Today we publish a very interesting document, send to us by a Danish Marxist-Leninist-Maoist.

We salute the effort of the comrade to make a contribution for the evaluation of Danish comrade and we consider it a very good thing for the comrade to have translated this document in high internationalist spirit and to put it to disposal of the International Communist Movement. Also other Nordic comrades have saluted this efforts, which also shows its importance.

Nevertheless, we consider it necessary to remark, that over the years we have received informations regarding the history of the organisation for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark and a general evaluation of the communist movement in the last decade of the last century and the beginning of the present. Therefore, we call upon the readers to very clearly take the document for what it is, a contribution made by one comrade, and that the final result of the debate that necessarily will take place among the Danish comrades themselves.

 

SHORT EVALUATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ITS RECONSTITUTION
by a Danish marxist-leninist-maoist


This short evaluation of the Communist Party of Denmark [DKP], the struggle for its constitution and now reconstitution, is meant to provide the international proletariat with the experiences of the Danish working class. Specifically the international communist movement in Nordic countries, where conditions are very similar to those of Denmark, and where the communist parties also need to be reconstituted. In writing this article, I am basing myself mainly upon the analysis of the DKP made by the Organization for the Reconstitution of the DKP [ORDKP] in 2001; however, a degree of independent investigation and analysis has also been necessary on my own part, to determine the likely causes of the dissolution of the ORDKP in 2005.

It is my hope that I am able to contribute something to the work of Danish and international communists through writing this article. It is long overdue to make an analysis and synthesis of the experiences of the ORDKP, which until now have been completely ignored.


― the author


***

FIRST PERIOD: CONSTITUTION OF THE PARTY

Basing ourselves on Karl Marx, who affirmed that the »constitution of the proletariat into a political party is indispensable to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate goal: the abolition of classes«, we see that the international proletariat creates its own political party in each country as a counterweight to the bourgeois state, to lead the proletarian revolutionary movement against each bourgeois state. Denmark is no different. Throughout the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the Danish proletariat struggled for the constitution of its own political party, which reached three historical peaks: the founding of the Danish section of the First International in 1871, the founding of the Social-Democratic Labor Party of Denmark in 1876, and the founding of the Communist Party of Denmark in 1919.

The first to put forward the need for an independent party of the working class in Denmark was Frederik Dreier, who from 1848 to his untimely death in 1853 propagandized broadly for such a party, and for improving the conditions of the working class, which had not yet transitioned into an industrial proletariat in Denmark. Dreier was a petty bourgeois socialist of the Proudhon type, but in his historical context, he played a very progressive role in bringing socialist ideas to Denmark. With his death, the Danish proletariat lost its first great leader.

In the wake of the Paris Commune of 1871, the three socialists Pio, Geleff and Brix formed the Danish section of Marx’ First International. The party was formed out of the most progressive sections of the trade unions, and membership grew rapidly. However, the party was crushed by the reactionary bourgeois-landlord state after the »Battle of the Commons« in 1872, where the state cracked down on a mass manifestation of workers and the unemployed. The three leaders of the party were given heavy prison sentences.

However, the three socialists were released from prison in 1875. In 1876, they wrote the laws and programme of the Social-Democratic Labor Party, known as the Gimle Programme, which was very similar to the Gotha Programme which Marx and Engels criticized. This petty bourgeois deviation reflected the class origin of the party leaders, who did not belong to the deepest masses, but rather to the publicly employed petty bourgeoisie (Pio for example was employed in the postal service). The party proper was founded in 1878, and in 1889 it joined the newly established Second International, led by Engels. It was extremely well organized, but these political issues (stemming from the petty-bourgeois standpoint of its founders) would go on to liquidate the party constitution process. Especially noteworthy is the absence of any mention of revolutionary violence or revolution from the Gimle Programme.

The leaders of the party were soon arrested once more by the reactionary state, and Pio chose to leave the country altogether, escaping to the USA to become a settler. After this, a diehard revisionist clique seized the party leadership, and began pushing communists out of the party rather than confront the bourgeois-landlord state, which had even violated its own constitution in pursuit of repressing the socialists. The right of the party generated a truly black figure in Danish history: Thorvald Stauning, who sold the class and the people to first Danish capitalism, then German imperialism. The left of the party, however, generated its great leader: Gerson Trier, a staunch marxist, whom Lenin befriended during his stay in Copenhagen later on.

Trier, with the international aid of first Engels and then Lenin, fought classical revisionism tirelessly for over 20 years. He struggled first for the mobilization of the proletariat against the reactionary dictatorship. He then struggled against Stauning’s bid to join the bourgeois government, which happened upon the Danish declaration of »neutrality« in World War I, which was really a pathetic attempt to benefit from German imperialism without risking Danish trade with England. This opposition to war was hailed by Lenin in 1915, in his attack against Stauning and other »cabinet socialists«. And at last, Gerson Trier left the social-democrats in 1916, when he declared that he »will not be a member of a bourgeois party«! He died shortly thereafter, but not before clearing the way for all other Danish communists, who left the party after the Great Socialist October Revolution of 1917, forming first the Socialist Worker’s Party in 1918, which merged with syndicalists and young socialists to form the Left-Socialist Party in 1919. This party joined the Communist International in 1920, changing its name to the Communist Party of Denmark.

The struggle for party constitution did not end there, however. It was only completed in the hectic and intense two-line struggle of the 1920’s, which first had marxists struggle against syndicalists, then marxists against social-democrats, and then marxist-leninists against trotskyites. These three struggles became so sharp that the party even split and reformed several times, at one point having two offices which were under constant occupation by the opposing faction! These struggles were instrumental in shaping the party, which first established itself as the leader of all revolutionary mass organizations and trade unions (defeating the syndicalists), then established that all party work must serve the development of revolutionary consciousness (against the social-democrats), and then established that the road opened by Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin was correct and the road proposed by Trotsky would lead to aborting the revolution.

Thus, after more than 80 years of struggle, the DKP was finally constituted as a genuine marxist-leninist communist party of the proletariat in Denmark. This opened the path for a creative application of marxism-leninism to Danish conditions, developing revolutionary war to seize power for the proletariat and people. One lesson stands out among many from the period of party constitution: the need for an organized two-line struggle to expose and crush revisionism and opportunism, so the party will achieve a correct ideology, line and programme, under proletarian leadership.

