The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP sv, Finlands kommunistiska parti, FKP) or New Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Uusi Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, USKP sv, Finlands nya kommunistiska parti, FNKP) is a political party in Finland. It was founded in the mid-1980s as Communist Party of Finland (Unity) ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue (yhtenäisyys), SKPy, sv, Finlands kommunistiska parti (enhet) FKP(e)) by the former opposition of the old
Communist Party of Finland
The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.
The SKP was banned ...
(1918–1992). SKP has never been represented in the
Finnish parliament
The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The ...
, but the party has had local councillors in some municipalities, including the city councils of major cities such as
Helsinki
Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...
and
Tampere
Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
. SKP claims 2,500 members.
The party has been officially registered since 1997. In the 1980s, when the opposition and the organizations it controlled were expelled from the SKP led by
Arvo Aalto, the SKPy, however, chose not to register since they considered themselves the real SKP and claimed Aalto had illegally stolen the party. The courts later ruled all the expulsions illegal.
History
The opposition inside SKP
The internal conflict of Finnish communists began in the mid-1960s, when the party led by the new chairman
Aarne Saarinen, began to modernize the party line / outlook. A minority of the party cadre didn't accept this and they accused the SKP leadership of being
revisionist. SKP didn't break up in the 1960s and the party was formally united until the mid-1980s. After the 20th party congress in 1984 things, however, changed as
Arvo Aalto was elected chairman, after which the opposition did not participate in (or was left out of) the SKP central committee. The opposition, which was also known as “
taistoists”, called supporters of Aalto “axe liners”.
The founding of SKPy
The central committee of the SKP expelled eight opposition district organizations from the party 13 October 1985. Also, 494 other basic organizations and 17 city or regional organizations were expelled 13 June 1986, which the expelled then dubbed “Black Friday”. The opposition considered the actions to be against the law. They took the conflict to courts and because of minor technicalities Helsingin Hovioikeus court overruled SKP's decision 11 June 1987. SKP then re-expelled these same organizations in its 21st party congress (12–14 June 1987). However, a week before this happened, the newly founded SKP (Unity) held its own “21st” party congress. The ambiguities in the expelling process and the opposition's firm belief in its own cause gave it the justification it needed and they considered SKPy to be the real SKP. They claimed Aalto had illegally seized the party with “paper members”. SKPy was never taken to the official party register of Finland as the party considered that to have been voluntary resignation and admission of SKPy not being the real SKP.
April 26, 1986 a meeting of "the representatives of SKP organizations" was held in
Tampere
Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...
and those present elected a new central committee. The leader of the new central committee was
Taisto Sinisalo, former vice chairman of the SKP and the most well-known figure of the opposition, who already had led ''Committee of SKP Organizations'' founded in November 1985. In the SKPy's 21st party congress Sinisalo was re-elected.
Yrjö Hakanen and
Marja-Liisa Löyttyjärvi became the vice chairmen while the former SKP chairman
Jouko Kajanoja
Jouko Kajanoja (born 1942) is a Finnish economist and politician who served as minister of labour between 1981 and 1982. He was a member of the Communist Party which he headed from 1982 to 1984.
Biography
Kajanoja was born in 1942. He joined the ...
was elected party secretary. In his congress speech, Sinisalo told that the suffix “unity” meant “strong intention to gather all the forces of the SKP”. The congress, however, also was heading to future and building of a new party, or “rebuilding” as they thought it. Before the name SKPy was adopted the party was known in media as the ''unity'' or ''Tiedonantaja group''.
SKP and the Soviet Union
SKPy was very committed to the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and the political line of its
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...
(CPSU), which was going through great changes during
Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...
's time. SKPy supported
perestroika but criticized those who claimed to have been "Gorbachevist" even before Gorbachev's time. SKPy claimed SKP to be anti-SU and tried to give the Finnish people as positive a picture as possible of that country. When SKP split the monetary support from Soviet Union was halted and, for example, the very profitable publishing deals of the SKP had gone to SKPy. Gorbachev's CPSU, however, had relations with both parties.
