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To leave Commie, hyper to
http://commie.oy.com/commie_leaving.html
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> There must be something sexy in communism again... Otherwise I can't
> explain why a party which had serious difficulties to attract young
> people ten years ago suddenly have more youngsters on their election
> list than any other party...
I think that is just because when the (Finnish) Communists were still a
sizeable movement, people saw that they were just stuffy relics (I mean
after their heyday in the 70s). When they first practically died off and
came into existence again, they seemed like a fresh new thing and a
reasonable alternative to the old consensus system. Hey, I used to call
myself a Communist back in high school.. =)
I think the reason why Communism attracts young people nowadays (in
Finland), is that it seems the complete antithesis of the modern day
selfishness characterized by the young stock option millionnaires of the
new media (� la the Ryts�l� bros.) - just like the SKP poster (the fat
"Bourgeois" guy has "stock options" written on his belly). But things
aren't quite that simple. Very few idealistic young people realize what
they are talking about when they speak of revolution and the evil
opressor Bourgeois and the class war. It's catchy rhetoric, but I think
we've all seen in the past what it leads to. I'm not saying _Socialism_
isn't viable, I'm saying _Communism_ (ie. Leninism/Stalinism) isn't.
Although one shouldn't take even Marx for the ultimate authority, the
guy had some really spaced out ideas that really have very little to do
with reality. But then he had good ideas, too..
> An interesting detail in the history of Finnish worker's movement is,
> that in the beginning of 20th century both social-democrats and
> communists felt themselves as the proud successors of the Communist
> Manifesto and Marx's theories. They fought about who were the _real_
> marxists and who were the clowns. (More info in Finnish can be found
> here: http://www.tietotoverit.fi/jarmo.linden/manifesti.html)
Yeah, and after the first split in 1918 (when Communists left the
Socialist Democratic Party to form SKP), the Communists later split into
"Euro Communist" style SKDL (Finnish People's Democratic Alliance, who
were pro-Parlamentarism) and the Stalinist SKP (Finnish Communist Party,
who were pro-revolution and pro-USSR), and even the latter then split
into SKP and KTP (the Communist Workers' Party, who were the most
hardcore of them all). =) Actually I think even SKDL had a minor split
when some of the more Liberalist elements left and founded DeVa (the
Democratic Alternative). Then, in 1990 or so, SKDL, SKP and DeVa merged
into the Left Wing Alliance. The SKP was revived a couple of times by
people who, most recently in 1997 or so.
So nowadays the left-of-the-center parties in Finland are:
SDP - Social Democrats, the biggest party in Finland, comparable to
most of the West European Socialist parties, the Labour in the UK or
Democrats in the US (though the Democrats are more to the right IMO).
They are the ruling party at the moment (they have majority in the
Parliament, and both the president's and the prime minister's office).
Vasemmistoliitto (Left Wing Alliance)
Vihre�t (The Green Party) - The Greens and The Left Wing Alliance are
pretty much in the same category I think. Except that in Northern
Finland there are lots of old skool Leftists who are against the
enviromental stuff, but here in Helsinki I really don't think you can
tell the two parties much apart in most cases. Both are in the Cabinet
with SDP for the time being.
SKP - The Communist Party, they're more of a pain in the ass for the
major parties than a serious politic movement.
KTP - The Communist Workers' Party, they're just a bunch on pensioners,
mostly.
> Haha... The same thing in Finland... The SDNL (The Democratic Youth
> Alliance) folks used to have the best parties... They recently
> changed their name to "Left Youth". The change was a lot bigger than
> just a name-switch... They don't seem to drink that much alcohol
> anymore as SDNL folks used to... :(
Well, the "Left Wing Youth" would be a better translation IMO. I really
didn't like the SDNL thing either (I was a member once), it was mostly
so inbred stuff. Couple of buddies making all the decisions and so on.
--
"Betwixt decks there can hardlie a man catch his breath by
reason there ariseth such a funke in the night..."
- W. Capps, 1623
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