SECOND PERIOD: THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK

Following the constitution of the DKP as a genuinely proletarian party, which had rid itself of petty-bourgeois deviations, the period of initiating the armed struggle began. The party followed the leninist conception of the revolution as an insurrection, which was based on a limited understanding of the Russian revolution, which we today can understand better as a protracted revolutionary war. Thus, the road of armed struggle for the DKP was one of preparing for an insurrection, not one of initiating people’s war once the party was constituted ― it is important to keep this in mind when evaluating the DKP.

Through the 1920’s, the Communist International had watched the DKP closely, criticizing it when mistakes became apparent. A special commission had been formed in 1923 to this purpose. Following the two-line struggles of the decade, the left wing of the party had formed, with Comrade Thøger Thøgersen at its head. Thøgersen suffered from many »left« deviations, but his leadership was overall correct, and he was instrumental in forming a creative application of marxism-leninism to Danish conditions. However, this did not materialize in the form of a guiding thought and a great leadership, as Thøgersen was outmanouvered by the party’s right wing ― led by Aksel Larsen, a former trotskyite ― using Thøgersen’s real »left« errors as a way to unite most of the party behind the rightists. The Comintern intervened against these »left« deviations with an »Open Letter« in 1929, and the Larsen wing used this as yet another rallying point, which led to Thøgersen leaving for reeducation in Moscow soon after. The party was now controlled by right deviationists, though its line and programme was still correct, and it had many active communists in leadership positions.

In the early 1930’s, the DKP had built up a large united front of mass organizations under its direct leadership: the Red Aid, the Revolutionary Trade Opposition, the Young Pioneers, the Communist Youth of Denmark, and several others. The deepest and broadest masses were organized into these, and marxism-leninism increasingly came to influence the Danish workers and peasants, as their struggles were successfully guided and led by the party. The party faced the problem of leading the masses away from social-democracy, which had limited perspectives before the initiation of armed struggle, but which was a correct strategy nonetheless. Yet the situation changed dramatically as the crisis of imperialism progressed, and bourgeois fascism began unfolding in many parts of the world, Germany being closest to home.

With the VII World Congress of the Communist International in 1933, the task for communists became very clear: to build up the united front against fascism and world war. This was the correct tactic, all things considered. But its application in Denmark suffered heavily from the lack of revolutionary communist leadership, resulting from the Aksel Larsen wing having sidelined Comrade Thøgersen, who was only then returning to Denmark from the USSR. Thøgersen had corrected his »left« errors and spoke in open support of Comrade Stalin, but he was never able to reassume leadership from Aksel Larsen, who had gained much prestige as a result of the party’s correct line and mostly correct application until then. One example of Aksel Larsen’s opportunism was his 1938 declaration that the DKP was for peaceful transition, and would never break the constitution. Thus, modern revisionism manifested itself early in the DKP.

The application of the united front resulted in the party overemphasizing parliamentary work, no doubt influenced by the strong right wing inside of it. But with the German imperialist invasion and occupation of Denmark in April of 1940, these things changed. Initially, World War II was an inter-imperialist war, meaning that the communists of imperialist countries like the USA, England and Germany should oppose it resolutely, as it only meant a redistribution of colonies and semi-colonies (Germany explicitly wanted Eastern European colonies). However, this did not apply to the communists of occupied and now oppressed nations, such as Denmark. The DKP did not grasp this. It thus unfolded a tactic of submitting to imperialism, similar to the one pursued by communists in other colonies and semi-colonies, such as the revisionist leaderships of the Communist Party of Peru and the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Larsen leadership used this fact to its advantage to convince most of the party not to initiate armed struggle against German imperialism, and those few communists who defied democratic centralism to orchestrate armed sabotage were excluded.

In June of 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. This changed the international character of the war to one where the first priority was to defend the socialist base, the Soviet Union. This allowed most party leaders and members to see that the road of armed struggle was a just one. And on the same day the USSR was attacked, the Danish state (headed by a coalition of all bourgeois parties and the German governor) arrested more than 300 communists and sent them to German labor and death camps. Comrade Thøgersen and countless others were among the casualties. This prompted the Larsen leadership to give in, and in its Theses of the 10th of July 1941 and the corresponding practical manual, the central committee set forth its principles of party militarization, armed struggle and a united front with the national bourgeoisie.

A few dozen Danish communists who had fought in the Spanish civil war became the core of the armed resistance movement, which planned to intensify the anti-imperialist national struggle and weaken German imperialism through armed sabotage against Danish corporations and institutions which supported the war. Many Danish corporations, such as F.L. Smidth and Mærsk, supported the German war effort in exchange for use of Jewish and Slavic slave labor in countries like Estonia. These, as well as factories like Riffelsyndikatet [»The Rifle Syndicate«], were targeted. Attacks on mining provided the partisans with explosives, on weapons caches with guns and ammo, and on factories with supplies in general.

The armed resistance movement developed greatly. The DKP’s prestige grew intensely, and the armed organization Communist Partisans that it led morphed into a new organization, Civic Partisans, which consisted not only of communists, but many masses from different classes (most young workers, but also many petty-bourgeois national-democrats). The national character of the war provided the DKP with a broader people to ally with, and the party marched ahead of all other partisan organizations to lead the entire movement as a national united front against German imperialism. Much of this can be compared to the Chinese revolutionary war, except for what happened next.

In August of 1943, the Danish people erupted into strikes and riots all over the country, forcing the traitorous comprador government to resign. German imperialism struck hard against the people, which only intenfied the Danish resistance. More and more people joined or formed resistance organizations, and more and more resistance organizations joined the Freedom Council, the people’s government which was headed by the DKP. The resistance fighters numbered several thousands, the illegal communist newspaper »Land og Folk« was extremely widespread, the masses were mobilized broadly to help house and feed red fighters, and the party’s prestige grew to the highest levels ever seen, demonstrated by the 15% of the popular vote it gathered during the 1945 elections. The partisans were also able to carry out armed actions in the middle of the day, such as one 1944 action, where a factory outside of Copengagen was blown up and over 10 armed guards were defeated, all in broad daylight and with the support of the workers. Oftentimes, the workers were even mobilized to disarm guards themselves and participate in sabotage or evacuation, demonstrating how the DKP applied aspects of the armed sea of masses.

