The launch of a socialist magazine at the University of Oslo in September 1921 came with both an invitation and a challenge: “Mot Dag seeks intellectual leadership,” it insisted, “Not every academic belongs here, only those who think.” Its mission — to develop a revolutionary elite of workers and intellectuals who could take power in Norway.

The Mot Dag group’s members became major public figures — from the cofounder of the World Health Organization to prominent authors and poets. Yet its main success was political. After the Norwegian Labor Party formed its first real government in 1935, beginning three decades of social-democratic hegemony, it was Mot Dag members who staffed its administrations as advisers and MPs, as well as providing three of Labor’s first four prime ministers.

Even such a successful experience cannot simply be ripped from its own context and reproduced in the present. Yet these Norwegian socialists’ efforts do provide key lessons for today. If a left-wing party is not only to hold office, but really take power, this demands that it builds its power and influence across society, even beyond its presence in parliament, so that it can withstand the economic pressure of an establishment backlash.