Olav Kyrre Grepp (6 August 1879 – 6 February 1922) was a Norwegian politician, leader of the

Norwegian Labour Party The Labour Party (; , A or Ap; ), formerly The Norwegian Labour Party (, DNA), is a Social democracy, social democratic List of political parties in Norway, political party in Norway. It is positioned on the centre-left of the political spectru ...

. Grepp became a

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

by the end of his life and was active in the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

. He studied literature and philosophy, however he became increasingly politically active. Grepp was elected after university studies in the Labor Party's central board in 1912. He was in favor of revolutionary tactics and strengthening the labor movement's extra-parliamentary aids and in 1918 pushed through the Labor Party's accession to the Communist International. As the party's leader, despite cooperation with Moscow, Grepp managed to preserve some independence for the party. As an organizer and tactician, Grepp was probably one of the foremost in the Norwegian labor movement. From 1904 he was married to the journalist Rachel Grepp and together they had five children, including the journalist Gerda Grepp. In his last years, Grepp was plagued by illness, and he gave his last public speech in 1920. He died of tuberculosis in 1922. A street is named after Grepp in the

Sagene Sagene is a List of boroughs of Oslo, borough of the city of Oslo, Norway. The area became part of the city of Oslo (then Oslo, Christiania) in 1859. The name Sagene itself is the plural of the Norwegian language, Norwegian word for "saw", reflec ...

borough of

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

. He was married to

Rachel Grepp Rachel Catharina Helland Grepp, née Helland (5 March 1879 – 24 May 1961) was a Norwegian journalist and politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. She was among the founders of Bergens Socialdemokratiske Ungdomslag in 1902. From 1923 to 1945 s ...

, with whom he had a daughter,

Gerda Grepp Gerda Johanne Helland Grepp Accessed through thgrave-site registryof the Genealogy Society of Norway (DIS), select "Id" from the drop-down menu labelled "Find" and enter "675648". (26 May 1907 – 29 August 1940) was a Norwegian translator, jour ...

References

Norwegian communists Norwegian Comintern people 1879 births 1922 deaths Norwegian temperance activists Leaders of the Labour Party (Norway) 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Norway {{Norway-politician-1870s-stub