But at the end of the war, with the steadily greater involvement of English imperialism, the party lost its leading role. After liberation, the DKP did not manage to guarantee the Freedom Council and the resistance apparatus as the New State. This was due to the dominance of the party’s right wing. In late 1945, the party joined the bourgeois »Liberation Government«, alongside the comprador traitors who had supported German imperialism just a few years before. No attempt was made to push for socialist transition, and the Civil Partisans disarmed and merged into the bourgeois army. This marked the end of the DKP’s revolutionary role. It was an historic defeat, a betrayal similar to that of Prachanda in Nepal.

After this, the Aksel Larsen leadership turned its liquidationist ideology into political line and programme, pushing for »defense of the sovereignty of parliament«, »development of Nordic democratic traditions« and »peaceful transition to socialism«. The party opposed US involvement in Greenland by counterposing that the nation was »under Danish sovereignty«, openly embracing Danish imperialism. And as anti-revisionist marxist-leninists such as Comrade Thøgersen died from the effects of the concentration camp, as Comrade Stalin died and as Chairman Mao Zedong did not yet have the enormous prestige he would later get in Denmark, the revisionists in the DKP were strengthened more and more, while the anti-revisionists lost more and more ground. After Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956, there was no two-line struggle in the DKP on the question, as modern revisionism had already taken over long before then. As the Great Debate between People’s China and the modern revisionists commenced, the few DKP members who supported Chairman Mao’s line were expelled, and soon formed their own organizations. The line struggle had become antagonistic. The DKP had become revisionist.

Thus, the DKP managed to build itself up as a genuine marxist-leninist communist party through the class struggle, eventually being propelled to lead the anti-imperialist war against German occupation. However, this occupation was all that held back the rightism which had long dominated the DKP, and the party suffered a fate similar to that of the French, Italian and Yugoslav communist parties in this respect. The key lesson to learn here is the absolute necessity of revolutionary violence, which today means people’s war: we cannot harbor any illusions about bourgeois democracy or »peaceful transition«, and attempts at peddling these must be destroyed.

THIRD PERIOD: RECONSTITUTION OF THE PARTY

Throughout the 1960’s, the struggle to reconstitute the DKP on a firm marxist-leninist basis commenced. Due to the experiences of the Chinese revolution and soon the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution headed by Chairman Mao, it was determined that any genuine marxist-leninist would have to adhere also to mao zedong thought. Thus, the Communist League Marxist-Leninist [KFML] was formed on the firm basis of marxism-leninism-mao zedong thought in 1968, in the wake of the 1968 rebellion and the Chinese cultural revolution. The KFML recognized the need to rebuild the communist party and learn from its mistakes and international experience; in a word, reconstitute it. This put it miles ahead of other currents in the »marxist-leninist movement« of the 60’s and 70’s, as the third worldists didn’t want to rebuild the party, and the hoxhaites soon began to refuse to learn from the Chinese experience.

The KFML unfolded mass work on a large scale, overcoming the small circle tendency of many Danish marxist-leninists at that point in time. By applying the mass line, the KFML managed to insert itself into key struggles in factories owned by B&W and Nilfisk, leading the mass movement at times. By applying proletarian feminism, the organization also gained a leading role among child carers, who symbolized their adherence to mao zedong thought by wearing red cloth diapers as scarves. This influence on the deepest and broadest masses scared the Danish bourgeoisie, whose fascist representatives initiated a red scare against the KFML, talking about »cultural radicals« infecting media and education, which culminated in the »Kineserhetz« [a witch hunt against maoists, who were called »Chinese«], a conspiracy of the Police Intelligence Service and big bourgeoisie to blacklist and surveil maoists.

As the KFML developed into more and more of a party, the two-line struggle developed as well. The organization had already shown a failure to apply certain aspects of mao zedong thought correctly, such as the thesis that three worlds delineate themselves, or people’s war. This was in opposition to other marxist-leninist parties at the time, such as the Communist Party of India/marxist-leninist or the Communist Party of the Philippines, who applied these theories despite not yet being maoist. As time passed, the right of the KFML became dominant, which wanted to apply economism and supported Deng Xiaoping’s revisionism. And under the guise of a struggle against ultra-»leftists« of the hoxhaite type, the rightists also campaigned against maoists in the organization, who were expelled around the time of the revisionist coup in China. Thus, when the KFML formed the Communist Worker’s Party in December of 1976, it was a stillborn party, revisionist from the beginning, which had nothing to offer the Danish working class.

The left of the KFML continued to exist in a small circle in Aarhus throughout the 1980’s, first called »The Mao Zedong Circle«, then »Wave After Wave«. This group became increasingly irrelevant and dissolved on its own.

In 1994, however, a new organization was formed by a group of young anti-fascists and Peruvian refugees. The organization took the name »Red Sun Study Circle«, and based itself in Copenhagen, where it organized mainly students to study marxism-leninism-maoism, which had been synthesized by Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru. A thorough study was made of the history of the DKP by this group, which applied maoism to Danish conditions to light the path forward for the proletariat and people of Denmark. Thus, in 2001, after years of study and work, the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark was formed, declaring:

»Since modern revisionism took over and liquidated the DKP, the main problem being raised for all revolutionaries in our country is the problem of rebuilding the party, reconstituting the Communist Party of Denmark. At this question and its answer, everything begins! By beginning to solve this problem correctly ― that is, by aligning and dedicating oneself to working for enabling the reconstitution of the DKP to take place in our country ― and only that way, it will be possible to go forward. …

Thus, the principal contradiction, the principal problem and the principal question raises itself for all revolutionaries: to align oneself with the reconstitution of the DKP, taking responsibility for it and in the end carrying it through. Briefly, to do it or not to do it. All other questions are derived from this one, and are therefore subordinated to and depend on this one.«

The ORDKP made a thorough evaluation of the history of the DKP, which is concluded with a thesis on the reconstitution of the party. The important part here is that the Red Sun Study Circle fulfilled its historical mission, determining whether the DKP should be founded or reconstituted, whereas the ORDKP did not: it did not manage to »forge a group of comrades who are capable of assuming the leadership of this process, by raising, defending and principally applying our scientific ideology, marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, to the concrete conditions of the Danish revolution«. Thus, we must evaluate the experience of the ORDKP to determine why it failed, since the thesis it put forward was correct, was the result of a thorough investigation and was in accordance with the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism.

From studying the practical work of the ORDKP, it is clear that the organization centered on two-line struggle as opposed to class struggle. Class struggle is primary, as the two-line struggle arises to determine the steps to take in class struggle, in other words to serve the class struggle, and not the other way around. The ORDKP over-emphasized study over mass work. This was a serious mistake, which no doubt arose from the petty-bourgeois background of its members and leaders, who despite their correct ideology did not manage to apply the »three withs« of living, working and struggling alongside the deepest masses. The fact that several of the former supporters of the organization are now immersed in academia shows this.

