Aksel Larsen - The Last Years As A Communist

The Last Years As A Communist

Although he attended the 20th congress of the CPSU in 1956 Larsen did not hear Khrushchev’s “secret speech”. He first learned about it when it was reported by the New York Times on 16 March. Larsen read the speech at the Soviet embassy and proposed a party line more independent of Moscow.

The collective bargaining negotiations of 1956 and a general strike had strengthened the party and Larsen got his party’s support to pursue a more independent line. However his plans reached farther and he persuaded Mogens Fog to re-join the party to help transform it to a “broad, national, socialistic party”.

The positive situation for the Danish communists changed dramatically with the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October 1956. Once again the communists were disdained in public opinion and isolated politically. Internally Larsen had to balance between the inner circle of the party who were in favour of the invasion and the party members and intellectuals who were against. Internal tension grew and resulted in an extraordinary party congress in January 1957 where Aksel Larsen for the first time since 1932 delivered his annual report in his own name and not in the name of the central committee. The congress elected a new central committee and executive committee with a strong majority against Larsen’s line.

The party was sitting on a powder keg of internal disagreement which could go off at any moment. The situation was triggered when the League of Communists of Yugoslavia invited a delegation from the Communist Party of Denmark to go to its 1958 congress. The CPSU and other communist parties had also accepted the invitation but suddenly the CPSU decided to boycott the congress and pressured other communist parties not to send delegations either. Although Larsen's decision to go anyway was supported by the Danish executive committee, it was decided that Knud Jespersen and Børge Houmann were to go to Yugoslavia instead of Larsen.

Internal disagreements continued after the Yugoslav party congress and on 8 July 1958 Larsen revived his ideas from the 1930s about a distinct Danish form of communism and urged the party leadership to change to a more independent course. Larsen now also thought that the Danish party should not necessarily support and defend the acts of the Soviet Union and the CPSU.

Fierce faction struggle arose and Larsen lost the party congress in October 1958. On 16 November 1958 it was announced in the communist newspaper “Land og Folk” that he had been expelled from the party.