On this day in 1918, the Finnish People's Delegation declared a socialist workers' republic (known "Red Finland"), at the start of the Finnish Civil War. The burgeoning working class movement was crushed by imperialist German forces.
Prior to 1917, Finland had been ruled as a Grand Duchy, an autonomous part of the Russian Empire. With the collapse of the Tsarist state in the wake of February Revolution and a long-term increase in nationalist sentiment, Finland declared independence on December 4th, 1917, formally recognized by the Russian Bolsheviks on December 31st.
Due to industrialized Finland having a strong revolutionary labor movement, conservative and proletarian forces were immediately thrown into conflict.
Red Guard paramilitary units representing the labor movement found themselves in a cycle of escalation with loyalist "White" Guards, culminating in a mass uprising of Reds in Helsinki on January 27th, 1918, marking the start of revolution. The following day, the Finnish People's Delegation was formed by members of the Social Democratic Party. Bourgeois forces fled to Vaasa, where they set up their own "White Senate".
The war saw the Whites, under the leadership of General Mannerheim, receive support from the German Empire, which was more well-established than the Reds' primary ally, the newly-created Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Following an imperialist intervention by Germany on the side of the Whites in March 1918, the war ended in defeat for the Reds in May. Over 12,000 people perished from starvation and hunger while imprisoned in White-operated POW camps, and reparations were not paid to former victims of the White Terror until 1973.
Lessons of the Finnish Revolution of 1917β1918
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CW: liberalism, genocide
spoiler
I have been informed that I can no longer try to help Palestinians bc for some reason that will make Republicans better at murdering trans people, because liberals don't care about the US's genocide in Yemen.
Liberalism is a disgusting way to view the world. "We have to support genocide in Palestine bc the Republicans will kill trans people" but the democrats aren't doing anything to oppose trans genocide, and they're creating a situation where, despite all factors being stacked in their favor, there's a very good chance the gop will win. Like, if putting a party in power that is not the GOP is your strategy, okay, right, but the democrats strategy seems to be doing everything they can to put the gop in power, so?
It's just base cowardice. Or ignorance? Or something? "The democrats will save us" is a magical protective charm, because the truth; no outside force is going to save us and the democrats are ideologically identical to the gop, is too frightening, or leaves you feeling too powerless, or something? Idfk. "If we feed these people in to the great maw now, maybe the democrats who don't care about us will save us from being fed in to the great maw later?"
Like they'll sneer in your face that revolutionary politics are impossible because America has tanks or some bullshit, but then there's no, like, shouldn't they ask "Wait America has tanks and bullshit, the Dems control the government, why aren't they using the tanks to crush this GOP insurrection?" The system cannot fail it can only be failed?
Like the absolute plainest thing here is that the Dems do not have any principles and if they thought they could secure the vote of the entirely fictive "moderate white voter" by slowly lowering your entire family in to the sausage grinder they would do that while scolding you for not donating to them while they did it. Like the dems are not fighting for you. They are not trying to protect you. They are not making sacrifices for you. They literally censured one of their members for asking them to stop genociding her family. They'll do that to you, too. They'll do what they did to Tlaib to you, too, when they start killing your family and you ask them to stop. They'll scold you.
Like you're pinning your hopes for salvation on the genocide guy, the american carceral system guy, the student debt guy, the nuclear war with china guy, the "I worked for the credit card companies my whole life" guy, the literally an old southern democrat anti-segregation racist who was only tapped to make Obama palatable to the other racists and has literally no other qualifications guy". This is the guy you think is going to save you?
I don' t know what to say except throw my hands up in the air and scream liberalism because none of this makes any sense at all, it's just complete gibberish, madness, incoherency.
Binds, but does not protect, protects, but does not bind. The law prevents the democrat (small d) from taking any action to defend themself, but the law does not provide them with any protection. They are hapless subjects blown too and fro by the winds of fate, proclaiming hteir submission to false gods in search of salvation.