The organization also based itself largely around student milieus. By mainly recruiting through study circles at universities and high schools, the organization distanced itself more and more from the concrete struggles of the deepest and broadest masses, where the bulk of recruiting should be done once the organization is actually founded. The petty-bourgeois nature of the ORDKP may very well have resulted in the defeatism many of its members started experiencing as the people’s wars in Peru and Nepal went downhill, and as their work in Denmark led the organization to stagnate and lose its perspective.

If the ORDKP had pushed to apply the »three withs« in a genuine way, leaving no path out of the misery experienced by the deepest strata of the proletariat except for the people’s war, the organization could have initiated mass work among these masses. It would not have degenerated and dissolved itself into progressive academia. As it stood in 2001-05, the ORDKP’s participation in class struggle was largely limited to the anti-war movement, which, while important and noteworthy, cannot be the basis of a people’s war. The ORDKP failed to develop itself and refound the DKP in the end, and today we need to learn from its mistakes more than ever. It seems that the organization never managed to develop beyond the »infantile deviations« that the early Russian communist movement suffered from (Lenin, What is to be done?), and despite the monumental work done by these comrades in the field of study, we must learn from their mistakes to center practice among the deepest masses. This is necessary if we seek to truly develop a communist party whose members represent the proletariat, and not just its upper layers who have more than their chains to lose.

Today, it is more important than ever for Danish communists to learn from these important experiences, so they can struggle for the reconstitution of the DKP on a clear, marxist-leninist-maoist-gonzalo thought basis, retaking and developing the road the party left in May of 1945. The theses put forward by the ORDKP remain right and just, and we must struggle to uphold, defend and principally apply them. The failure of the organization itself was not due to a wrong ideological-political line, but rather a failure to apply the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism, which led to stagnation and a petty-bourgeois pessimism. The overemphasis on study and two-line struggle in relation to mass work and class struggle was the chief problem of the ORDKP.

We must thus learn from the success of the KFML and the failure of the ORDKP to truly apply the marxist-leninist-maoist mass line, by living, working and struggling alongside the deepest and broadest masses, so as to break with the small circle tendency. We must also learn from the failure of the KFML and the success of the ORDKP to truly grasp the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism-gonzalo thought, upholding, defending and principally applying them to Danish conditions, so as to break with revisionism completely.

APPENDIX
»THESES ON THE REFOUNDING AND RECONSTITUTION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK«
by the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark

Based on this short summation of the history of the working class and its party, the following theses should be emphasized:

1) Principal contradiction and principal task for the revolutionaries: reconstituting the DKP
Since modern revisionism took over and liquidated the DKP, the main problem being raised for all revolutionaries in our country is the problem of rebuilding the party, reconstituting the Communist Party of Denmark. At this question and its answer, everything begins! By beginning to solve this problem correctly ― that is, by aligning and dedicating oneself to working for enabling the reconstitution of the DKP to take place in our country ― and only that way, it will be possible to go forward.

Chairman Mao teaches us: »Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to funding its principal contradiction. Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved.«

Thus, the principal contradiction, the principal problem and the principal question raises itself for all revolutionaries: to align oneself with the reconstitution of the DKP, taking responsibility for it and in the end carrying it through. Briefly, to do it or not to do it. All other questions are derived from this one, and are therefore subordinated to and depend on this one.

2) On the reconstitution of the DKP
The next problem being raised is what the reconstitution of the DKP entails. On this, Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that it »principally [is] a struggle against revisionism«.

Thus, in our case, it is a struggle: 1) against the revisionism which took over the party and then liquidated it (that is, against the inner revisionism which historically destroyed the party); 2) against the contemporary classical and modern revisionism, which still agitates (that is, against the influence of revisionism and opportunism among the working class and the people today); and 3) for the reconstitution of the party on the basis of marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, a struggle for retaking and developing the road of the DKP, the ideology, general political line and programme of the party (taking into account the party building work done in especially the 1970’s). The third point is the principal one of the above, since the inner is always decisive, and the proletarian line imposes and develops itself in an uncompromising and unstoppable struggle against the bourgeois line, or in general against the non-proletarian line, which in essence and principally is a struggle against revisionism.

3) On the key to reconstituting the DKP
Chairman Gonzalo similarly teaches us that the reconstitution of the party depends on a group of comrades (not necessarily more than a handful) who are united around the principles, willing and capable of taking it upon themselves leading the process of reconstitution and finishing it. And he teaches us that too much time is spent on centering in »gathering a certain amount of people«. Thus, the question ― as always ― »is not how many you are, but whether you want to or not«!

4) On the particularity regarding the reconstitution of the DKP
The DKP has not only been seized by modern revisionism, but also actually and completely been liquidated! Thus, the task for the Danish revolutionaries isn’t to turn upside down the corpse of a »party« which today refers to itself as the »DKP« and exists inside the revisionist Red-Green Party. The task, its particularity, on the contrary, consists of reconstituting the party by first refounding it.

5) On the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP
»The party is the heroic fighter, which leads its own construction.« The actual reconstitution of the party is carried out by the party itself, and thus not by any organization which ― no matter its character ― neither can nor should take this task upon itself. Thus, the DKP must first be refounded before the process of reconstitution can begin. Thus, »refounding« refers to the moment of party refounding, whereas »reconstitution« refers to more than that, namely the year-long process of retaking the road of the DKP and developing it, fighting revisionism and building and forging the party as a war machine.

6) On the conditions for the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP
Today the conditions do not exist for, and thus it is not correct to, immediately refounding the DKP and initiating the process of reconstitution, no matter how much anybody would want to. This wish must instead be converted to action, to help bring about these conditions. The decisive condition ― the key ― for the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP is to forge a group of comrades who are capable of assuming the leadership of this process, by raising, defending and principally applying our scientific ideology, marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, to the concrete conditions of the Danish revolution. At the present moment, the creation of such a group of comrades is promoted best by forming the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark, and then developing the organization’s participation in the class struggle.

Conclusion of the theses
Therefore, we do not propose the immediate refounding and reconstitution of the DKP today, but the founding of the ORDKP.

Taken from the document »Resolutioner vedtaget ved dannelsen af ORDKP« of February 2001. Translated by the author of the article to which it is attached.

