Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, due in large part to its massive oil reserves. But just as important as the country’s oil has been the strong labor movement, which, beginning in the 1960s, ensured that oil profits flowed not into the pockets of the rich but into the coffers of the welfare state. Unlike other oil-rich states, Norway’s wealth was used to build a remarkably equal society, transforming the lives of working-class people in just one generation.

But recent years have seen social inequality rise in Norway as across Europe. A combination of economic crisis and government-mandated austerity have eaten away at the gains won by the postwar labor movement and hollowed out support for the traditional parties. This political and social malaise has largely benefited the forces of the Right. The far-right Progress Party is now polling almost neck and neck with the Labor Party — a force that traditionally governs Norway but has seen its support decline precipitously over recent decades.

To Labor’s left, however, a new competitor has emerged: Rødt, or the Red Party, which formed in 2007 as a fusion of different communist and socialist currents. It has seen its support nearly triple since first entering parliament in 2017 and is set to build on these gains in Monday’s parliamentary election.