Finland – Punalippu: Communists and Anti-imperialists Must Choose Their Side
We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by Punalippu on the 6th of June.
Liisa Taskinen, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland, gave a speech at the “Anti-Fascist Forum” in Moscow on May 24th. The speech has been published on the Party’s website under the title “the killing of people cannot solve any problem.”
We would like to comment on this speech in order to serve the development of unity between anti-imperialists and communists in our country. We would like to greet that the Communist Party of Finland has had the enthusiasm and initiative to develop anti-imperialist work together with other forces, for example on May Day and against aggression against Latin America, which is very important in the current situation. However, there can be no unity without struggle.
For us, anti-imperialism is not just a slogan, but it means a struggle against all imperialists, including Finnish imperialism, Russian imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism. This means that anti-imperialists must also condemn, for example, the war of aggression waged by Russian imperialism against Ukraine in the name of “anti-fascism”.
The “International Anti-Fascist Forum” convened this year with the theme of “anti-terrorism,” which is a well-known slogan directed against the struggle of the masses of the people by the imperialists. In addition, the forum heard a greeting from the head of Russian imperialism, Vladimir Putin. This alone would be enough to clarify what the forum is about.
We have previously remarked the “anti-fascism” of Russian imperialism here, exposing its exploitation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War in defense of socialism to justify imperialist aggression:
Why is Medvedev talking about genocide committed by Finnish fascists?
Marx and Engels set out the principles of communism in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. It states:
“Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other- bourgeoisie and Proletariat”
Communists must take a clear class stance on behalf of the proletariat, because the communist Party is the Party of the proletariat, as is also stated in the Manifesto of the Communist Party.
It also says that “The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.
The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement”.
Although the imperialists and their lackeys have at their disposal enormous resources and weapons each more terrifying than the last, even nuclear weapons, they are a minority. In war, people decide, not weapons; if it were otherwise, the working class could have never been able to rise to power in Russia, for example. Why did the United States lose in Vietnam, why is it stuck in its war in Iran today? Why haven’t the United States and its lackey Israel managed to destroy the Palestinian national resistance and why instead has an anti-imperialist movement risen in all countries? If weapons were decisive, it would be opposite. Imperialism is dying capitalism, it is a rotten and outdated system from which socialism will rise. Relying on their own strength, the working class and the oppressed nations will be victorious.
Taskinen says in her speech:
” The alliance with Nazi Germany and the joint attack across the Finnish border into the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 led to a disaster for our country. After lost wars and territorial cessions, it was time to change the line.
The then President Paasikivi stated that Finland must be on good terms with the Soviet Union and all its neighboring countries. Finland must provide guarantees that our country will not be used under any circumstances to attack the Soviet Union. President Urho Kekkonen continued along the same line. He was our long-time president, respected by our people, the Soviet Union and the West. During his time, relations between our countries became economically and culturally significant. After his experiences, President Kekkonen was a man of peace: “Finland is neutral and militarily non-aligned, but in matters of war and peace, we are on the side of peace against war.”
Shining in absence from Taskinen’s speech are the sacrifices given by the Soviet people and also by the Communist Party of Finland itself in the fight against fascism. Instead, the Finnish bourgeoisie, even Kekkonen, who executed the Reds in Vyborg in his youth and who thus also directly has the blood of the workers on his hands, are portrayed as heroes. Taskinen completely ignores the fact that the change in line of Finnish imperialism occurred because of a lost war, it occurred because it was forced into it militarily, because the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) under the leadership of Comrade Stalin, the Soviet people and communists and anti-fascists throughout the world did not surrender to fascism but took up arms to destroy that cruel enemy, which truly turned out to be a paper tiger.
Taskinen positions herself directly against the workers and oppressed peoples of the world when she says:
“ Terrorism – whether the work of small groups or the actions of the world’s most powerful military powers – does not lead to good result, but creates new and more difficult problems. Killing people cannot solve any problem.”
Taskinen therefore not only condemns “the world’s most powerful military powers” as terrorists, but also “small groups”, i.e. apparently national liberation and resistance movements, as well as communists who lead armed struggle. In a situation where the imperialists seek to brand any kind of struggle against them, even one that takes place within the limits of bourgeois freedom of speech and assembly, as terrorism or support for it, we must strongly oppose this and condemn the imperialists as real terrorists.
” That is why the Communist Party of Finland supports a common, collective security system that takes into account the interests and needs of all – not a system based on military power and armaments. As long as even one country is unsafe, no country is safe.”
It must be asked how the Communist Party of Finland thought to create such a “common, collective security system” when the bourgeoisie is increasingly showing its complete disregard for international law and arming itself to the teeth. In our opinion, communists are fighting for communism, not for “common, collective security systems.”
We must oppose imperialist war and violence, but not war and violence in general. Communists are of course for peace and hope for a world where people do not need to be killed. At the same time, Marxists, since their founders, have understood that this is not possible without communism, a classless society, the transition to which cannot occur without violent revolution.
Already Marx and Engels set clearly in Communist Party Manifesto:
“In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.” (cursive is ours)
The class struggle is violent, it is a “more or less veiled civil war”. In war, one must destroy the enemy and protect one’s own forces, and the latter is mainly achieved by destroying the enemy. The outcome of this war depends on its leadership, the communist Party. Will that Party order the troops to march like lambs to the slaughter, or will it see the reactionary and bloody nature of the bourgeois State and the entire imperialist system and will it do everything to overthrow the bourgeoisie, become the ruling class and establish its own State, the dictatorship of the proletariat, with the help of which it will create a new society without exploiters and exploited; a prolonged epoch of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which Lenin described as a “persistent struggle—bloody and bloodless, violent and peaceful, military and economic, educational and administrative—against the forces and traditions of the old society.”, leading mankind through socialism to communism.
Just as Marx and Engels criticized the anarchists who wanted to abolish the State immediately, so it would be wrong for communists today, when the bourgeoisie is preparing for war at a faster pace, and on the other hand, and mainly worldwide, the masses are increasingly taking up arms against their oppressors and generally accepting and showing their support for a war of resistance against the imperialist aggressor (e.g. Ukraine, Palestine, etc.), to condemn violence and war in general without specifying who is waging that war, whether it is a war against imperialism or for it. At best, it becomes idealistic rhetoric, at worst it justifies massacres against the masses of the people. After all, communists and other masses of the people fighting imperialism are supposedly “terrorists” when they refuse to live in subjugation and under the constant violence of reaction.
Of course, it would be a different matter if imperialism were not violent, if war were not a reality. Reactionaries do not shy away from violence. The entire history of the struggle of the international working class shows that surrendering to the oppressor does not prevent it from committing the most horrendous crimes, on the contrary. In Finland as well, where the communists learned this through the heaviest blood sacrifice, we should keep this in mind.
In the present day, when the bourgeoisie is militarizing society at an accelerating pace for its own interests, it would be fatal for communists to demand peace. At times when the class struggle is intensifying, communists cannot and should not strive to be outside of it. Honest anti-imperialists, communists and revolutionaries must dare to choose their side and dare to struggle.
