Finland - Lightning demonstration on the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the class war 27th of January 2018
Our banner and flags in line as the speech was starting and the distribution of the declaration was taking place in the vicinity
We made the declaration ”The heritage of the class war lives in our
struggle” to be distributed on the hundreth anniversary weekend of the
beginning of the workers’ revolution and class war of Finland. On
Saturday we held a short unannounced rally, a lightning demonstration.
Upon our arrival, we shouted together ”we won’t forgive, we won’t forget
– a hundred years too much, don’t await” and ”proletarian solidarity,
continuing struggle, revolution”. From the midst of a line formed by our
banner and flags, communicating struggle unity, one comrade held a
speech while other comrades handed out the declaration to people.
Shunned lessons of the class war and of the relation of its outcome
to this day were presented in the speech and the declaration, with
encouragement to organize into antifascist and revolutionary class
struggle. Fittingly, the propaganda plates of the presidential
candidates standing on a frame behind us had been painted with eight
letters forming a call to ”struggle”. After the speech and the
distribution of the declaration, we repeated our shouts and ended the
demonstration. We thank for the attention, comments and questions from
those who happened to be present.
The number one option also after the elections: STRUGGLE
We carried out the lightning demonstration with the Communist Youth
of Tampere and the Red Flag Collective, the undersigned of our
declaration. We received support and encouragement also from
antifascists not belonging to the undersigned organizations. We will
develop our cooperation and mass work also in the future. Boosted by the
jubilee of the class war, we will perseverely strive to expand our
working capability to all neighbourhoods inhabitated by the working
class, but for that we need more local contact persons. If you’re
interested in joining us or working with us in for example street
propaganda and sports, contact us via email or come for a talk if you
for example happen to be at the scene of our next lightning
demonstration!
The heritage of the class war lives in our struggle
Hundred years have passed since the beginning of the workers’
revolution and class war of Finland. We want to remind of this
anniversary and invite reflection about its meaning to this day.
Hundred years ago Finland was divided into two warring camps, the
reds and the whites. The reds were for the cause of the working class,
and the whites for that of the bourgeoisie. Who were the workers and who
were the bourgeoisie?
The bourgeoisie owned everything that could be on earth, especially
the state power, that relied on armed white guards i.e. the so-called
civil guards. Therefore the ruling class of Finland was already then the
bourgeoisie Finland. In addition to its own sons, it organized urban
petty-bourgeoisie and rural rich and middle landowners with their hired
men into the white guards and eventually the main force of the
counterrevolution, the white army.
Workers on the other hand suffered at work or unemployed, but not in
pious humility. Already since the 19th century they had carried out
economical and political struggle, but within the boundaries set up by
the bourgeoisie. Only the formation of the Red Guard allowed the working
class to take its destiny into its own hands. In addition to workers,
also poor peasantry and especially crofters joined the red guards.
Peasantry no longer exists in Finland, but the descendants of the reds
are mainly contained in the quantitatively grown working class. Let’s be
proud of these roots and let’s take action to bring their work to its
completion!
But what is the contradiction between the classes today? Still the
same old – there’s a handful of rich bourgeoisie and an immense poor
mass who the bourgeois oppress. Still the working class suffers at work
and as unemployed, and still the bourgeoisie hoards everything to
themselves. But the deplorable difference is that today the bourgeois
have all the power without challengers. The trade union movement take
action mainly out of pressure from its membership, and when it does take
action it does so for partial issues, but not for power. All the
parties are committed to the rules of the bourgeoisie and have given it a
complete monopoly on violence.
The misery around us is the result of the reds’ defeat in 1918, on
the basis of which the joyous white butchers established their currently
existing bourgeois state. Only a new class war may transform our defeat
into victory. Therefore we won’t forget and we won’t forgive, even if
it had been a thousand years since the class war. But the poor us can’t
wait even a hundred years, the bloodlust of the bourgeoisie is so
enormous. In addition to exploitation and oppression, we’re especially
strangled by fascism and generally by the destruction of nature, the
fixing of which shall become a burden of the construction of a new
society.
Today the bourgeois stamp down the unemployed as much as they make.
That stamps down our whole class and affects also those with jobs. Mass
unemployment produces surplus of labour power, which lowers its price.
Also for that reason it’s best for those with jobs to rise up against
unemployment and the stamping down of the unemployed. In the worst
position are the long-term unemployed, which all kinds of ”active
models” threaten to drop from our class and drive into drug trade and
other activities criminal towards the working class. We also can’t
tolerate homelessness and the destruction of the health of the most
poor, when the society has in excess of what is needed for basic needs.
Let’s help each other to organize to serve the people and to carry out
revolution!
There are also those who come into our midst with nefarious
intentions. Fascists, who blame immigration for unemployment, and
organize for terror against the struggle unity of our class. Fascism
isn’t born out of nothing, but grows from the seeds sown by that
century-old bourgeois state on its terrain. Also, it’s not only growing
from the grassroots, but is a wholesome and unevenly evolving trend
penetrating this whole capitalist society. At state level it’s visible
in the restoration of armed or easily armed organizations complementing
the army and the police. New white guards are being organized privately
and publicly to serve the bourgeoisie in scab work and white terror.
Therefore the antifascist struggle is always class struggle, as which it
must also be grasped. To win this struggle the working class needs
unity against racism and sexism as well as international solidarity.
With the historical anniversary weekend of the beginning of the class
war, coincides the presidential elections, in which there are all kinds
of clowns on the offer. They’re all enemies of the working class, and
none of them should be voted. Not caring about the elections more than
that, let’s bring the spirit of the class war into all struggles and
demonstrations on all fronts, starting from opposing the ”active model”,
the International Working Women’s Day, and the May 1st!
Among the best heritage of the reds is to remember that without power
we have nothing, but everything can be attained by daring to struggle.
Working class unity and the struggle for power is the solution. When the
working class is in power, there’s no unemployment or fascism. We’re
united in the understanding that the working class must be at the centre
of the struggle against all oppression, and that the antifascist
struggle is the work of the masses that prepares the revolution and a
better tomorrow without exploitation, oppression and misery. Join us!
Long live the revolution!
Tampere Antifascist Workgroup Communist Youth of Tampere Red Flag Collective
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