Ellisif Wessel 

Ellisif Wessel was a distinguished woman in several fields, but who today is not so well known. Her achievements included being a prolific author, whose work ranged from poems to stories for children, and who was also known for her outstanding participation in the Norwegian labor movement.  As a prominent socialist, many looked to her within the young socialist movement. Ellisif, through her principled activity, came to represent the height of a Swedish-Norwegian political trend that mixed Marxism, anarchism and unionism at the beginning of the 20th century. She was also recognized as a prominent trade unionist, becoming the secretary of the Nordens Klippe, one of the first Norwegian labor unions and the first to operate in northern Norway.

Ellisif Rannveig Müller was born on July 14, 1866, growing up in a small town on the west coast of Norway in the municipality of Gausdal. Ellisif was raised in a strict Pietist home. Her father,  Wilhelm Jacobi Müller, was the district doctor, an occupation which meant that the Ellisif’s family relocated frequently. By the age of ten, Ellisif had moved three times because of her fathers reassignments. In 1882, Ellisif took her secondary school exam at the Nissen girls’ school in Kristiania. In 1886, only having reached the age of 20, Ellisif  married her cousin, the doctor Andreas Bredahl Wessel (1858-1938) in Dovre, a municipality in Gudbrandsdalen in the county of Innlandet. Shortly after the wedding, Ellisif and Andreas settled in Kirkenes, where Bredhal would become the district doctor of Sør-Varanger. It was there that the Wesell’s settled for the rest of their lives.

In her writings, Ellisif attacked everything that she considered to be abuse and injustice. She stated that her motivations were for “equal respect for every human being, sincere love for him, thirst for justice, light on injustice and deep remorse for it, all this from the heart and towards life in everything that may appear.” This led her into a string of controversies and splits from the traditional social democratic movement, as she had no qualms with engaging in fiery criticism. 

It first in 1914 when Ellisif found herself involved in a controversy with the social democrats over one of her articles. The article in question dealt with the murder of a wealthy man who owned a factory from Aasheim in Kristiania around Christmas 1913, and titled:  “Untimely loyalty. Or something worse?” Published in Ny Tid on January 5, 1914, Ellisif attacked the editors of the newspaper Social-Demokraten for believing that they had shown “inappropriate loyalty” to the murdered factory owner. The article stated the following: 

“The social democratic newspaper published on the front page of its 19th issue an account of a typical event of the capitalist era: an assault on a rich factory owner, who is murdered and robbed when he returns home with part of the profits from his workers’ services, but an account whose tone does not suggest that intend to do something for this aggrieved working class. Furthermore, one might think that it has been discarded as a cowardly sacrifice in favor of the majority of taste in the municipality where it would now be so desirable to sit inside with the sweetness of the position of mayor and power. However, it is reasonable that it is dictated by something that lies even further back in development: by the most complete misunderstanding of the real conditions of life. The editors seem to be so close to the people on the sunny side that they have no idea that another existence exists, an existence as black and desperate as the night.

On this night we have the use of clear reflectors, full beams of light - and not for the even more ferocious police dogs, like the Social Democrats. The social democrat tells his readers with great emotion about this skillful and enterprising businessman, the kind lover of nature, who had no enemies (!), who lived happily in his warm family circle, who never participated in public life, but loved to go hunting. This model citizen is shot one night by another man, who, therefore, and reasonably for that reason alone, could come to possess a couple of crowns, or of the two hundred crowns that the model man had “made” that day in his factory in Kristiania. And when the two-legged and four-legged police officers are immediately alerted, and the perpetrator flees, “unfortunately” they succeed, claims the Soc.-Dem. , not these dogs to chase two-legged criminals. “Unfortunately”. (Let’s hope things go better the next time something like this happens. And that’s probably the end of the story.)

Rather, the social democrat should have said: “Yes, it would be better for you to wait, these shameless exploiters, who at nightfall happily return home with stolen goods, with the surplus value earned by the poor workers in their pockets”. It is good that an example is finally delivered; it is well packaged, it is scary in life, so that the theft business does not become so exclusively comfortable from now on. There will be no changes, until the exploiters of the upper class simply do not dare to act like: “There are no longer thieves protected by the law.” “Only in this way can such a disaster be transmitted with something resembling consciousness.” It would be better if S.-D. I would have said this: Ten in the class war, the past passes brutally, and the class that is drunk with blood and gold, in any case, understands no other language than that of violence, does not retreat from anything else. Therefore, a defense of the crudest act of violence on the part of the aggrieved would serve as a better protection against the general waste of life than this sanctioner of the old system in calling for better police dogs.

A defense would strengthen the ability of the working class to see the magnitude of the injustice they are suffering, and therefore provide moral courage to use force in the right way, dealing with exploiters with their workforce, to obtain their rights.

During a steamboat trip here, between the fishing villages of Kiberg and Berlevaag, I think it was last year, a fisherman committed a robbery because he did not have money for a ticket and he knew that his travel ticket cost 50 – fifty – øre. For the sake of these 50 øres, our man instantly felt compelled to kill a human being. And he did it! They don’t want him in the social democratic party. They have come out to bikjekjek against this sinner! Maybe he was drunk too! But there is no shortage of police among the “social democratic” fraternal bodies. Here in the north, rather small but sincere imitators, who comfortingly take the side of the police, of the nagaika-armed protectors of property rights, and always stand shoulder to shoulder at their side. 50 øre was the most sought after benefit in this case. But is 10 crowns much more?