SHORT EVALUATION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK AND THE STRUGGLE FOR ITS RECONSTITUTION

by a Danish marxist-leninist-maoist

 

This short evaluation of the Communist Party of Denmark [DKP], the struggle for its constitution and now reconstitution, is meant to provide the international proletariat with the experiences of the Danish working class. Specifically the international communist movement in Nordic countries, where conditions are very similar to those of Denmark, and where the communist parties also need to be reconstituted. In writing this article, I am basing myself mainly upon the analysis of the DKP made by the Organization for the Reconstitution of the DKP [ORDKP] in 2001; however, a degree of independent investigation and analysis has also been necessary on my own part, to determine the likely causes of the dissolution of the ORDKP in 2005.

 

It is my hope that I am able to contribute something to the work of Danish and international communists through writing this article. It is long overdue to make an analysis and synthesis of the experiences of the ORDKP, which until now have been completely ignored.

 

the author

 

***

 

FIRST PERIOD: CONSTITUTION OF THE PARTY

 

Basing ourselves on Karl Marx, who affirmed that the »constitution of the proletariat into a political party is indispensable to ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate goal: the abolition of classes«, we see that the international proletariat creates its own political party in each country as a counterweight to the bourgeois state, to lead the proletarian revolutionary movement against each bourgeois state. Denmark is no different. Throughout the 1800’s and early 1900’s, the Danish proletariat struggled for the constitution of its own political party, which reached three historical peaks: the founding of the Danish section of the First International in 1871, the founding of the Social-Democratic Labor Party of Denmark in 1876, and the founding of the Communist Party of Denmark in 1919.

 

The first to put forward the need for an independent party of the working class in Denmark was Frederik Dreier, who from 1848 to his untimely death in 1853 propagandized broadly for such a party, and for improving the conditions of the working class, which had not yet transitioned into an industrial proletariat in Denmark. Dreier was a petty bourgeois socialist of the Proudhon type, but in his historical context, he played a very progressive role in bringing socialist ideas to Denmark. With his death, the Danish proletariat lost its first great leader.

 

In the wake of the Paris Commune of 1871, the three socialists Pio, Geleff and Brix formed the Danish section of Marx’ First International. The party was formed out of the most progressive sections of the trade unions, and membership grew rapidly. However, the party was crushed by the reactionary bourgeois-landlord state after the »Battle of the Commons« in 1872, where the state cracked down on a mass manifestation of workers and the unemployed. The three leaders of the party were given heavy prison sentences.

 

However, the three socialists were released from prison in 1875. In 1876, they wrote the laws and programme of the Social-Democratic Labor Party, known as the Gimle Programme, which was very similar to the Gotha Programme which Marx and Engels criticized. This petty bourgeois deviation reflected the class origin of the party leaders, who did not belong to the deepest masses, but rather to the publicly employed petty bourgeoisie (Pio for example was employed in the postal service). The party proper was founded in 1878, and in 1889 it joined the newly established Second International, led by Engels. It was extremely well organized, but these political issues (stemming from the petty-bourgeois standpoint of its founders) would go on to liquidate the party constitution process. Especially noteworthy is the absence of any mention of revolutionary violence or revolution from the Gimle Programme.

 

The leaders of the party were soon arrested once more by the reactionary state, and Pio chose to leave the country altogether, escaping to the USA to become a settler. After this, a diehard revisionist clique seized the party leadership, and began pushing communists out of the party rather than confront the bourgeois-landlord state, which had even violated its own constitution in pursuit of repressing the socialists. The right of the party generated a truly black figure in Danish history: Thorvald Stauning, who sold the class and the people to first Danish capitalism, then German imperialism. The left of the party, however, generated its great leader: Gerson Trier, a staunch marxist, whom Lenin befriended during his stay in Copenhagen later on.

 

Trier, with the international aid of first Engels and then Lenin, fought classical revisionism tirelessly for over 20 years. He struggled first for the mobilization of the proletariat against the reactionary dictatorship. He then struggled against Stauning’s bid to join the bourgeois government, which happened upon the Danish declaration of »neutrality« in World War I, which was really a pathetic attempt to benefit from German imperialism without risking Danish trade with England. This opposition to war was hailed by Lenin in 1915, in his attack against Stauning and other »cabinet socialists«. And at last, Gerson Trier left the social-democrats in 1916, when he declared that he »will not be a member of a bourgeois party«! He died shortly thereafter, but not before clearing the way for all other Danish communists, who left the party after the Great Socialist October Revolution of 1917, forming first the Socialist Worker’s Party in 1918, which merged with syndicalists and young socialists to form the Left-Socialist Party in 1919. This party joined the Communist International in 1920, changing its name to the Communist Party of Denmark.

 

The struggle for party constitution did not end there, however. It was only completed in the hectic and intense two-line struggle of the 1920’s, which first had marxists struggle against syndicalists, then marxists against social-democrats, and then marxist-leninists against trotskyites. These three struggles became so sharp that the party even split and reformed several times, at one point having two offices which were under constant occupation by the opposing faction! These struggles were instrumental in shaping the party, which first established itself as the leader of all revolutionary mass organizations and trade unions (defeating the syndicalists), then established that all party work must serve the development of revolutionary consciousness (against the social-democrats), and then established that the road opened by Comrade Lenin and Comrade Stalin was correct and the road proposed by Trotsky would lead to aborting the revolution.

 

Thus, after more than 80 years of struggle, the DKP was finally constituted as a genuine marxist-leninist communist party of the proletariat in Denmark. This opened the path for a creative application of marxism-leninism to Danish conditions, developing revolutionary war to seize power for the proletariat and people. One lesson stands out among many from the period of party constitution: the need for an organized two-line struggle to expose and crush revisionism and opportunism, so the party will achieve a correct ideology, line and programme, under proletarian leadership.

 

SECOND PERIOD: THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK

 

Following the constitution of the DKP as a genuinely proletarian party, which had rid itself of petty-bourgeois deviations, the period of initiating the armed struggle began. The party followed the leninist conception of the revolution as an insurrection, which was based on a limited understanding of the Russian revolution, which we today can understand better as a protracted revolutionary war. Thus, the road of armed struggle for the DKP was one of preparing for an insurrection, not one of initiating people’s war once the party was constituted ― it is important to keep this in mind when evaluating the DKP.

