Norway: Red Front – Boycott the Elections!
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement by the Red Front that has been published by Tjen Folket Media.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Red Front calls on all revolutionaries, all anti-imperialists, and the entire Norwegian working class to turn their backs on the bourgeois election circus and throw themselves into the struggle to strengthen the revolutionary movement. The imperialists are preparing for war and attacking the rights of the people.
The imperialists arms for war and attacks the rights of the people
The situation in the world is increasingly characterized by deep crisis and decay in the imperialist system. The contradictions within the system are becoming more acute as a result of the decay. The bloodiest expression of the acute contradictions today is seen in a record number of wars and armed conflicts. Never since the Second World War have there been more wars in the world than this year.
Before our eyes, the criminal Zionist state of Israel is intensifying its genocide against the Palestinians. No matter what diversionary maneuvers they attempt, we will never forget that Norwegian imperialism and its politicians – led by Labour Party Prime Minister Gahr Støre – are complicit in the Zionist crimes. After the Palestinian armed national resistance movement’s counter-offensive on October 7, 2023, Gahr Støre declared that the occupier Israel has the “right to defend itself.” But doesn’t an occupied people have the right to fight and resist?
The government’s supporter SV [Translator’s note: Socialist Left Party, social-democratic bourgeois Party] has also declared that Israel has the right to defend its existence – in supreme contempt for the right of the Palestinian people to, with arms in hand, reconquer the land they have been robbed of. These bourgeois “workers’ Parties,” both Labour Party and SV, have in practice drawn a line over 75 years of Zionist displacement and colonialism, of which today’s genocide is a continuation. Thus, we can only be filled with sickening disgust when the same parties declare themselves friends of Palestine.
Gahr Støre has repeatedly stated that “the USA is our closest ally” – while the whole world knows that it is US imperialism that finances and equips Israel. Israel is a lackey of the USA, of Norwegian imperialism’s “closest ally,” and through the state oil fund’s investments in Israel, the Norwegian state profits from the genocide. It is this blood money that they will use to buy the votes of the masses when they promise “free kindergarten” or “cheaper public transport.”
The third bourgeois “workers’ Party” in the Parliament, the Red Party, has chosen to give its full support to the massive rearmament of the bourgeois military apparatus and to NATO contributions to Ukraine. Thus, the Red Party has, in practice, put aside its NATO opposition. The Red Party also declares that it will support Gahr Støre as prime minister – the same Gahr Støre who kisses the shoes of the ultra-reactionary Donald Trump. All Parties in the Parliament, including the Red Party and the SV Party, have also supported the largest military rearmament in Norwegian history through the “defense settlement.”
All of this is happening in a situation where imperialism in general, and US imperialism in particular, is facing enormous economic and political challenges. Challenges that the imperialists, including Norwegian imperialism, can only “solve” in the short term by increasing the exploitation and oppression of the international proletariat and the oppressed peoples of the world.
It is only on this basis that we can understand why the Trump administration is calling in the military against popular protests, why France is banning Palestinian demonstrations, and why Germany is deploying the police to break up debates and shut down Shiite religious communities. Furthermore, in the UK alone, over 3,000 people have been convicted of “illegal speech” in recent years. In Romania, the authorities, on instructions from the EU (i.e., mainly German and French imperialism), have annulled a presidential election because the “wrong” candidate received the most votes. In France, the courts have banned the most popular challenger to the presidency from running for the next five years.
This tendency to attack civil-democratic freedoms and rights is also developing in Norway. Earlier this year, the government proposed a new “crisis law” to give the government even more authority to set aside democratic rights and freedoms. Due to great pressure, the proposal was postponed, even though the Labour Party and the Conservative Party were keen to support this attack on the authority of the Storting. Three Palestinian activists have also been persecuted for over a year by the Police Security Service (PST) for expressing their opinions to Frp [Translator’s note: Progress Party] leader Listhaug in public – a case the activists won in the district court, but which the state has appealed for a new trial after the election. A few years ago, a new intelligence law was also passed for mass surveillance of data traffic in Norway. Again, all Parties in the Parliament are strong supporters of “more police” and “more defense” – in short: more militarization.
These attacks on the people’s democratic rights are happening at the same time that the state is cutting the welfare of the masses with one hand – cutting schools, hospitals, social security, etc., while with the other hand, it is giving billions in support to large corporations – to battery factories, wind farms, weapons production, etc. – to breathe more life into an increasingly stagnant Norwegian economy. Cuts in the welfare and rights of the masses thus go hand in hand with increased profits for the banks, the monopoly companies, and the state itself.
In short, Norwegian imperialism is preparing for imperialist war and attacking the people’s freedoms and rights as part of a tendency we see throughout the world and in all imperialist countries.
