen, etc.) and the Western Norway wing (Titlestad and others).