 

Through the 1920’s, the Communist International had watched the DKP closely, criticizing it when mistakes became apparent. A special commission had been formed in 1923 to this purpose. Following the two-line struggles of the decade, the left wing of the party had formed, with Comrade Thøger Thøgersen at its head. Thøgersen suffered from many »left« deviations, but his leadership was overall correct, and he was instrumental in forming a creative application of marxism-leninism to Danish conditions. However, this did not materialize in the form of a guiding thought and a great leadership, as Thøgersen was outmanouvered by the party’s right wing ― led by Aksel Larsen, a former trotskyite ― using Thøgersen’s real »left« errors as a way to unite most of the party behind the rightists. The Comintern intervened against these »left« deviations with an »Open Letter« in 1929, and the Larsen wing used this as yet another rallying point, which led to Thøgersen leaving for reeducation in Moscow soon after. The party was now controlled by right deviationists, though its line and programme was still correct, and it had many active communists in leadership positions.

 

In the early 1930’s, the DKP had built up a large united front of mass organizations under its direct leadership: the Red Aid, the Revolutionary Trade Opposition, the Young Pioneers, the Communist Youth of Denmark, and several others. The deepest and broadest masses were organized into these, and marxism-leninism increasingly came to influence the Danish workers and peasants, as their struggles were successfully guided and led by the party. The party faced the problem of leading the masses away from social-democracy, which had limited perspectives before the initiation of armed struggle, but which was a correct strategy nonetheless. Yet the situation changed dramatically as the crisis of imperialism progressed, and bourgeois fascism began unfolding in many parts of the world, Germany being closest to home.

 

With the VII World Congress of the Communist International in 1933, the task for communists became very clear: to build up the united front against fascism and world war. This was the correct tactic, all things considered. But its application in Denmark suffered heavily from the lack of revolutionary communist leadership, resulting from the Aksel Larsen wing having sidelined Comrade Thøgersen, who was only then returning to Denmark from the USSR. Thøgersen had corrected his »left« errors and spoke in open support of Comrade Stalin, but he was never able to reassume leadership from Aksel Larsen, who had gained much prestige as a result of the party’s correct line and mostly correct application until then. One example of Aksel Larsen’s opportunism was his 1938 declaration that the DKP was for peaceful transition, and would never break the constitution. Thus, modern revisionism manifested itself early in the DKP.

 

The application of the united front resulted in the party overemphasizing parliamentary work, no doubt influenced by the strong right wing inside of it. But with the German imperialist invasion and occupation of Denmark in April of 1940, these things changed. Initially, World War II was an inter-imperialist war, meaning that the communists of imperialist countries like the USA, England and Germany should oppose it resolutely, as it only meant a redistribution of colonies and semi-colonies (Germany explicitly wanted Eastern European colonies). However, this did not apply to the communists of occupied and now oppressed nations, such as Denmark. The DKP did not grasp this. It thus unfolded a tactic of submitting to imperialism, similar to the one pursued by communists in other colonies and semi-colonies, such as the revisionist leaderships of the Communist Party of Peru and the Communist Party of the Philippines. The Larsen leadership used this fact to its advantage to convince most of the party not to initiate armed struggle against German imperialism, and those few communists who defied democratic centralism to orchestrate armed sabotage were excluded.

 

In June of 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the USSR. This changed the international character of the war to one where the first priority was to defend the socialist base, the Soviet Union. This allowed most party leaders and members to see that the road of armed struggle was a just one. And on the same day the USSR was attacked, the Danish state (headed by a coalition of all bourgeois parties and the German governor) arrested more than 300 communists and sent them to German labor and death camps. Comrade Thøgersen and countless others were among the casualties. This prompted the Larsen leadership to give in, and in its Theses of the 10th of July 1941 and the corresponding practical manual, the central committee set forth its principles of party militarization, armed struggle and a united front with the national bourgeoisie.

 

A few dozen Danish communists who had fought in the Spanish civil war became the core of the armed resistance movement, which planned to intensify the anti-imperialist national struggle and weaken German imperialism through armed sabotage against Danish corporations and institutions which supported the war. Many Danish corporations, such as F.L. Smidth and Mærsk, supported the German war effort in exchange for use of Jewish and Slavic slave labor in countries like Estonia. These, as well as factories like Riffelsyndikatet [»The Rifle Syndicate«], were targeted. Attacks on mining provided the partisans with explosives, on weapons caches with guns and ammo, and on factories with supplies in general.

 

The armed resistance movement developed greatly. The DKP’s prestige grew intensely, and the armed organization Communist Partisans that it led morphed into a new organization, Civic Partisans, which consisted not only of communists, but many masses from different classes (most young workers, but also many petty-bourgeois national-democrats). The national character of the war provided the DKP with a broader people to ally with, and the party marched ahead of all other partisan organizations to lead the entire movement as a national united front against German imperialism. Much of this can be compared to the Chinese revolutionary war, except for what happened next.

 

In August of 1943, the Danish people erupted into strikes and riots all over the country, forcing the traitorous comprador government to resign. German imperialism struck hard against the people, which only intenfied the Danish resistance. More and more people joined or formed resistance organizations, and more and more resistance organizations joined the Freedom Council, the people’s government which was headed by the DKP. The resistance fighters numbered several thousands, the illegal communist newspaper »Land og Folk« was extremely widespread, the masses were mobilized broadly to help house and feed red fighters, and the party’s prestige grew to the highest levels ever seen, demonstrated by the 15% of the popular vote it gathered during the 1945 elections. The partisans were also able to carry out armed actions in the middle of the day, such as one 1944 action, where a factory outside of Copengagen was blown up and over 10 armed guards were defeated, all in broad daylight and with the support of the workers. Oftentimes, the workers were even mobilized to disarm guards themselves and participate in sabotage or evacuation, demonstrating how the DKP applied aspects of the armed sea of masses.

 

But at the end of the war, with the steadily greater involvement of English imperialism, the party lost its leading role. After liberation, the DKP did not manage to guarantee the Freedom Council and the resistance apparatus as the New State. This was due to the dominance of the party’s right wing. In late 1945, the party joined the bourgeois »Liberation Government«, alongside the comprador traitors who had supported German imperialism just a few years before. No attempt was made to push for socialist transition, and the Civil Partisans disarmed and merged into the bourgeois army. This marked the end of the DKP’s revolutionary role. It was an historic defeat, a betrayal similar to that of Prachanda in Nepal.

