The Finnish-Socialist Workers' Party ( Finnish: , SSTP) was a Finnish

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

party that operated from 1934 to 1944 and was led by engineer Ensio Uoti.Ekberg 1991, s. 95–99.

The party program

In its program, the party stated that its core goal was to rebuild Finland as a "truly free nation state in the Finnish spirit". The central idea of Finnish socialism was that the state should take a strong role in banking and lending, but otherwise it should not interfere more in the economy.Puolueohjelma 1935
(Pohtiva – poliittisten ohjelmien tietovaranto) The party took a strict racial policy position, demanding the removal of all non-Finns from responsible positions. According to the party, civil rights should be reserved only for Finns. The SSTP in particular opposed Jews, but also

Finland Swedes Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. Hostility towards Swedish-speakers distinguished SSTP from the bilingual

Finnish People's Organisation The Finnish People's Organisation (Finnish: , SKJ) (Swedish: , FFO) was a bilingual Nazi party founded by Jaeger Captain Arvi Kalsta. Supporters of the movement were also called Kalstaites after the leader. The inaugural meeting of the organizatio ...

. In addition, the SSTP demanded, among other things, censorship of publications that violate the values of the Finnish people and the centralization of administration to the head of state. The program was inspired by the program of the

National Socialist German Workers' Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

. Uoti had connections with the Germans and made trips to Germany to meet the Nazi leadership. To the Germans, he presented himself as the most loyal Finnish National Socialist. The SSTP logo had a blue swastika and the text SS.TP.

Elections

The SSTP participated in the 1936 parliamentary elections in the Uusimaa constituency with the slogan "better pay for work". Cars equipped with party election advertisements toured Helsinki, attracting attention thanks to the large swastika banners.

Religion

Uoti supported

Finnish neopaganism Modern Finnish paganism, also known as Finnish neopaganism or the Finnish native faith (: "Finnish Belief / Belief of Finland"), is the contemporary revival of Finnish paganism, the pre-Christian polytheistic ethnic religion of the Finns. A pre ...

and worship of

Ukko (), or ( Finnish for 'male grandparent', 'grandfather', 'old man'), parallel to Uku in Estonian mythology, is the god of the sky, weather, harvest, and thunder across Finnic paganism. , the Finnish word for thunder, is the diminutive ...

which caused disagreement with the Christian fascist

Patriotic People's Movement Patriotic People's Movement (, IKL, ) was a Finnish nationalist and anti-communist political party. IKL was the successor of the previously banned Lapua Movement. It existed from 1932 to 1944 and had an ideology similar to its predecessor, exce ...

. Uoti's father was a priest and he had had a Christian upbringing, but supported Christianity only insofar it could be harnessed to attack the Jews. Uoti nevertheless viewed Jesus as an "aryan", not a Jew. Regardless of Uoti's less than enthusiastic position on Christianity, SSTP still had active members of the Lutheran congregation as members.

Banning

The SSTP was abolished after the Continuation War under Article 21 of the

Moscow Armistice The Moscow Armistice was signed between Finland on one side and the Soviet Union and United Kingdom on the other side on 19 September 1944, ending the Continuation War. The Armistice restored the Moscow Peace Treaty of 1940, with a number of modi ...

banning all fascist parties (which entered into force on 23 September 1944) on 12 October 1944.

Sources

References

External links

The party program
(in Finnish) {{Fascism Defunct political parties in Finland Nationalist parties in Finland Nazi parties Political parties established in 1934 Nazism in Finland Banned far-right parties Anti-communist organisations in Finland