The history of anarchism in Norway can be traced back to the beginning of the labor movement in 1848, when
Marcus Thrane started the country's first
workers' union in
Drammen. The following year he founded the "Arbeider-Foreningernes Blad". The magazine brought extensive excerpts from the writings of the French anarchist
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the
utopian socialism of the tailor
Wilhelm Weitling, the
communist creed of
Etienne Cabet, references to
Henri de Saint-Simon,
Louis Blanc, and the works of other early socialists. Thrane was an admirer of Proudhon, whom he characterized as "arguably the greatest genius of our time", but he did not perceive himself as an anarchist. He is considered Norway's first socialist, and the father of the
cooperative movement. At the end of June 1850, the workers' unions had 20,854 members in 273 unions. In 1851, Thrane was arrested and eventually imprisoned. The workers' unions were closed down or their grades changed. Thrane was released in 1859, and emigrated to the United States in 1863. He distanced himself from the assassinations of some anarchists after the
Haymarket riots in Chicago in May 1884. Thrane personally knew one of those hanged.
Søren Jaabæk founded the first peasant friends' association in 1865, in
Mandal. The peasant friends stood for a
communist or
localist tendency, with emphasis on
decentralization and
local self-government. The co-operative movement was an important element in the peasant-friend policy.
Arne Garborg,
Ivar Mortensson-Egnund and
Hans Jæger were some of the first to refer to themselves as anarchists. Garborg's interest in anarchism is based on Døleringen, which arose in the environment around
Aasmund Olavsson Vinje and
Ernst Sars and was a counterpart to the political and cultural
nationalism that prevailed in Norway in the 1860s. The student and newspaper man
Rasmus Steinsvik was one of Garborg's apprentices, and in 1887 he established the radical target magazine
Vestmannen in his hometown of Volda. Steinsvik tried to merge anarchism with unity and cooperation in the rural community. He advocated that smaller regional and local units should govern themselves through a fully developed local democracy. He called this freedom of government. In 1889, Steinsvik believed that Norway had to leave the
union, the sooner the better. The anarchists in Norway were convinced that behind the shaky contemporaries there was a separate Norwegian form of society with an underlying message of equality, justice and the right to
self-determination. At the same time, the anarchists were extremely international in their basic attitude, but they established themselves completely when their views were to be linked at the same time with national identity and self-assertion. The Norwegian anarchist movement "died out" after this, although there were traces of it in the Liberal Party's national democratic project. The Federation of Anarchist Youth (FAU) started up in
Kristiansund in 1966/67, but it was only after the
student uprising in Paris in 1968 that interest in anarchism was really revived.
Jens Bjørneboe wrote the essay "Anarchism as a future" in 1969. In 1971 he gave an introduction to the Student Society in Oslo on the topic "Anarchism… today?". Bjørneboe had a great influence on the new budding anarchist movement. The punk scene Barrikaden is located in the basement on the West Bank. •
Blitz – Blitz is a self-managed youth center in Oslo. It is largely an anarchist project. Gateavisa has an office at
Hjelmsgate 3. Here, the Liberty Forum also meets relatively regularly. Liberty Forum is a small group of anarchists and libertarian socialists who meet to discuss theory. There is also the anarchist book café in Hjelmsgate called Jaap Van Huysmanns Minde. •
Youth For Free Activity (UFFA) is a self-managed youth center in Trondheim that was started in 1981, six months before Blitz in Oslo. The activists in the house are mostly anarchists and the house is governed by anarchist principles. It contains, among other things, a vegetarian café, book café, a punk fanzine (Dønk Zine) and the film collective Spis De Rike. •
Norwegian Syndicalist Federation (NSF-IAA) – The Norwegian Syndicalist Federation is an
anarcho-syndicalist group in Norway. Established in the 1910s, the NSF worked within existing
Norwegian trade unions in order to radicalise them towards
revolutionary syndicalism. •
Motmakt – Motmakt is a Norwegian libertarian socialist organization that, through direct action, fights for a stateless, classless society. The organization is affiliated with the international Anarkismo.net project. ==See also==