Aksel Larsen - Founding A New Party

Founding A New Party

Although no longer a communist Larsen was still a socialist. Ideas for a new political party was made public on 20 November 1958 and a preparatory committee with Larsen as its leader was created the day after. The Socialist People’s Party was registered with parliament on 24 November and the party held its founding congress on 15 February 1959 in Copenhagen. Like the Communist Party of Denmark it was “founded on the idea of Marxism” but contrary to the communists the new party declared its loyalty to Danish parliamentary democracy and the peaceful path to socialism.

Leading up to the 1960 election the Gallup polls were not in favour of the Socialist People’s Party but Larsen showed his command of the then-new television media when he spoke to the viewers from a hospital bed with a broken leg. The new party gained 6,4% of the vote and 11 seats in parliament while the communists lost all their seats.

As many of the members of the new party were former communists the party were believed to be communists in disguise by other parties, especially the Social Democrats. However those suspicions cooled and the party gradually became accepted. In the 1966 election the Socialist People’s Party and the Social Democrats got a majority and there were talks about forming a coalition cabinet. However the Socialist People’s Party could not accept the demands made by the Social Democrats. Instead Jens Otto Krag of the Social Democrats formed a cabinet supported by the socialists and a joint contact committee between the two parties was formed. This committee was soon dubbed “The Red Cabinet”.

The Red Cabinet lasted until December 1967 when six of the 20 Socialist People’s Party members voted against the Krag administration’s proposal to freeze a threshold payment. An extraordinary party congress was held and although Larsen gained a majority for his political line he had to resign from his posts as party leader and leader of the parliamentary group. However a split could not be avoided and on 17 December the minority founded the new party the Left Socialists.