This is an area where we must manage without the main written source, the NKP central committee minutes, and rely on the account Strand Johansen himself gave on 20 October 1949, in the very speech which marked the beginning of the inner NKP struggle that year.(61) His account was not contradicted by the Furubotn wing at the time or by oral sources since. It is moreover a safe assumption, on the basis of his use of dates, that he had checked his information against the minutes, which were accessible to him then as a member of the central committee -- a few days before the party split. Johansen's account is probably correct.

What he had to say in 1949 was that Reutz's book was suppressed by the central committee on 26 March 1946, because it was a ``counter-revolutionary, Trotskyite arsenal of anti-Communist weapons''.(62) Furubotn had evidently been totally unsuspecting and had not attended the meeting; for when he came back, according to Johansen, he was upset, and said that the book was to be used to ``raise the ideological level''.(63) He had added that the book was going to be reviewed, Johansen said, leaving party members free to choose between communism and Trotskyism.(64)

What was wrong with the review, according to Strand Johansen, was that it was going to be written by a ``Trotskyite''(65), probably Ørnulf Egge. That must have looked very bad to Johansen: a Communist publisher publishing a book by one ``Trotskyite'' which was to be reviewed by another smacked of conspiracy, and he was furious to see ``this Trotskyite poison'' in the party ranks.(66)

Furubotn's untraditional approach to party study can also be seen in his use of his own writings from the war and the immediate post-war period. He put them on a par with works by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin as basic course material. One important reason why his works were predominant in the material the party studied was that there were hardly any of the Marxist classics to be found after 1945, because the Germans had confiscated and destroyed any such books they came across. The Communist publishers ``Ny Dag'' were relatively quick to reissue booklets by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, but for a long time Furubotn's wartime and post-war writings remained the only basic material for study. Friheten and other Communist newspapers ran them as a major series of articles, and they subsequently appeared in book form. Furubotn's aides in the party administration set great store by his documents, while those opposed to him argued against giving them such prominence as course material.(67) One interesting feature of his writings is their relative freedom from quotations from Stalin, compared to the works of other contemporary Communist leaders.

One may well ask why it was so important to him for publish not only Reutz's book but also his own writings. It was more than a matter of ``raising the ideological level''; he also wanted to develop independent party cadres who would be capable of the innovative thinking which he believed the party needed. A discussion of Nordahl Grieg's book, Ung må verden ennu være (The world must still be young) is illustrative.

The book had been extremely popular among communists ever since its first appearance in 1938. It gave answers to awkward questions, including the Moscow trials and party discipline. The Communist girl in the novel, Kira, had become something of an ideal for Norwegian Communists. She would always loyally follow the party, even if it adopted resolutions which ran counter to her opinions. She was the prototype of a Russian commissar, and Nordahl Grieg portrayed her in a sympathetic light.