Olav Scheflo

Who was Olav Scheflo?

Olav Scheflo was a Norwegian Communist politician and journalist.

Olav Scheflo was a member of the Norwegian Labour Party from 1905. After the October Revolution he fought hard to convince the Labor Party to join the Communist International and Scheflo was a Norwegian representative at the second congress of the Comintern in 1920 and was member of the Comintern Executive Committee from 1921 to 1927. Critical towards Stalinism, he left the Norwegian Communist Party in 1928 and rejoined the Norwegian Labor Party in 1929.

When the Swedish Communist leader Zeth Höglund in 1918 was offered to be made honorable corporal in the Red Army but declined, the offer instead went to Olav Scheflo who gladly accepted the position.

When Leon Trotsky lived in exile in Norway in 1935 and 1936, Scheflo strongly defended him against the attacks of the Stalinists and the Norwegian bourgeoisie, although he would never become a real Trotskyists, since he was closer to the Soviet Right Opposition.

Scheflo's autobiography is entitled Den røde tråd i Norges historie.