Time and again he pointed out that theory without practice was stillborn:(35) ``If the party offends against this principle, it has no right of existence''. People must be taught to judge Communists not by what they say, but by what they do.(36) His new ideological collaborators must be ``far-sighted and honest''.(37) Personal qualifications and character development were important: cadres could be assembled who would be ``bearers of progressive views that will be advanced come hell or high water''.(38) The new cadre type would be borne upwards on knowledge, practice, character -- and idealism:(39)

We must sit and listen and be sensitive enough to feel needs -- the NKP must become so closely associated with people's day to day concerns and needs that the people take notice. We must embrace their need for feelings, too, so that we become, one might say, political musicians.

Furubotn hoped to create a new core of party leaders all over the country with strong characters and personalities. The NKP would no longer be a ``proletarian movement'' with a ``primitive trade union leadership'', but a party which emphasised ``intelligence'' and was led by people with a ``scientific'' approach.(40) No longer was the working class to be idealised. This would enable the party to make the most of the favourable postwar situation: ``For the workers to be the creative force is not enough. The creative development is the spirit''. A vital question for the party was how to draw intellectuals, even from bourgeois backgrounds, into its leadership.

``Progressive'' and ``negative'' compromises

Furubotn's words about ``courage, boldness, and firmness of character'' did not appear to leave much room for compromise, yet compromise was an important element of his political strategy. He thought about the problem a good deal, and wanted party officers to distinguish between what he called progressive and negative compromise. Progressive compromises ``promoted policies'', i.e. cleared the way for further political advances.(41) The NKP, he said, still had a lot to learn about arriving at compromises on the basis of principle.

On what sometimes seemed the long road to socialism, he always saw at least two main trends in every particular question, on the one hand the ``reactionary'' and on the other the ``truly democratic and revolutionary''. For the trend, in any process, to be revolutionary it did not necessarily mean that it was socialist it was enough for it to have elements which could in the long run promote socialist development. He accordingly launched the slogan that every step towards democracy was a step towards socialism.(43) We can see an example of this reasoning in the declaration Furubotn appended to the joint programme in 1945.(44) ``In view of the backwardness of the working class, the intellectuals, the forces of democracy, etc.'', compromise was to be a major instrument with which Communists would win a hearing for their policies:(45) nevertheless, Furubotn was aware that compromise was not without its political pitfalls. It would be a question of learning the knack of ``apparent retreat'' at the right time and place. The NKP would have to be able to give a public account of its compromises.(46)

Another problem was how decisions to compromise would be received by party members. Many would dig their heels in unless resolutions were full of revolutionary rhetoric. Furubotn referred to Lenin's study of compromise in ``Leftwing Communism – an infantile disorder''. The book was a harsh attack on the left wing of Communist parties', which condemned compromise and co-operation with non-revolutionary groups.(47) But Furubotn also saw the need to set limits to compromise. Communist parties must not be afraid of espousing unpopular causes. If the policy of practically the whole working class was ``utopian'', the party must oppose it.(48)