this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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History

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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 1917–1918 garcia-cock-shotty

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I'm gonna adopt the dumbest most pointless contrarian view. Check me out: You all only care about plagiarism talk with regards to AI, youtube videos and academic work because you're wrapped up in a bourgeois conception of property relations.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago

yeah i'll go ahead and add that to my worldview

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (3 children)

guy who pretends to not know anything about Japan so people don't accuse him of being a weeb

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting to think about how contingent history can be. If the Finnish Reds had won the civil war, then possibly there wouldn't have been a Siege of Leningrad. And it would have changed the calculus of the northern/Baltic theater of WW2. Maybe Finland would have been among those countries which joined the USSR as a Soviet republic.

I was in Tampere a while ago and visited the neighborhood of Pispala, where Reds held out for over a week during the White advance. Geographically, Pispala is a high point in the area on top of a hill that oversees a lake. There's a monument there now in memory of the Reds. When the situation looked bleak, some Reds were able to escape in the middle of the night by skiing across the frozen lake to safety.

On this Pispala Ridge the red guard in Tampere last stood with weapons in hand defending their cause in 1918

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

Not wanting to be tied to a missile and fired at Tel Aviv? Liberalism.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (3 children)

ok what's up with the weird race posting?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

if the site doesn't have an unfunny bit it can run into the ground every so often we go collectively insane

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I’m kinda freaking out over them again. I really really can’t handle thinking about how they’re probably gone forever. I almost want to scream.

I don’t think there’s any hope for me. I’ve been on a downward spiral for almost a year now.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

me when my coworkers are talking about what streaming services they pay for while i watch everything off of dodgy websites i found on the r/piracy megathread hosted in the global south somewhere

huey-wut

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (5 children)

European medieval movies: Everyone is wearing brown and covered in shit, everything is awful and miserable and ignorant, everything sucks

Chinese, Japanese, Korean medieval movies: people spend tons of time hanging out in clean, well appointed inns. Anyone who isn't poor is wearing nice clothes. There's rule of law and cops and stuff. There are civil police, doctors (who can fly because reasons), cities and towns are clean and organized, people routinely travel long distances if relative comfort.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

dennis we've always farmed filth. simple as

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (6 children)

New Megathread Nerds!!!

germany-cool

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No current struggle session discussion here on the new general megathread, i will ban you from the comm and remove your comment, have a good day/night :meow-coffee:

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

There used to be a sort of socialist movement and commune in a rather obscure place called Munsala in Ostrobothnia, about 80 or so kilometers north of Vaasa. The Munsala socialism, or Munsala radicalism, they called it. It was started by people from the region who returned after having emigrated to the US in the late 1800's. Many of them had found that US labour rights were absolutely fucked, and had began to work with various labour movements, and eventually discovered Marxism. A few dudes that returned home to Munsala in the early 1900's started spreading the good word of Karl Marx in the region, and it was very popular among the almost entirely agrarian proletariat. It was a also rather religious movement. The local preachers took to incorporating the teachings of Marx in their sermons. They emphasised pacifism, sobriety, education, and parliamentarianism.

That is, until the civil war broke out. The Munsala socialists mostly tried to stay out of it, but since the whites had decided to base themselves in Vaasa (80km away) and Pietarsaari/Jakobstad (30km away), they found themselves pretty much at the heart of enemy territory. They were often harassed by whites and cops, and used guerrilla style hidey holes in the local forests to hide. Many who didn't hide were captured and executed or fled to Sweden. During the second world war, many Munsala socialists refused to fight, because of the finnish state's alliance with Hitler and therefore its support for fascism. The able bodied men went back into hiding in their old forest hidey holes, while the rest of the village kept watch for cops and whites. In the 1930's, a Munsala socialist and teacher named Walter Blomqvist fled to the US. He eventually ended up in Cuba, where he supposedly hung out with Castro and Che and took part in the revolution (here is an interview with the guy, in swedish)

Machine translated summary

Munsala idealist Walter Blomqvist moved to Cuba in the early 1930s. He experienced many stages of Cuba's modern and bloody history and became friends with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Listen to him recount his fascinating memories.

It was something of the Viking blood in the Munsala people that made elementary school teacher Walter Blomqvist leave the safety of Ostrobothnia and head out into the world. Via Sweden, Norway and Denmark, he acquired a taste for the big world. But he became increasingly anxious. He liked Munsala, but wanted to develop himself and the Munsala ideas.