KTP splits from SKPy
In the late 1970s the opposition of SKP began to split as those supporting a more traditional version of
Marxism-Leninism began to criticize opposition leaders. When it was decided that SKPy would not be registered as an official party, some communists protested and demanded registration. They thought SKPy was clinging to the unity slogan in a situation in which it no longer seemed realistic. In the 1987 party congress, these people were warned by the SKPy leadership but they chose to ignore the advice and oriented themselves toward founding a new party.
For Peace and Socialism - Communist Workers Party (''Kommunistinen Työväenpuolue – Rauhan ja Sosialismin puolesta'', KTP) was founded early in the year 1988. Founders of KTP felt to be securing the existence of a Marxist-Leninist party in Finland while criticizing SKPy for being revisionist and supporting
Mikhail Gorbachev. The most famous figure in the new party was probably
Markus Kainulainen
Markus Kainulainen (9 August 1922, Helsinki – 30 August 2017) was a Finnish communist politician. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland (SKP) and served as a Member of the Parliament of Finland from 1975 to ...
, a longtime SKP district secretary of
Uusimaa
Uusimaa (; sv, Nyland, ; both lit. 'new land') is a region of Finland. It borders the regions of Southwest Finland, Tavastia Proper (Kanta-Häme), Päijänne Tavastia (Päijät-Häme), and Kymenlaakso. Finland's capital and largest city, ...
and a former MP.
The founding of Left Alliance
Esko-Juhani Tennilä, a member of the
Parliament of Finland
The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the unicameral and supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that power is vested in the Parliament. The ...
, was elected new chairman of SKPy 22 October 1989 when Kajanoja decided to resign while strongly criticizing his comrades. Tennilä has later told he took the job to secure that the founding of a new united left party would not be sabotaged by his own party comrades many of which were quite critical of it. The
Left Alliance (''Vasemmistoliitto'') was founded in spring 1990 and members of SKPy and its electoral front Deva also joined even though prejudices were very high on both sides at this point.
Dispute over double membership
Members of the
Left Alliance (LA) disliked that many of their members were also members of the SKPy. It was thus decided that SKPy members couldn't participate in the LA's electoral lists, even though they could be members. Because of this, Tennilä also had to quit his job as party chairman when joining LA group in parliament.
Yrjö Hakanen was chosen Tennilä's successor. The dispute over double membership, as it was called, led to many SKPy members leaving LA and relations between the two parties got even colder. On the other hand, many former SKPy members were actively participating in LA.
The “new” SKP
In its 1993 party congress (August 28–29) SKPy oriented towards founding a new officially registered communist party and drafting of a new party program. A new party logo was also introduced to mark renewal. It was suggested that a congress to continue SKP's work should be held and that happened next year (November 26–27). In the congress the suffix “unity” was dropped from the name as SKPy now considered to consist of all those comrades who wanted to have an independent communist party. An athletic club was made the basis of new organization and renamed SKP. The decision split the party as some supporters would have preferred SKP to have a lesser role as “Marxist forum” of some kind. Leadership of Left Alliance was also not pleased with those plans. SKP would have wanted to stay inside LA but that wasn't possible and the parties split in the spring of 1994. SKP wasn't however “re-registered” until 1997. There was some confusion, as the new SKP didn't accept responsibility for debts of the old one, which had gone bankrupt.
Organization
SKP has a nationwide organization consisting of 14 district organizations. The
central committee has 41 members and the
politbyro 10. The organ of SKP is ''
Tiedonantaja'', which was founded in the 1960s. ''Tiedonantaja'' was also the organ of Deva during 1986–1990. The editor-in-chief is
Marko Korvela since 2012. SKP also has some local papers.
As the SKPy considered itself to be the real SKP it also had the same organizational structure. It was based on
Leninist
Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...
principle of
democratic centralism and the party rules of 1958 (modified in 1978).
