Larssen eventually drifted away from the mainstream of the Communist Party. In late 1926 and early 1927 he voiced his opinion in columns that the Communist Party should contribute to the imminent merger of the Labour Party and the Social Democratic Labour Party. A local party convention strongly rebuked this opinion. Larssen was thus replaced in January 1927 and left the Communist Party, and Solbakken soon followed suit. Fredrik Monsen left the party at the same time. Information differs as to who replaced Larssen. According to Evald Solbakken, and also to the reference bibliography "Norske aviser 1763–1969", the replacement was Olav Scheflo, who needed a stand-in, Ingvald B. Jacobsen, for the first period. According to the encyclopaedia "Arbeidernes Leksikon" and historian Einhart Lorenz, Trond Hegna was the editor in 1927, before he took over "Norges Kommunistblad" in the summer of 1927. Hegna's main job was to edit the periodical "Mot Dag", but in this period the people of "Mot Dag" had an informal influence on the Communist Party and several of their newspapers. Scheflo formally edited the newspaper from 1927 to 1928, with Eivind Petershagen as acting editor from late 1927. In 1928 Petershagen formally took over, only to have Jørgen Vogt become acting editor later that year. Vogt took over in 1929. As many newspapers belonging to the dwindling Communist Party, "Arbeideren" would cease to exist before the end of the 1920s. It was still published six times a week, but had to give up its printing press in 1929, switching to Samtrykk in Oslo. The last ever issue of "Arbeideren og Gudbrandsdalens Arbeiderblad" was published on 4 October 1929. A month after "Arbeideren" went defunct, the Communist Party gave its name to a new newspaper, which was set up as the new main newspaper of the Communist Party in 1930. This new paper was based in Oslo as the replacement of "Norges Kommunistblad", which had been liquidated as well. Olav Larssen and Evald Solbakken found a new outlet in "Hamar Arbeiderblad", which had been set up as the new Hamar organ of the Labour Party in 1925.