Aksel Larsen - Opposition To Moscow

Opposition To Moscow

Larsen had an ability to translate the strange and alien paroles of the Comintern to Danish conditions and his oratorical skills contributed greatly to the successes in organising the unemployed and gaining seats in parliament. In parliament he became known as a great orator.

He did not keep to translating the Comintern policies but also modified them. The ultra-left line was softened and contrary to the directions from Moscow he warned his party members of seeing the Social Democrats as the main enemy.

Larsen wanted to develop a Danish variant of communism and these sentiments grew after the seventh Comintern congress had adopted the popular front strategy aiming for a close cooperation with social democrats. While he did not want to make the Social Democrats the main enemy their unsympathetic views towards the communists made Larsen doubt that cooperation was possible. Instead Larsen was in favour of developing a popular front with the Social Liberal Party. With the exception of Arne Munch-Petersen who had become the Danish representative of the executive committee of Comintern after losing his seat in parliament in 1935 the party leadership supported this course.

The Comintern grew worried about the Danish party and the Trotskyist past of its chairman and as more and more disagreements arose correspondence between Larsen and Moscow grew increasingly harsh. The Comintern lost its patience with Larsen and called him to Moscow for negotiations after he had published two articles against increased military spending.

Not only had he published the articles without clearing them with Moscow. He had also expressed views in contradiction to Soviet interests. Because of its position Denmark is the gate to the Baltic Sea and a strong Danish defence would prevent Nazi Germany for using Denmark as a bridgehead for an attack on the Soviet Union.