Furubotn also sought to sweep away much of the old terminology and sectarian jargon of the old Communists of the 1920s and 30s. He claimed that to talk ``such a lot about socialism'' was to misunderstood radicalism.(49) During the transition from capitalism to socialism, one should mention socialism as little as possible, while taking political steps each of which would be a ``blow against capitalism''.(50) Furubotn found support in Lenin. A study of Lenin's writings from the March to the November revolution would show that Lenin rarely wrote about socialism, but expressed himself in other ways.(51)

The attempts to adopt a new mode of expression just after the war can be seen in Friheten and in party documents. Furubotn noticed that they were not always well received by party members and at the NKP school in November 1945, he remarked that many comrades were looking for the revolution in party documents, and were disappointed not to find it there. He drew their attention to Lenin's comment that if they would only learn ``to read and understand what they read'', the prospects of world revolution would be bright.(52) This was a feature of the new line on which Furubotn would accept no compromise.

Independent cadre material

Ideological content and linguistic expression were not the only issues on which Furubotn struck out on his own: he also chose his own way of trying to raise the party's ideological level. As early as in the 1920s, he had been critical of the restrictions on debate within the party, as when he argued in 1925 that the NKP was no mere assembly of the faithful, and on other occasions called for open debate on current issues in the party.(53)

A case in point is the dialogue Furubotn was seeking with religious people. He put his idea into practice when he had a book printed called ``Socialism, morality and religion''. It was by Johanne Reutz and was published by the party publishers ``Ny Dag'' (new day) in 1946. Johanne Reutz's platform was Christian. She was critical of current party Marxist ideology and attacked the dictatorship of the proletariat. It ran the risk, she claimed ``of finishing up with a hierarchy of its own making''.(54) There was therefore a danger that socialism ``might in time lead to just as many abuses in relation to individual members of society as economic power did under capitalism...One must always be on one's guard against power''.(55) Johanne Reutz also gave expression to a wary scepticism towards the Soviet Union, pointing to the ``enormously active religious persecution'' between 1925 and 1935.(56) Another heretical notion was to call the traditional Communist class struggle a brutal class movement, in which it was customary to speak with boundless contempt of such human feelings as love of one's neighbour, tolerance and forgiveness. ``It will not be easy to recruit people who are burdened with such feelings to the class struggle.'' It would be difficult to trust them, because they allowed themselves to be led by their ideas and conscience rather than by changing leaders or a party.(57)

Compared to anything which a Communist publisher could reasonably be expected to put out, Reutz's ideas were nothing if not deviant. Her personal background, too, made her a controversial NKP figure. She had an economics degree, and had been one of the Labour Party's prominent female members, and worked in the statistics department of the Federation of Trade Unions. She had written numerous pamphlets, and had seen the Soviet Union from the inside on a number of visits.(58) In 1940, she had been one of the circle around Haakon Meyer, arousing hostility in the Labour Party.(59) She came into contact with Furubotn after the war, and he asked her to write a pamphlet on the production committees, among other things, for the NKP.(60) That provoked no noticeable reactions, but when her book on socialism, morality and religion appeared, Johan Strand Johansen went into action.