Pål Steigan

Pål Steigan (born 31 May 1949 in Oslo) is a Norwegian communist and former leader of the Maoist Workers' Communist Party, AKP (m-l), from 1975 to 1984, and jointly leader of the Red Electoral Alliance (RV) until 1979.[1][2] He is a writer and editor.

Pål Steigan
Pål Steigan lecturing at Parkteateret at a seminar about author Tron Øgrim in 2007
Leader of the Workers' Communist Party
In office
1975–1984
Preceded bySigurd Allern
Succeeded byKjersti Ericsson
Leader of the Red Electoral Alliance
In office
1975–1979
Preceded bySigurd Allern
Succeeded byHilde Haugsgjerd
Personal details
Born (1949-05-31) 31 May 1949
Oslo, Norway
NationalityNorwegian
Political partyRed Party
Other political
affiliations		Workers' Communist Party
Red Electoral Alliance
ResidenceOslo, Norway
Part of a series on
Nordic M-L Movement
Organisations

Denmark: KAP
Faroes: OF(ml)
Finland: MLG
Iceland: EIK(m-l)
Norway: AKP(m-l)

Sweden: KFML
Personalities

Pål Steigan

Nils Holmberg
Ideologies

Communism
Marxism–Leninism

Maoism
Communism Portal

Workers Communist Party, AKP (m-l)

During his leadership of AKP (m-l), Steigan traveled to countries under communist regimes, such as China, Czechoslovakia, Albania and Cambodia (Democratic Kampuchea).[1] He met Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxa and Pol Pot.[3]

After meeting the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 1978, he began to support the regime,[4] later admitting his support for the genocidal Khmer Rouge was a mistake explaining that he now believed it was not Marxist.[5] He has continued to be criticised for bearing a personal responsibility for his political support to the regime.[4]

In 1978, he told an interviewer from The Call, the newspaper of the American Communist Party (Marxist–Leninist), that since the foundation of the party five years earlier "we have been waging a struggle against two brands of revisionism" in Norway, "the Brezhnevist, Moscow revisionist type party, which is the old so-called Norwegian Communist Party, and a newer Eurorevisionist party."[6] According to Steigan in the same interview: "[I]t’s obvious that the Soviet social-imperialists are planning to take Norway in the initial stages of a war over Europe."[7]

Books

Steigan's memoirs En folkefiende (A public enemy) were published in 2013.[3]

Steigan, Pål, Veiskille: finnes det noen vei ut av miljøkrisa? Oktober Forlag, Oslo, 1990, 244 s.

References
  1. "Pål Steigan", Store norske leksikon, 29.12.2012
  2. Arbeidernes Kommunistparti in Store norske leksikon (in Norwegian)
  3. "Pål Steigan: - Vi dro det for langt", Aftenposten, 17.09.2003
  4. "Det unnvikende oppgjøret", Dagbladet, 17 July 2003
  5. "Pål Steigan slår tilbake mot folkemord-anklager", Dagbladet, 17 July 2003
  6. "Interview with Norway's Pal Steigan". The Call. marxists.org. 26 June 1978. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
  7. The Call (marxists.org), 3 July 1978
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