Deva – SKPy's electoral front
While SKPy was never officially registered, its supporters founded an electoral front
Democratic Alternative (', Deva). Those MPs of
Finnish People's Democratic League
Finnish People's Democratic League ( fi, Suomen Kansan Demokraattinen Liitto, SKDL; sv, Demokratiska Förbundet för Finlands Folk, DFFF) was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic P ...
(', SKDL, a front organization dominated by SKP) who were against expulsions were expelled from SKDL and they found the parliament group of Deva. Deva was SKPy's SKDL and it was supposed to attract some democratic allies. The small
Socialist Workers Party (', STP) didn't join Deva but it had members on the DEVA list. Young supporters of SKPy and Deva founded
Revolutionary Youth League (', VKN) which was Deva's youth organization. SKDL's
Socialist Student League (', SOL) also joined. Deva was led by actress
Kristiina Halkola.
In
1987 parliamentary elections Deva got 4.3% of votes and four MPs. In
1988 presidential elections Deva candidate
Jouko Kajanoja
Jouko Kajanoja (born 1942) is a Finnish economist and politician who served as minister of labour between 1981 and 1982. He was a member of the Communist Party which he headed from 1982 to 1984.
Biography
Kajanoja was born in 1942. He joined the ...
got under 2 per cent of the votes. Not even all members of SKPy supported Kajanoja who was the party chairman. Deva was closed down in 1990 after
Left Alliance was founded and most of its members joined the new party.
Party congresses
Elections
Electoral results
Parliament
European Parliament
The SKP participates in
parliamentary
A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
,
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
and
municipal
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
elections. The party has not put up candidates in recent
presidential elections
A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President.
Elections by country
Albania
The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public.
Chile
The pr ...
. No national representatives has been elected from the SKP lists but the party has a few local councillors. The SKP also participates in trade union and cooperative elections.
The SKP first took part in parliamentary elections in 1999. The party had electoral alliances with small parties of ''Muutos 99'' coalition. It was the first time the Finnish electorate had an opportunity to vote for a list named Communist Party of Finland. In 2003 the vote-puller for the party was rock musician
Kari Peitsamo
Kari Juhani Valdemar Peitsamo (born 26 August 1957) is a Finnish musician whose style has changed over the years from acoustic avant-garde pop to electric rock. His best-known song is probably "Kauppaopiston naiset" (Business College Women) from ...
(1 803 votes) and in 2007 rap artist
Seppo "Steen1" Lampela (1 842).
In the local elections the SKP has had elected councillors in about ten different municipalities. The party has got its strongest support in
Nokia
Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational telecommunications, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, established in 1865. Nokia's main headquarters are in Espoo, Finland, i ...
, where there are three SKP councillors. Communists also briefly had three councillors in the
Jyväskylä
Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...
city council until early 2008.
The SKP has made electoral coalitions with other small parties, especially the Communist Workers Party (KTP). Communist League members were on SKP lists before they in 2006 founded the
Workers Party of Finland (STP). The SKP condemned the STP for scattering communist forces. The parties have made some limited electoral cooperation since. The Left Alliance has never been interested in coalitions with the communists,
Vasemmistoliitto torjui vaaliliitot SKP:n kanssa
(''Tiedonantaja'' 11.8.2006) although the parties have had coalitions in few municipalities.
The former SKP chairman Yrjö Hakanen is an elected member of HOK-Elanto
The S Group ( fi, S-ryhmä, sv, S-gruppen) is a Finnish retailing cooperative organisation with its head office in Helsinki. Founded in 1904, it consists of 20 regional cooperatives operating all around Finland in addition to SOK, ''Suomen Osuu ...
cooperative council since 1999. The SKP represented joint list with the KTP.
See also
* Communist Youth League (Finland)
* List of Communist Party (Finland) breakaway parties
References
External links
*
*
Tiedonantaja
'
*
The Programme of the Communist Party of Finland
(2007) at Finnish Social Science Data Archive
{{Party of the European Left
1984 establishments in Finland
Communist parties in Finland
Marxist parties
Party of the European Left member parties
Political parties established in 1984
Political schisms
Registered political parties in Finland
International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties