Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.02.2012, Page 14

14
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 2 — 2012
The Icelandic communist movement
began earlier, had closer ties with
The Kremlin, lasted longer, and was
more influential than had previously
been recognised. These are the
main conclusions of my book, ‘Islen-
skir kommunistar 1918–1998’ (“Ice-
landic Communists 1918–1998”),
which was published in the autumn
of 2011 and has been provoking
heated debate amongst Icelandic
historians.
The Icelandic communist movement
can be traced back to November 1918
when two Icelandic students at Copen-
hagen University, Brynjólfur Bjarnason
and Hendrik S. Ottósson, became politi-
cal radicals after participating in a Co-
penhagen street riot. They were in touch
with the main Soviet agent in the Nordic
countries at the time, Fredrik Ström,
who sponsored their trip to Moscow in
1920 to attend the second Comintern
congress. There they heard Vladimir
Lenin discuss the strategic importance
of Iceland in a coming war in the North
Atlantic and met some future leaders
of the international communist move-
ment, such as the famous German pro-
paganda master Willi Münzenberg, who
would later mentor Joseph Goebbels.
The two young Icelanders also received
some funds to use for propaganda in
Iceland.
COMMUNISM ARRIVES TO
ICELAND
In the next few years a small, but de-
termined, communist nucleus—con-
sisting mostly of young intellectuals
who had studied in Denmark and Ger-
many—formed in Iceland as the radical
wing of the Social Democratic Party.
Those communists had close ties to the
Comintern, sending representatives
to all its congresses, not only in 1920,
but also in 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1928.
Moreover, the Comintern sent agents
to Iceland to help organize a commu-
nist party: Olav Vegheim in 1925, Hugo
Sillén in 1928 and 1930, and Haavard
Langseth, Harry Levin and (possibly)
Viggo Hansteen in 1930.
Finally, the Icelandic Communist
Party was established in November 1930
with Brynjólfur Bjarnason as its chair-
man. During The Great Depression,
the communists organised a number of
violent clashes with the police, mostly
in connection with labour disputes. A
Comintern agent, Willi Mielenz, was
sent to Iceland in 1932, probably to ad-
vise on illegal activity (which had been
his specialty in the German Communist
Party). The Icelandic communists even
organised a fighting force, modelled on
the German Rot Front (Red Front, the
communist fighting force), and sent
around twenty Icelanders for revolution-
ary training in Moscow. One of those
trainees, Hallgrímur Hallgrímsson,
later fought in the Spanish Civil War.
Archives in Moscow reveal that the Ice-
landic Communist Party was closely
monitored and financially supported
by the Comintern, by then tightly con-
trolled by Stalin and his clique. The Par-
ty faithfully followed the changing di-
rectives from Moscow, fighting against
Social Democrats as “social fascists” un-
til 1934, but trying to establish a “United
Front” with them after that.
Unlike its counterparts in other
Western European countries, it suc-
ceeded in luring some leading Social
Democrats into its camp, and in Octo-
ber 1938, the Socialist Unity Party was
established. Its first chairman was the
Social Democrat Héðinn Valdimars-
son, but the communists controlled the
party, which became evident in 1939,
when Héðinn and some of his follow-
ers left in disgust over the communists’
unwavering support for Stalin’s politics.
The communist Einar Olgeirsson then
became chairman of the Socialist Unity
Party.
SECRET TIES TO MOSCOW
REMAIN
Their close ties to Moscow remained.
Leading members of the Socialist Unity
Party, such as Kristinn E. Andrésson
and Einar Olgeirsson, went to Moscow,
gave reports and received advice (and
funding). The Party also followed the So-
viet line in international affairs, defend-
ing the notorious show trials in Eastern
Europe and the communist invasion
of South Korea. The socialists staged
violent demonstrations in the spring of
1949 when Iceland joined NATO.
Archives in Moscow reveal that in
the 1950s and 1960s, the Socialist Unity
Party received substantial financial
support directly from the Soviet Com-
munist Party, and important assistance
from it and from other communist par-
ties in Central Europe, in particular the
East German Socialist Unity Party, SED.
Needless to say, this was kept strictly se-
cret. The only example I have found of
the Socialist Unity Party not adhering
to the Moscow line was that it refused
to condemn those communist parties
that had fallen out with Kremlin leaders,
such as the Yugoslavian party in the late
1940s, and later the Albanian and Chi-
nese parties.
After the 1968 Soviet invasion of
Czechoslovakia, those Icelandic so-
cialists who wanted to sever ties with
Moscow gained the upper hand in the
Socialist Unity Party. In the autumn of
1968, the People’s Alliance (which had
previously existed as a loose electoral al-
liance) began to operate as a party, and
the Socialist Unity Party disbanded. The
considerable properties that the Social-
ist Unity Party had accumulated, most
likely with Soviet money, remained in
the hands of the old leadership of the
Socialist Unity Party, but were later sold
to solve a financial crisis in the People’s
Alliance.
