Background and establishment Marie-Sophie Nielsen led the faction of Social Democrats that broke away in 1918 and founded the Socialist Labour Party of Denmark due to an accumulation of conflicts with the reformist leadership of the Social Democrats. In particular, they opposed cooperation with the
Radical Liberal Party, with whom the Social Democrats allied themselves in general elections. This intervention resulted in the DKP making an "ultra-left turn". The Social Democrats experienced a rapid decline in influence during this period, remaining outside of the resistance movement for the entirety of the occupation.
Post-war legalization After the
liberation of Denmark on 5 May 1945, the first communist minister was inducted into the new
liberation government when
Alfred Jensen was made Minister of Traffic.
Aksel Larsen was also made a
minister without portfolio. The government was roughly evenly split between members of the old national unity government and members of the Danish Freedom Council and other resistance groups. In the
first post-liberation parliamentary election, the DKP obtained a much-improved 12.5% of the vote (255,236 votes) and 18 seats, although it was not included in the new post-election
Venstre-led government. The party was the primary force against Denmark's participation in
NATO in the late 1940s. and sparked a split within the party. DKP chairman Aksel Larsen had been the leader of the
revisionist camp in the party from 1956 onwards, By 1960, the DKP's membership had fallen significantly to 5,000. The first
post-split parliamentary election was held that same year, and the DKP lost parliamentary representation for the first time since the liberation of Denmark, falling to 1.1% of the vote. The Socialist People's Party achieved 6.1% of the vote and won 11 seats. The party achieved a resurgence following the 24th Congress of the DKP in 1973, which focused on demanding Denmark's withdrawal from NATO and the
EC.
Gert Petersen, then-chairman of the Socialist People's Party, claimed at the time that cooperation between such diffuse ideological currents would fail. Not all members of the DKP supported the launching of the Unity List either, and some chose to split with the party in 1990 to create a new communist party, the
Communist Party in Denmark (KPiD). The Unity List has been a cause of political strife for Danish communists ever since. There are several issues, the two main ones being dual membership and communist unity. The DKP reorganized heavily in 1992, severing the party's links with the international communist movement and officially changing its purpose from a political organ to a network-oriented organization. At the same time, the Unity List changed from a political coalition to a regular independent membership-based political party. The Unity List achieved parliamentary representation in the
1994 parliamentary election, winning 6 seats, 2 of which were held by members who were also DKP members. The Unity List has been represented continually in parliament since then. The DKP revived its former contact with the international communist movement by joining the annual
International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties in 2002. In September 2023 the
KPiD merged with the DKP, after a more than 20-year process of unification talks. ==Organization==