 

After this, the Aksel Larsen leadership turned its liquidationist ideology into political line and programme, pushing for »defense of the sovereignty of parliament«, »development of Nordic democratic traditions« and »peaceful transition to socialism«. The party opposed US involvement in Greenland by counterposing that the nation was »under Danish sovereignty«, openly embracing Danish imperialism. And as anti-revisionist marxist-leninists such as Comrade Thøgersen died from the effects of the concentration camp, as Comrade Stalin died and as Chairman Mao Zedong did not yet have the enormous prestige he would later get in Denmark, the revisionists in the DKP were strengthened more and more, while the anti-revisionists lost more and more ground. After Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956, there was no two-line struggle in the DKP on the question, as modern revisionism had already taken over long before then. As the Great Debate between People’s China and the modern revisionists commenced, the few DKP members who supported Chairman Mao’s line were expelled, and soon formed their own organizations. The line struggle had become antagonistic. The DKP had become revisionist.

 

Thus, the DKP managed to build itself up as a genuine marxist-leninist communist party through the class struggle, eventually being propelled to lead the anti-imperialist war against German occupation. However, this occupation was all that held back the rightism which had long dominated the DKP, and the party suffered a fate similar to that of the French, Italian and Yugoslav communist parties in this respect. The key lesson to learn here is the absolute necessity of revolutionary violence, which today means people’s war: we cannot harbor any illusions about bourgeois democracy or »peaceful transition«, and attempts at peddling these must be destroyed.

 

THIRD PERIOD: RECONSTITUTION OF THE PARTY

 

Throughout the 1960’s, the struggle to reconstitute the DKP on a firm marxist-leninist basis commenced. Due to the experiences of the Chinese revolution and soon the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution headed by Chairman Mao, it was determined that any genuine marxist-leninist would have to adhere also to mao zedong thought. Thus, the Communist League Marxist-Leninist [KFML] was formed on the firm basis of marxism-leninism-mao zedong thought in 1968, in the wake of the 1968 rebellion and the Chinese cultural revolution. The KFML recognized the need to rebuild the communist party and learn from its mistakes and international experience; in a word, reconstitute it. This put it miles ahead of other currents in the »marxist-leninist movement« of the 60’s and 70’s, as the third worldists didn’t want to rebuild the party, and the hoxhaites soon began to refuse to learn from the Chinese experience.

 

The KFML unfolded mass work on a large scale, overcoming the small circle tendency of many Danish marxist-leninists at that point in time. By applying the mass line, the KFML managed to insert itself into key struggles in factories owned by B&W and Nilfisk, leading the mass movement at times. By applying proletarian feminism, the organization also gained a leading role among child carers, who symbolized their adherence to mao zedong thought by wearing red cloth diapers as scarves. This influence on the deepest and broadest masses scared the Danish bourgeoisie, whose fascist representatives initiated a red scare against the KFML, talking about »cultural radicals« infecting media and education, which culminated in the »Kineserhetz« [a witch hunt against maoists, who were called »Chinese«], a conspiracy of the Police Intelligence Service and big bourgeoisie to blacklist and surveil maoists.

 

As the KFML developed into more and more of a party, the two-line struggle developed as well. The organization had already shown a failure to apply certain aspects of mao zedong thought correctly, such as the thesis that three worlds delineate themselves, or people’s war. This was in opposition to other marxist-leninist parties at the time, such as the Communist Party of India/marxist-leninist or the Communist Party of the Philippines, who applied these theories despite not yet being maoist. As time passed, the right of the KFML became dominant, which wanted to apply economism and supported Deng Xiaoping’s revisionism. And under the guise of a struggle against ultra-»leftists« of the hoxhaite type, the rightists also campaigned against maoists in the organization, who were expelled around the time of the revisionist coup in China. Thus, when the KFML formed the Communist Worker’s Party in December of 1976, it was a stillborn party, revisionist from the beginning, which had nothing to offer the Danish working class.

 

The left of the KFML continued to exist in a small circle in Aarhus throughout the 1980’s, first called »The Mao Zedong Circle«, then »Wave After Wave«. This group became increasingly irrelevant and dissolved on its own.

 

In 1994, however, a new organization was formed by a group of young anti-fascists and Peruvian refugees. The organization took the name »Red Sun Study Circle«, and based itself in Copenhagen, where it organized mainly students to study marxism-leninism-maoism, which had been synthesized by Chairman Gonzalo and the Communist Party of Peru. A thorough study was made of the history of the DKP by this group, which applied maoism to Danish conditions to light the path forward for the proletariat and people of Denmark. Thus, in 2001, after years of study and work, the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark was formed, declaring:

 

»Since modern revisionism took over and liquidated the DKP, the main problem being raised for all revolutionaries in our country is the problem of rebuilding the party, reconstituting the Communist Party of Denmark. At this question and its answer, everything begins! By beginning to solve this problem correctly ― that is, by aligning and dedicating oneself to working for enabling the reconstitution of the DKP to take place in our country ― and only that way, it will be possible to go forward. …

 

Thus, the principal contradiction, the principal problem and the principal question raises itself for all revolutionaries: to align oneself with the reconstitution of the DKP, taking responsibility for it and in the end carrying it through. Briefly, to do it or not to do it. All other questions are derived from this one, and are therefore subordinated to and depend on this one.«

 

The ORDKP made a thorough evaluation of the history of the DKP, which is concluded with a thesis on the reconstitution of the party. The important part here is that the Red Sun Study Circle fulfilled its historical mission, determining whether the DKP should be founded or reconstituted, whereas the ORDKP did not: it did not manage to »forge a group of comrades who are capable of assuming the leadership of this process, by raising, defending and principally applying our scientific ideology, marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, to the concrete conditions of the Danish revolution«. Thus, we must evaluate the experience of the ORDKP to determine why it failed, since the thesis it put forward was correct, was the result of a thorough investigation and was in accordance with the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism.

 

From studying the practical work of the ORDKP, it is clear that the organization centered on two-line struggle as opposed to class struggle. Class struggle is primary, as the two-line struggle arises to determine the steps to take in class struggle, in other words to serve the class struggle, and not the other way around. The ORDKP over-emphasized study over mass work. This was a serious mistake, which no doubt arose from the petty-bourgeois background of its members and leaders, who despite their correct ideology did not manage to apply the »three withs« of living, working and struggling alongside the deepest masses. The fact that several of the former supporters of the organization are now immersed in academia shows this.