Fifty cents!

Is there any working-class newspaper in Norway that will stop at this fifty cents and seriously ask the reason for such a deep night in the midst of the rich and dazzling midday sun? What are these rods? The same murderer? This man? Impossible! But how to understand it? And how to help him reverse a couple of small steps that may have deviated from his correct path of the proletariat? “– Police dogs!” Shouts the social democrat. And like Pilate, one washes one’s hands before being a coward. The motives for Aasheim’s murder are still unknown. It is unknown who the perpetrator was and what class he belongs to. But the Soc.-Dem. He clearly assumes that he has been a very “poor man”, who, without knowing how great the return could be, has set to work “on happiness and piety.” And this poor man is doomed beyond belief. Killer! Lawn killer! The rich dropper manufacturer, so warmly defended, is praised in the Social Democratic Party. Because he had come so far even though “it was only 13 years ago that he started empty-handed.”

But these two hands were perhaps still two fists of honest work until that moment. Has Soc.-Dem think about how much white blood must have adhered to these hands over the past 13 years. Think about the Soc.-Dem party, that among his “happy staff of 60 men” there were hardly any families in which the cause of illness and premature death was precisely the lack of that surplus value, of that half of the salary, which the drop manufacturer himself obtained with the yours every night? In fact, he was given a mercy ride, what happened should be considered as retribution for all the stubborn victims who fall annually in the pursuit of profits of the owners of these types of factories. Whether the action is right or wrong, in cases like this, our task is not to express the general frightened and confused howl of the citizens, but to shed all light on the reason why such events can occur, to show how they are the fruit. Necessary and consequence of the system of murders and robberies in which we are currently involved.”

Because of this article, Ellisif was silenced and attacked. The newspaper Aftenposten said that she wanted to see human slaughterhouses, and that she was thirsty for blood. The newspaper Morgenbladet called her “the murderous angel”. She was denied space in the columns of the Social-Demokraten and Ny Tid, and because of this, she founded her own magazine: Klasse mot Klass. Amongst its contributors were Johan Falkberget, and the publication was praised by Arvid G. Hansen “as the only coherent theoretical organ of revolutionary Marxism.” Ellisif had already written some things about Marx in her time, but the Prologue to Klasse mot klasse by J. Martov made her allegiances abundantly clear. Ellisif Wessel translated and published this prologue in the Direkte Aktion no. 13/1914. The prologue stated::

Over time, a more libertarian trend was noted in Ellisif’s articles. She repudiated the Labor Party,  and swung into anti-militarism during the first world war. Her tendency towards anarcho-syndicalism made her collaborate with the Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC), where she called for the formation of local co-organisations under its wing. She also took revenge and attacked Martin, the editor of the Tranmæl’s Ny Tid, and accused them of opportunism and parliamentarism. Ny Tid continues to exist to this day, with positions aligned with the socioliberal bourgeoisie. Ellisif campaigned intensively to create a trade union federation in Norway. At the first congress of the Norwegian Federation of Trade Unions in July 1917, Ellisif sent the following telegram from Kirkenes:

“Greetings to our first powerful union, which the entire country fears and which all intelligent people confident of victory follow. Thank you for all the hope you have given us. -Wessels” 

Ellisif remained active in the socialist movement for the rest of her life, publishing articles alone or with her husband. At 50 years old, she was praised by Arne Paasche Aasen who dedicated the following words to her: 

“Proud woman, high in the north, you who came to us in battle. We thank you with warm words. And look back in time a little. You came from the overflowing table of the upper class, Even we who bathe in sweat for saying insulting words, and fought for us who starved and suffered. You threw yourself into the fight for brighter ships, and your courage was increasing year after year. You stood firm as the rock of the sea, and never like the ceiling that you will let go. We cannot thank you with splendor and glory, But forward we spread our crown of honor, a crown, one of roses and tulips. No, look, those are the customs of the rich. Our crown is united by hatred, hunger and need, by gratitude of those who have no bread. Accept it, magnificent woman! A little power in you will find. To continue the fight for freedom and justice, for a brighter time for the human race. High above we raise our blood red flag, and sends you greetings on your fiftieth birthday.” (Revueltanº 4 1916. “To Ellisif Wesselen on his fiftieth birthday.” Arne Paasche Aasen) 

Ellisif responded and thanked her later in another Revuelta article (Revuelta#5 1916 (“A roof and a wish. Against the ‘Central Organization of Scandinavian Workers’!” by Ellisif Wessel) in which she said: 

“A sincere thank you, through ‘Revolt’, for all the kind public and private greetings on the occasion of my fiftieth birthday. Each one of them has pleased me. And what made me most happy was your greeting, Arne Paasche Aasen. You are 15 years old, I am 50; If you continue as you started, by the time you turn 50 you will have done more for the liberation of the working class than you thought. I or any of the older people have been able to do it. Ten young people see new and distant peaks. Only the youngest have a clear vision that clearly marks the path to follow.” 

In the 1920s and 1930s,  Ellisif had to reduce his activities due to health problems, although she diligently  continued to write poems and translations. Her  last collection of poems, “Det kalder”, was published in 1930. Tragically, her husband died two days before the German invasion of Norway. Elisif would go on to live through both the occupation of the Germans and the liberation of Finnmark by the Russians. Upon her death in 1949, she left a significant sum of money for, among other things, the Tromso Museum. She is buried in Kirkenes, where Organizations of the labor movement decorate her grave every May 1.

Nora Delvey 

M.S.