May Day Reports from Finland
We hereby share an unofficial translation of two May Day reports published by Punalippu, on the 2nd and 4th of May, in Tampere and Helsinki respectively.
Tampere’s May Day Was Red Again!
Activists from the Red Action and Anti-Imperialist Collective (AIK) took part in the traditional May Day march of trade unions in Tampere. During the day, the revolutionaries joined both trade union activists and anti-fascists, having several good discussions and selling dozens of magazines and distributing leaflets.
AIK marched under the slogan “Long live the First Congress of the International Anti-Imperialist League!”, celebrating the International Congress of the International Anti-Imperialist League (AIL).
The Red Action marched under the slogan “Down with the butcher State! Forward in building a revolutionary movement!”.
Passersby also joined in shouting the contingent’s slogans, “The bourgeoisie will pay for its crisis!” and “Give us a raise!” In addition, other chants were heard, such as “International solidarity, continuous struggle, revolution!”, “Down with imperialist wars! Long live People’s Wars!” and “Dare to struggle, dare to win!”
In addition to the struggling slogans, anti-imperialists and revolutionaries raised the mood by singing the Internationale, the March of the Red Guards, and the LCP’s Conquistar a Terra anthem, defending the internationalist May Day.
Once again, the police, armed with riot gear, horses, pepper spray and armored vehicles, protected a fascist gathering at Jugendtor, amidst a crowd celebrating May Day in the center of Tampere. This gathering, which lasted for hours, saw Nazi salutes, the blue and black uniforms of the Lapua Movement [Translator’s note: refers to the fascist organization of the decades of 20s and 30s in Finland], the open dissemination of “race doctrine”, “population exchange” and other anti-worker pseudo-theories. The fascists assaulted women and cowardly fled to police shelters as anti-fascists and passers-by reacted to their actions. Yle [Translator’s note: Finnish Broadcasting Company, Finland’s national public broadcasting company], among others, has published a video showing how the fascists attack a woman who resisted them in a group.
The only thing that allowed the fascists to gather on the streets of Red Tampere was the Finnish police. For this reason, the cries of “Down with the Finnish police, down with all the fascists!” resounded loudly in the center of Tampere as various anti-fascist forces came together and showed their rage, especially against the police who protected the fascists.
The fact that the reactionary government repeatedly protects the fascist gathering – which it could ban on the basis of the Paris Peace Treaty – on May Day in the main square of Tampere is a provocation. It is an attempt to divert attention from the demands of the working class to the horror of “dangerous extremist movements” in defense of bourgeois democracy, thus in fact promoting the reactionary nature of the State, and on the other hand to give visibility to the open enemies of the people, anti-communists and admirers of the fascist terror and to intimidate the fighting masses with violence. However, through the struggle, this has turned into the defeat of the State, because its police have been exposed as protectors of the fascists.
Defending May Day requires a fight from the labor movement. It cannot accept reducing May Day to election speeches or balloons, nor to a mere reactive fight against fascist provocation. It must clearly raise its own demands and fight for them, especially in a situation where attacks on the rights of the working class are increasing in the form of cuts, curtailment of rights (such as the right to political strike), and trampling on wages.
May Day in Helsinki 2026
We participated in the Helsinki May Day march as part of the anti-imperialist “For a Red Finland” bloc convened by the SKP [Translators note: Communist Party of Finland], in which KTP [Translators note: The Communist Workers’ Party] and MTL [Translators note: Marxist Workers’ League] also marched. There were a few dozen participants in our bloc. For example, we shouted the bloc’s main slogan, “For a Red Finland!”, and other slogans, such as “Down with the government!” and “Down with Israel!”. We also shouted the May Day slogans of the Red Action for building a revolutionary movement, for international solidarity, against imperialist wars, for People’s Wars, and in honor of the AIL’s First Congress.
During the May Day march, we also distributed pamphlets about our May Day declaration and the 3rd edition of the Red Flag magazine. Both groups were received with interest, and we even had a few discussions about, for example, militarization and police violence against Kenyan women, which is reported in the magazine and on the website.
Finally, we moved to the Opera Amphitheatre to spend time together with other participants of the bloc, where we had a discussion in a comradely spirit on various issues regarding, among others, anti-imperialism and the situation in Iran, and among the participants, a desire was expressed to continue joint activities.