 

The organization also based itself largely around student milieus. By mainly recruiting through study circles at universities and high schools, the organization distanced itself more and more from the concrete struggles of the deepest and broadest masses, where the bulk of recruiting should be done once the organization is actually founded. The petty-bourgeois nature of the ORDKP may very well have resulted in the defeatism many of its members started experiencing as the people’s wars in Peru and Nepal went downhill, and as their work in Denmark led the organization to stagnate and lose its perspective.

 

If the ORDKP had pushed to apply the »three withs« in a genuine way, leaving no path out of the misery experienced by the deepest strata of the proletariat except for the people’s war, the organization could have initiated mass work among these masses. It would not have degenerated and dissolved itself into progressive academia. As it stood in 2001-05, the ORDKP’s participation in class struggle was largely limited to the anti-war movement, which, while important and noteworthy, cannot be the basis of a people’s war. The ORDKP failed to develop itself and refound the DKP in the end, and today we need to learn from its mistakes more than ever. It seems that the organization never managed to develop beyond the »infantile deviations« that the early Russian communist movement suffered from (Lenin, What is to be done?), and despite the monumental work done by these comrades in the field of study, we must learn from their mistakes to center practice among the deepest masses. This is necessary if we seek to truly develop a communist party whose members represent the proletariat, and not just its upper layers who have more than their chains to lose.

 

Today, it is more important than ever for Danish communists to learn from these important experiences, so they can struggle for the reconstitution of the DKP on a clear, marxist-leninist-maoist-gonzalo thought basis, retaking and developing the road the party left in May of 1945. The theses put forward by the ORDKP remain right and just, and we must struggle to uphold, defend and principally apply them. The failure of the organization itself was not due to a wrong ideological-political line, but rather a failure to apply the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism, which led to stagnation and a petty-bourgeois pessimism. The overemphasis on study and two-line struggle in relation to mass work and class struggle was the chief problem of the ORDKP.

 

We must thus learn from the success of the KFML and the failure of the ORDKP to truly apply the marxist-leninist-maoist mass line, by living, working and struggling alongside the deepest and broadest masses, so as to break with the small circle tendency. We must also learn from the failure of the KFML and the success of the ORDKP to truly grasp the principles of marxism-leninism-maoism-gonzalo thought, upholding, defending and principally applying them to Danish conditions, so as to break with revisionism completely.

 

APPENDIX

»THESES ON THE REFOUNDING AND RECONSTITUTION OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF DENMARK«

by the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark

 

Based on this short summation of the history of the working class and its party, the following theses should be emphasized:

 

1) Principal contradiction and principal task for the revolutionaries: reconstituting the DKP

Since modern revisionism took over and liquidated the DKP, the main problem being raised for all revolutionaries in our country is the problem of rebuilding the party, reconstituting the Communist Party of Denmark. At this question and its answer, everything begins! By beginning to solve this problem correctly ― that is, by aligning and dedicating oneself to working for enabling the reconstitution of the DKP to take place in our country ― and only that way, it will be possible to go forward.

 

Chairman Mao teaches us: »Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to funding its principal contradiction. Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved.«

 

Thus, the principal contradiction, the principal problem and the principal question raises itself for all revolutionaries: to align oneself with the reconstitution of the DKP, taking responsibility for it and in the end carrying it through. Briefly, to do it or not to do it. All other questions are derived from this one, and are therefore subordinated to and depend on this one.

 

2) On the reconstitution of the DKP

The next problem being raised is what the reconstitution of the DKP entails. On this, Chairman Gonzalo teaches us that it »principally [is] a struggle against revisionism«.

 

Thus, in our case, it is a struggle: 1) against the revisionism which took over the party and then liquidated it (that is, against the inner revisionism which historically destroyed the party); 2) against the contemporary classical and modern revisionism, which still agitates (that is, against the influence of revisionism and opportunism among the working class and the people today); and 3) for the reconstitution of the party on the basis of marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, a struggle for retaking and developing the road of the DKP, the ideology, general political line and programme of the party (taking into account the party building work done in especially the 1970’s). The third point is the principal one of the above, since the inner is always decisive, and the proletarian line imposes and develops itself in an uncompromising and unstoppable struggle against the bourgeois line, or in general against the non-proletarian line, which in essence and principally is a struggle against revisionism.

 

3) On the key to reconstituting the DKP

Chairman Gonzalo similarly teaches us that the reconstitution of the party depends on a group of comrades (not necessarily more than a handful) who are united around the principles, willing and capable of taking it upon themselves leading the process of reconstitution and finishing it. And he teaches us that too much time is spent on centering in »gathering a certain amount of people«. Thus, the question ― as always ― »is not how many you are, but whether you want to or not«!

 

4) On the particularity regarding the reconstitution of the DKP

The DKP has not only been seized by modern revisionism, but also actually and completely been liquidated! Thus, the task for the Danish revolutionaries isn’t to turn upside down the corpse of a »party« which today refers to itself as the »DKP« and exists inside the revisionist Red-Green Party. The task, its particularity, on the contrary, consists of reconstituting the party by first refounding it.

 

5) On the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP

»The party is the heroic fighter, which leads its own construction.« The actual reconstitution of the party is carried out by the party itself, and thus not by any organization which ― no matter its character ― neither can nor should take this task upon itself. Thus, the DKP must first be refounded before the process of reconstitution can begin. Thus, »refounding« refers to the moment of party refounding, whereas »reconstitution« refers to more than that, namely the year-long process of retaking the road of the DKP and developing it, fighting revisionism and building and forging the party as a war machine.

 

6) On the conditions for the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP

Today the conditions do not exist for, and thus it is not correct to, immediately refounding the DKP and initiating the process of reconstitution, no matter how much anybody would want to. This wish must instead be converted to action, to help bring about these conditions. The decisive condition ― the key ― for the refounding and reconstitution of the DKP is to forge a group of comrades who are capable of assuming the leadership of this process, by raising, defending and principally applying our scientific ideology, marxism-leninism-maoism, principally maoism, to the concrete conditions of the Danish revolution. At the present moment, the creation of such a group of comrades is promoted best by forming the Organization for the Reconstitution of the Communist Party of Denmark, and then developing the organization’s participation in the class struggle.

 

Conclusion of the theses

Therefore, we do not propose the immediate refounding and reconstitution of the DKP today, but the founding of the ORDKP.

 

Taken from the document »Resolutioner vedtaget ved dannelsen af ORDKP« of February 2001. Translated by the author of the article to which it is attached.