Walter Blomqvist travelled in 1929 with a small suitcase to study in Birmingham. There he applied for and received a scholarship to Columbia University in New York.

Blomqvist had only fourteen dollars in his pocket when he arrived in New York. The first time in New York was therefore very difficult. But Blomqvist made contact with the Finnish-Swedish emigrant community.

During his studies, Blomqvist met a Cuban girl, fell in love and got married. They couldn't stay in the US because Blomqvist only had a student visa, so they travelled down to Havana, Cuba.

As soon as Blomqvist arrived in Cuba, he fell in love with the country, the nature and the Cubans. There was a strange bright light over nature. But he was also upset by the huge gaps between rich and poor. For example, the plight of sugar cane workers.

The country was held in a strong dictatorship by Fudgenico Batista, after a coup in 1952. But with the coup came an uprising against the dictatorship. Being the Munsala idealist that Blomqvist was, he became interested in the situation there and in the youth trying to resist the dictatorship. Walter Blomqvist believed that Cuba was in need of a great revolution, which came in 1959.

Blomqvist had several personal contacts with Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. We hear anecdotes about Fidel and Che.

Walter met Che Guevara for the first time when he came down from the mountains. He was bearded and big, almost as tall as Fidel. But when Blomqvist and a Finnish journalist, Eva Aminoff, met Che as Minister of Industry in a luxury palace, it was strange to see the bearded, unshaven man among the luxury items.


The Munsala Socialism is said to have been eradicated in the 70's, after fur farming became a thing. It brought in vast amounts of money and resources to the thus far poor agrarian community, which "did away with any need for socialism".

This whole thing is of great personal meaning to me, because I grew up quite close to Munsala. I've driven through Munsala a fair few times. My grandma and grandpa both have roots in Munsala. Me and many in my family speak the same (or a similar) swedish dialect spoken in Munsala. So by all accounts, this should be common knowledge, or at least something I would have been taught, but no. I never ever once, not even a litte, heard of this before. Not a word about it in school or anything. Unbelievable. First time I heard of this was in maybe 2015, when a random woman at an anarchist café in Turku (southwest finland) overheard me saying something in swedish. She could tell I was from Ostrobothnia by the dialect, I guess. She asked if I'm from there, and I said that yeah, but I didn't really like it because of its still very prevalent white (both as in mayo and as in wrong side of the civil war) mindset and culture. She told me to not feel bad about it, because there is a vast and colourful history of labour movements and class struggle there, "for example the Munsala Socialists".

Finnish natopedia article: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munsalan_radikalismi

Here is one article and videos about it in swedish: https://svenska.yle.fi/a/7-883429

full documentary, also in swedish: https://areena.yle.fi/1-4261007

Doesn't seem to be available with subtitles either. It's unfortunately very hard to find any more information about this in English. Erased history, I suppose.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It's so funny that steamboat willie mickey mouse is quite literally a legally distinct ripoff of an earlier character design that Walt Disney did when under contract somewhere else. Something beautiful about constantly rewriting copyright law to extend protections of a character that was used to circumvent copyright law to begin with.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

>looking for a new hyperfixation
>ask the fandom if their niche media is homestuck or touhou
>they dont understand
>pull out illustrated diagram explaining what is homestuck and what is touhou
>they laugh and say "it's a good work maam"
>delve into the work
>its homestuck

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (6 children)

I actually fucking hate JPEGMAFIA. As if what he did wasn't bad enough, his response to the criticism makes this all so much worse. The gall for this piece of shit to call anyone mad at him a redditor. Don't worry guys it's fine for him to pose, collab with, sing the praises of Nazis, it's all non-political and he can't agree with their politics because they hate black people...?

Stupid prick made his entire brand political and is surprised when people are disappointed with him palling around the same fascistic losers he used to talk shit about in his songs. Fuck him and fuck Kanye. And fuck every veteran who doesn't feel deep deep shame over being a veteran, that was always a red flag with him, he never had enough shame over his time in the air force

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

Speaking of Finns it is amazing to follow my fellow Finns, the progressive lib edition, discover yet again that those with most electroral funding are those who end up getting most votes.

Gee, I wonder what could explain this?

This is rediscovered every time, then there is a 2 second long outrage. Then back to enjoying privileges for a few years again.

