Indian-Nordic Encounters 1917-2006 - Det danske Fredsakademi

But this model lacked the capacity to challenge the Western development model and
imperialism in a more coherent way. An organisational model to solve this limitation was then
developed in the late 1960s. Single-issue organisations emerged dominated by activists who
were linked together informally with other single-issue organisations through a generalist
ideology organisation in strong opposition to the dominant political culture. The coherence of
this ideology and input of new activists and resources to the generalist organisation was
organised through ideological confrontations within different movements.
This caused a lot of conflicts within the movements but was also efficient in building a
counterhegemonic Maoist party. The existing Norwegian Communist party was to weak to
have such a position. The Maoists was capable of such things as establishing a national
newspaper with respect in society, having a unique position compared to the situation in other
Nordic countries. While effective in confronting the distribution of wealth domestically and
globally this model was not able of challenging the development model as such. The direction
of the development model whether under communist planned economy or capitalism was not
challenged at its roots.
Finland followed a similar pattern. Here activists also were given room in organisations that
either had closed links to established institutions or were coalitions built by strong class based
organisation. The activists often received much resistance in civil society due to a
conservative culture and press. But at the same time some of them gained direct contacts with
president Kekkonen who sometimes supported their case and saw it useful to get support for
his foreign policy. Some new organisations were established like the Committee of 100 on
defence, peace and development issues, the November movement supporting homeless and
Group 6 on equality between the sexes. There were also new student organisations built to
support the UN and international humanitarian aid of the kind that already existed in other
Nordic countries. But in general fewer new organisations were created and there were much
less activists than in the rest of Northern Europe. But these few activists could gain strong
results in a society were some institutions like public service radio and television, the
president, organisations built on the coalition of Center party and the left including Soviet
union allied communists, Lutheran solidarity organisations and others.
In the late 1960s there also seamed to be a similar development as in Norway when more
activists felt the need to deepen the system-critical perspective in the movement. A change
took place within the established Finnish Conservation Society towards a more radical
position questioning the domestic important forest industry but without close links to other
movements. At the same time a very small Maoist movement started following the similar
pattern as in the other Nordic countries. They challenged Soviet Union foreign policy, which
was also opposed by the new left who was strong especially among Marxist social democrats.
But Maoist and New left were not able to sustain any organisations and coalitions for a longer
time with the exception of the Committee of 100. Among other factors the civil war when
Finland became independent had created a divided political culture were the working class
partly had their organisations criminalised and thus instead had built a strong cooperative
movement which formed a basis for a counterhegemonic ideology. At the same time Finland
had experienced the need to unite against Soviet Union during World War II. This made the
space for a third position criticising the Western development model very small or not
existing.
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