This study is centered around the early socialism in Northern Finland, the way it spread around, what its chances of gaining popularity were, and how regional differences developed 1900-1910. The earliest Workers' Associations in the region emerged in the 1880s. They did not attain a socialist character until 1903. Socialism did reach the cities in Northern Finland before the Great Strike, but not the countryside until the Great Strike of 1905 and after. The Great Strike became the divider between socialist and non-socialist parties. The antagonism of the Great Strike divided the socialists and the bourgeois further. Localized violence emerged (Kemi). The strike movement was the most vehement in Southern Lapland - e.g. in Kemi and its surroundings and in the logging and floating sites in Kuolajarvi - where strikes occurred repeatedly and continued on during the year 1906. Workers' Associations were mostly established in cities, in the sawmill etc. industrial population centers, in the
strong agriculturally based townships surrounding Oulu, and along the railroads and timber floating channels. Oulu, Kemi, and Kajaani became the centers for educational and propaganda work, from which the work was directed towards the countryside as well. The party organ for the Social Democrats, Kansan Tahto (founded in Oulu 1906), received its broadest circulation in these industrial regions; partially also among farm and timber workers. Socialist agitation was aggressive until 1906. The movement ran into religious and nonsocialist obstacles. Kansan Tahto fell into the hands of moderate Social Democrats, and Oulu became the center for peaceful socialist work. Pronounced rebellious spirit continued to occupy Kemi and the Kemijoki-area, where socialism was pitted against the timber company Kemi. Strike movements, that used mobile, out-of-Province socialists, became the objects of abuse for non-socialist press, the Laestadian movement, and the non-socialist parties. Socialism ended up on the defensive, and from 1908 onwards it began to lose the ground it had already gained, thus not being able to expand anymore. The Workers' Associations experienced losses in membership, and many of the Associations vanished. Socialist radicalism did not receive support in the countryside. In these areas the so-called Old Finns (vanhasuomalaiset) and the Agrarian Party had the upper hand. Of the religious movements, the so-called Old Laestadian movement (vanhalestadiolaisuus) was the most active and the most negative towards socialism because of its atheist nature. Socialism was seen as a disruptive element in the peasant society; therefore, the Old Laestadian movement led by peasant laymen readily supported the non-socialist parties. The Revivalist movement (herännäisyys) also acted in a restrictive manner towards socialist expansion in the surroundings of Oulu and in Ostrobothnia. In the parliamentary elections of 1907, 1908 and 1910 socialism received its strongest backing at the coast, the cities, the agriculturally based regions surrounding Oulu, northern timber gangs, and in Kajaani and its surroundings. The backing for socialism was therefore based on industrial, farm, and timber labor. The strongholds for socialism consisted of the Workers' Associations, and the occupationally and politically organized people within them. The strongest non-socialist region was Koillismaa, in which the non-socialist parties and the Old Laestadians cooperated the closest. Statistical measurements support the image presented above. Socialism achieved its most positive correlations with industrial and construction workers, traffic etc. other occupational groups, and with people lacking occupation and unskilled workers. The non-socialist parties received their backing from the upper classes, and from the agrarian - especially landowners - population. Vagrants and other unprotected people oriented themselves with the socialists. Socialism fed on the defects of the society.
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