I openly stated today that I did not vote at all. Why would I vote for "a left option" that opted for Nato? I have to go visit the Pispala memorial soon, to remind myself that there used to be class conscious and anti-imperialist folks here too.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Snapped at a coworker cause she wouldn't stop making "all straight men dating trans girls are actually eggs living vicariously" jokes :(.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (3 children)

you ever just lay awake for hours past when you should be sleeping and think about how evil america is to its core?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

posting beautiful creatures daily until my sickened mind finally heals 19/?

一緒に日なたぼっこの 5頭のタヌキ🍂 #東山動植物園 #ホンドタヌキ Jan 25, 2024 · 5:59 AM UTC

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Everybody's sucking off their NEET friend

Everybody's pulling down her pants

Everybody's eating out her back-end

Everybody's gooning in a trance

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Company just got “acquired” by some rando private equity company.

We really are watching rich fucks play irl monopoly with our lives and we do live in a society

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Dog: What are these peasant treats? You expect MOI to eat offal? How dare you?

Also dog: nom nom soap

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

they should make a touhou game where you're yamagami and the final boss is shinzo abe

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Been thinking of lab-grown mammoth meat lately, as I do from time to time. I've wanted to taste one of those things ever since I was a damn toddler. I need connections and money and possibly to throw my morals into a blender.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago

Still upset with not being able to make friends with a bunch of white people. It's clearly all my fault 100% and not a two way street.

I got really tired of the two richest white kids acting like they were so interesting and cool, and they were the absolute opposite. Not asking about other people is a red flag.

The rest had the horrible liberal mind rot and had dweeby anime brain.

I remember reading this excerpt on Russian women who were talking about how in the USSR it didn't really matter if you were a doctor, you still had to be interesting.

I really need more friends but maybe I was just too desperate. All my friends are either musicians who I don't see anymore or are horribly toxic childhood friends who I dont want taking advantage of me.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Bury me in a wine press

wrapped in a shroud of grape vine.

I hope for God's sweet forgiveness—

tomorrow, after I drink up my wine.


This is attributed to Abū al-Hindī and it was found written on his grave

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Doing communism to own the chuds is my actual unironic motivation, and honestly i'm fine with that. Not all these questions of motivation need a 400 page doorstopper of an answer

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (4 children)

If a young person tells you "I can't wait to be old" look them in the eye and say "Being old is awful in ways you cannot imagine because they are so internal and personal that until you have experienced them you cannot fear them. Whatever it is you idealize about old age; Wearing gross sweatpants to the grocery store, metamucil, prostate exams, farting; you can do it now, while you're young, while life is still something to be enjoyed rather than endured"

(my tummy hurts and I am mad about it)

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I cancelled a dental appointment just in case I might have been exposed to COVID recently, and the assistant on the phone said to me that they don't care if people with COVID come in because "the entire world is sick right now anyway". agony-mescaline

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Whenver I see a Bernie ad now it's just like "Bro, I supported you when you were at the height of your power and we ate shit miserably and pathetically and we have nothing to show for it at all. Your path has been revealed as a completely unqualified failure, why would I support you now in your pathetic fallen state when I have seen you defeated at your greatest?"

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The constant agony of having to pretend I don’t want to commit acts of breathtaking violence on people for whom openly saying they want to commit acts of breathtaking violence on me is a fundamental part of their political ethos

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

@[email protected] what is the official Dirt_Owl party line on the owl bear. Owls are great, but what about owls that are also bears. Are they great as well?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (6 children)

Is it me or does Hexbear seem quieter than it used to be?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (9 children)

Genocide, runaway inflation, people drinking from lead cups, child labor returning, ah yea we ain’t learned shit from the last century baby big-cool

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

It's very funny to me that the Israeli guy in my class has no concept of personal space and will gladly take up a whole bench waiting for class while other people stand around him

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

In the picture with the two guys soy facing about the KFC vegetarian chicken, the chicken looks so fucking good. My ass would demolish two of those if I didn't stop myself.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

They really had no idea what they were creating here lmao

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

Putting a bar in the grocery store was the best idea ever. I love IPA dads knocking shit over while the wine mom ignores her crying child.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

The people in the apartment next to me must have just gotten a very wee kitten and i think they were dealing with their first time home alone when I came home from work kitty-birthday-sad high pitched 'MEEEEEEEE-ooh' of a tiny sad little kitten was crushing. My cat would beat them up, but damn it was heartbreaking not to be able to open thst door and comfort that kitty.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Actually listened to 30 secs of that Tom Macdonald song and for the “if every white is racist I guess every Muslims a terrorist” line we’re gonna have to kill this guy with hammers

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