The bourgeois elections serve Norwegian imperialism
What function do the bourgeois elections have in this situation? Obviously, the election circus plays an important role for the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois State. They themselves prove this with the enormous sums spent on election propaganda and the conduct of the elections. It is also proven by tens of millions in election campaign donations to various Parties from private capitalists and from the bureaucrats in the social democratic trade union movement. The most important function of the election is to legitimize the bourgeois state in a situation where it must increase exploitation and oppression. The election functions as a legitimization of the policy the government is pursuing, regardless of who is prime minister. This legitimization is only effective if voter turnout is kept relatively high.
Thus, the bourgeois elections create a – completely false and hypocritical – “democratic” basis for the state’s plunder and war in other countries and for the state’s attack on the democratic freedoms and rights of the people in its own country. Every vote cast is taken as income for the system as a whole. The function of the election is thus to stabilize and support the prevailing order – an order that is today rotting more and more, that is increasingly entangled in insoluble contradictions, an order that is therefore increasingly dependent on armaments, attacks on the rights of the people, and cuts in the welfare of the masses. We must also understand that the bourgeois elections have always served the bourgeoisie, and that never anywhere, not in any country and not in any situation, has the working class been able to create socialism through the ballot box.
Furthermore, we must acknowledge and emphasize the growing tendency for the masses to turn their backs on the electoral circus. Among the poorest in Norway, voter turnout has declined over the past 20 years. This is part of an international tendency. The poorest of the proletariat are increasingly abstaining from voting in bourgeois elections. Hundreds of thousands of people in Norway have spontaneously understood that there can be no change or improvement for them through the ballot paper and the ballot box. Many self-proclaimed revolutionaries, who choose to participate in the election campaign or who “hold their noses” when they vote for the “lesser evil,” are therefore acting less consciously and revolutionary than the poorest unorganized masses.
The tendency towards spontaneous boycott and passive rejection of the elections, especially by the poorest and most oppressed, would also have been even greater if the bourgeoisie had not done everything they could to lure, deceive, and intimidate the masses to the ballot boxes. An important measure in this context is the development of new “populist” Parties or “single-issue Parties” – such as the Frp, the Greens, and the Red Party. This also includes all the so-called “small Parties.” Through demagogy and promises that can never be fulfilled, by posing as critics of the system and “something completely new,” such Parties try to win frustrated ex-voters back to the circus. Such Parties exploit crisis and decay to blame the old bourgeois Parties – instead of exposing the imperialist system. In this way, they lure and deceive the masses into giving the ballot another wasted try. Furthermore, political Parties and commentators are exploiting racism and chauvinism to divide the working class and win votes, while others, especially the social democrats and “workers’ Parties,” want to scare the masses into voting with the “danger of war,” “attacks on democracy,” and the “threat of fascism.”
We would like to state that there is clearly a fascist tendency in today’s developments. But contrary to what self-proclaimed “anti-fascists” in various bourgeois Parties claim, the fascist threat does not come from the margins of society or “from outside.” The tendency towards fascism is a tendency that is growing within the bourgeois state itself. Using the military against the masses, restricting freedom of speech, the state breaking strikes, undermining the influence of parliament and the courts in favor of the executive branch of government and the police – all this points towards fascism. Is it not the bourgeois Parties themselves, led by the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, that are developing this tendency the most? Fascism and war are components of imperialism, for the defense or increase of the profits of the bourgeoisie and for the suppression of the revolutionary proletariat, and only by sweeping imperialism off the face of the earth can fascism and war be crushed once and for all.
Election, no! Revolution, yes!
In this situation, we address all anti-imperialists: Do not participate in this circus to legitimize Norwegian imperialism, with US imperialism as the “closest ally”! No matter which Party you vote for, the state and government will take this vote as income for their system. Voting for SV or the Red Party is a vote for Gahr Støre to continue as prime minister. The firmest, most consistent support we can give to our brothers and sisters who are fighting and sacrificing their precious blood in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Yemen, in rural Brazil, in the jungles of India and the Philippines, in the valleys of Peru, and on the mountain peaks of Turkey, is to boycott the imperialists’ political election farce and to build a powerful anti-imperialist front against the entire imperialist system!
We address all revolutionaries: Boycott the elections, join the campaign for an active election boycott, and contact the Red Front to become part of the revolutionary movement! The electoral tradition serves imperialism. Nowhere has capitalism ever been abolished through bourgeois elections. The Parties that participate in the bourgeois elections are bought and paid for. They have become corrupt tools of the bourgeoisie and the imperialist system that every true revolutionary hates with every fiber of their body and with all their heart. Making revolution is about breaking down and destroying the old imperialist order and the old bourgeois state in order to build a new socialist order on the ruins of imperialism. Participating in the bourgeois election circus serves to defend the old order – what we must do is the opposite: we must develop an active election boycott and strengthen the revolutionary movement.
On this basis, the Red Front will contribute to an active election boycott. We warmly welcome all who agree to participate in the work with us. We encourage all revolutionaries to contact the Red Front, to become part of the revolutionary movement, and to build it up as a powerful alternative to the existing, decaying, and dying order.
Don’t vote – fight and resist!
Election, no! Revolution, yes!
Boycott the election!
Red Front
June 2025
