Parlamentarismin kannattajasta vallankumouksen äänitorveksi : Suomen Sosialidemokraattisen Puolueen lehdistö 1917-1918

Abstract

The research topic of this dissertation is the press of the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) from the March revolution of 1917 in Russia to the end of the Finnish Civil War in the spring of 1918. Under research are 16 party papers, which, however, were not owned by the party, and therefore neither under its guidance nor control. The papers' owners, local working class organizations, elected the editors-in-chief, who often held central posts in the party. In this way they could use their relatively independent positions to further their political views in their editorials. In the dissertation the press reports are bound with the ideology and policies of the SDP. The first theme is the differences of opinion between the papers both with each other and the party leadership. They came out clearly when they wrote about the central political events of 1917. The majority of the papers supported the Social Democrats participating in the government together with the bourgeoisie, contrary to the Kautskyan ideology of the party. Corresponding differences arose about the workers' right to use their collective force when they demanded participation in local power in several cities. Another difference was the attitude towards the reasons for the Parliamentary election defeat in the fall of 1917. The greatest consensus was reached in enacting the Law of Supreme Power, which was considered to mean a very advanced stage of Finnish independence. However, repealing the law left behind a permanent bitterness in the the press with the action of the bourgeoisie in the matter. In the course of the fall of 1917 the SDP press was put on the defensive against the bourgeois press. The second theme under research is the attitude of the Socialdemocratic press to the armed revolution after the General Strike of 1917. The post-Civil War historiography of the victors labeled the SDP press guilty of inciting uneducated hosts of workers to revolt against the bourgeoisie. The reports in the papers were, however, radically opposed to violent methods and the party was demanded to stick to parliamentarism. In this way nearly the whole party press positioned itself to the right in the party. The criticism of the party press was especially directed at the radicalism of the Red Guards. The third theme is about going through the opinions of the party press, which became the Red Press since the beginning of the Civil War, about the reasons and objectives of the revolution. They didn't, however, differ that much from the opinions expressed by the new government, the People's Delegation. The defence of the working class against the attack of the bourgeoisie was considered the main reason for the revolution. The broadest support in the press was received by the effort of the People's Delegation to democratize the existing class society, which corresponded well to the views of the party papers that supported parliamentarism.