Some leading members of the Peo-
ple’s Alliance, including Lúðvík Jóseps-
son (chairman 1977–80) and Svavar
Gestsson (chairman 1980–87), discreet-
ly maintained ties to the Soviet Union,
for example with visits to Moscow. From
1967 to 1968, Svavar Gestsson had at-
tended a special cadre school in East
Berlin, called Institut für Gesellschafts-
wissenschaften bei ZK der SED (The In-
stitute for Social Sciences of the Central
Committee of the Socialist Unity Party),
which was supposed to be the highest
educational institution for the country’s
communist elite. After 1968, however,
Svavar Gestsson and other leading so-
cialists increasingly turned to Ceaus-
escu’s Romania and Castro’s Cuba for
inspiration.
During its lifetime, between 1938
and 1968, the Socialist Unity Party was
stronger than its counterparts in most
other Western European countries. It
received, for example, 19.5% of the votes
in 1949 and 16% in 1953. Its chairman
to the end, Einar Ólgeirsson, remained a
staunch supporter of the Soviet regime.
The People’s Alliance, mostly controlled
by the socialists, participated four times
in government during the Cold War,
1956–58, 1971–74, 1978–1979, and
1980–1983, and some of its ministers
were old Stalinists, including Lúðvík
Jósepsson and Magnús Kjartansson,
neither of whom ever repented publicly.
The Icelandic socialists were also very
influential both in the labour movement
and in Icelandic cultural life (partly, as
the Moscow archives show, due to gener-
ous support from The Soviet Union).
While The Socialist Unity Party was
in effect a communist party, the same
cannot be said about the People’s Alli-
ance, which operated as a party between
1968 and 1998. However, many in the
People’s Alliance were sympathetic to the
communist states. Some of my left-wing
colleagues at the University of Iceland
even volunteered to harvest sugar cane
in Cuba in the 1980s, proudly defending
the oppressive communist regime there.
Significantly, also, the last act of The
People’s Alliance (“Alþýðubandalagið”),
in November 1998, was to accept an
invitation from the Cuban Communist
Party. The Icelandic delegation to Cuba
included the former chairman, Svavar
Gestsson, and the last chair Margrét
Frímannsdóttir (chair from 1995). The
Icelandic political pilgrims had hopes
of seeing the dictator, Fidel Castro, who
did not however bother to receive them.
Thus, the history of the Icelandic com-
munist movement ended, in the poet’s
words, not with a bang, but with a whim-
per.
Twists And Turns In The History Of
The Icelandic Communist Movement
From Copenhagen via Moscow and Reykjavík to Havana
Iceland | HisStory
Words
Hannes H. Gissurarson
The Icelandic
political pilgrims
had hopes of seeing
the dictator, Fidel
Castro
Hannes H. Gissurarson is a professor of political science at The University of Iceland.
1. This is an historic photograph from the personal archive of Einar Ólgeirsson at the National
Library of Iceland. It shows a young communists’ meeting in Moscow in July 1920 in connec-
tion with the 2nd Comintern congress. The two Icelanders, Hendrik Ottósson and Brynjólfur
Bjarnason, are standing in the second row farthest to the right. Stalin later had at least three
of the people photographed here killed, including Lazar Shatskin (front row, 3rd from left),
Willi Münzenberg (front row, 6th from left), and Otto Unger (second row, 4th from left). Max
Barthel (front row, 7th from left) became a Nazi, and Ruth Fischer (front row, 8th from left) a
fervent anti-communist working with the CIA.
2. Ingi R. Helgason, the executive director of the Social Unity Party from 1956–62, delivers a
message from his party to the 1966 congress of the Soviet Communist Party. For many years,
Ingi R. Helgason was the party’s grey eminence. His daughter, Álfheiður Ingadóttir, is cur-
rently a Left-Green member of parliament.
MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS – Eddas and Sagas
The ancient vellums on display.
MILLENNIUM
Icelandic art through the ages. Phase one.
CHILD OF HOPE – Youth and Jón Sigurðsson
Tribute to the leader of the independence movement.
EXHIBITIONS - GUIDED TOURS
CAFETERIA - CULTURE SHOP
The Culture House – Þjóðmenningarhúsið
National Centre for Cultural Heritage
Hverfisgata 15 · 101 Reykjavík (City Centre)
Tel: 545 1400 · thjodmenning.is · kultur.is
Open daily between 11 am and 5 pm
Free guided tour of THE MEDIEVAL
MANUSCRIPTS weekdays at 3 pm,
except Wednesdays.