The conference highlighted several important changes in the European communist movement. It exhibited the declining influence of theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union and a widening gap between the independent and orthodox camps amongst European communist parties, with the ascent of a new political trend,Eurocommunism.
Knud Jespersen (12 April 1926,Sulsted – 1 December 1977) was aDanish politician. Jespersen served as chairman of theCommunist Party of Denmark between 1958 and 1977 and was a member of parliament between 1973 and 1977.
During his teenage years Jespersen joined theresistance movement against theGerman occupation of Denmark. Both his mother and stepfather were members of the Communist Party. Following the 'police action' against the Communist Party on 22 June 1941, the entire household joined the underground resistance. In 1942, Jespersen himself became a member of the Communist Party. Both Jespersen and his stepfather were arrested and held inconcentration camps. His stepfather, Christian Andersen, was arrested by theGestapo in a raid on the family residence in December 1943. He died in theNeuengamme concentration camp a year later. Jespersen arrested on 27 March 1945 and was detained at theFrøslev Prison Camp. Jespersen was scheduled to be transferred to Germany, but was released after the Liberation on 5 May 1945.
After the war Jespersen became atrade union activist. Following his release he began to work as a casual labourer. He was elected local union chairman of warehouse workers inAalborg in 1953. During the strike movements of the spring of 1956, he became known as an agitator.
...thatMoscow City Hall, built in the 1890s to the tastes of the Russianbourgeoisie, was converted byCommunists into the CentralLenin Museum after its rich interior decoration had been plastered over.
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In our time only a party that will organise really nation-wide exposures can become thevanguard of the revolutionary forces. The word “nation-wide” has a very profound meaning. The overwhelming majority of the non-working-class exposers (be it remembered that in order to become the vanguard, we must attract other classes) are sober politicians and level-headed men of affairs. They know perfectly well how dangerous it is to “complain” even against a minor official, let alone against the “omnipotent”Russian Government. And they will come to us with their complaints only when they see that these complaints can really have effect, and that we represent a political force. In order to become such a force in the eyes of outsiders, much persistent and stubborn work is required to raise our own consciousness, initiative, and energy. To accomplish this it is not enough to attach a “vanguard” label to rearguard theory and practice.
But if we have to undertake the organisation of a really nationwide exposure of the government, in what way will then the class character of our movement be expressed? — the overzealous advocate of “close organic contact with the proletarian struggle” will ask us, as indeed he does. The reply is manifold: weSocial-Democrats will organise these nation-wide exposures; all questions raised by the agitation will he explained in a consistently Social-Democratic spirit, without any concessions to deliberate or undeliberate distortions ofMarxism; the all-round political agitation will be conducted by a party which unites into one inseparable whole the assault on the government in the name of the entire people, the revolutionary training of theproletariat, and the safeguarding of its political independence, the guidance of the economic struggle of the working class, and the utilisation of all its spontaneous conflicts with its exploiters which rouse and bring into our camp increasing numbers of the proletariat.
