Summary:

Niko Kannisto, Russia and Bolshevism as the ”Other” in the Social Democratic Party of Finland in the early 1920s

Finland’s independence in 1917 and its aftermath changed the position of the country. More intense comparison was needed between Finnishness and non-Finnishness to define the status and the quality of Finnish nation and state. Another reason for this new approach was the bitter Civil War in 1918 which divided the whole nation. The bourgeois white troops defeated the labour movement, led by the Reds. In order to reach integration, the losing side politics had to be separated from the concept of Finnishness. Finland as a Finnish nation-state had to be refounded for it to become an undisputed, authentic and integrated entity. The answer to both problems was to create the ”Other”, the non-Finnish element that had brought on Civil War – and all other blights. The negative “Other” turned out to be the Russia and Bolshevism. The Whites proclaimed this view openly.

The majority of the losing side, the Finnish social democrats, didn’t accept this view outright. However, they claimed that Red politics were a failure and had been influenced by Russian Bolsheviks. The Social Democratic Party of Finland, SDP, drew ideology and ideas from the West, especially from German and Austrian social democratic authors. Finnish society was part of the Western constitutional state system and completely different from Russian tsarist despotism, followed by Bolshevik despotism. Bolshevism was a blasphemy of socialism for the SDP. Bolsheviks had founded a dictatorship and the persecution of the opposition in Russia was fanatical. Finnish communists defended the Bolshevik regime. SDP seemed to feel that the Bolshevik coup d’état in Finland would signify the end of Finnish social democracy.

SDP saw that Russia as a society was different from Finland. Besides the Bolshevism, the difference for them was apparent also in geography, race, history and society. Finns living in the same state as Russians seemed impossible even though Finland had been part of Russia before 1917. However, establishing peaceful and friendly relations between new neighbours was sought. This was the main controversy between SDP and the bourgeois state. SDP lacked the racism that the bourgeois side was harbouring and opposed heavily the plans for military expeditions to the Eastern Karelia during the years following the independence.

SDP was, however, a Finnish movement with national ends. Their own party program was essential as was defending Finland’s independence – even though the spirit of the independent state was bourgeois and White in the first place. In Bolsheviks’ and also the minority of the former Reds’ view, Finnish communist nation-state was inferior to international socialism.