Reconstruction
On 20 June 1945, Lie returned to Norway. At the national convention of the Labour Party that same year, he was elected party secretary. While Gerhardsen became chairman and prime minister, and gradually assumed his role as "Father of the Nation" ("Landsfaderen"), Lie maintained party discipline and staked out the political strategy in the background. From his position at the head of the party he helped orchestrate the predominant position the party was to hold in the following years, with absolute parliamentary majorities won in the 1945, 1949, 1953 and 1957 elections. During the reconstruction of the post-war years, he helped lead the party onto a more moderate path. Private versus public ownership of industry now became a practical, rather than an ideological question. The policy proved highly successful; the country experienced unprecedented growth, as well as improved conditions for the working class, during his tenure.
It was also during this period that he set up surveillance of Norwegian communists, a practice later deemed illegal by a government committee, the Lund commission. Lie himself defended his Machiavellian tactics, and once famously stated that the Labour Party was no Sunday school ("Arbeiderpartiet er faen ingen søndagsskole"). There were also external events that aided his cause. The Marshall Plan accepted in 1947 and the Norwegian membership in NATO from 1949 drew the nation closer to the United States. Meanwhile, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 demonstrated the threat represented by the Soviet Union. Yet Lie was stronger in his support of the United States, and more fierce in his anti-communism, than most in his party. In 1961 a splinter part emerged, known as Socialist People's Party, that was to deny the Labour Party a majority in the 1961 elections as well as to bring down the third cabinet Gerhardsen.
Meanwhile the relationship between Lie and Gerhardsen – who was far more amenable to the Soviets – grew cooler. At the national party convention of 1967 Gerhardsen openly attacked Lie, to which Lie reportedly responded by threatening to "break" Gerhardsen "like a louse" ("Jeg skal knekke deg som en lus"). Gerhardsen later regretted the attack, and later sent Lie a letter of apology - to which the latter never replied. Lie resigned as party secretary in 1969, and Gerhardsen retired from active politics the same year.
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