THE FINNISH REVOLUTION
A SELF-CRITICISM.
I.
FEARS AND HESITATIONS IN FACE OF THE
REVOLUTION.
Proletarian revolutions, as Marx says, are always their own critics. We who have taken part in them ought consciously to facilitate this self-criticism, without, for that matter, seeking to avoid the historical responsibilities for our previous action.
The Finnish Revolution began in January of this year.[1] Its mistakes had already begun in the preceding year.
Just as the war took most of the Socialist parties in the great European countries by surprise, and showed how little they were conscious of their historic mission, so in the spring of 1917 the Russian Revolution surprised Finnish Social-Democracy. This spring-time liberty fell for us like a gift from the skies, and our party was overwhelmed by the intoxicating sap of March. The official watchword had been that of independent class-struggle, i.e., the same which German Social Democracy had put forward before the war. During the reactionary period it was easy enough to maintain this position; it was not exposed to any serious attack, and resistance on the part of the Socialists of the Right could not manage to make itself felt. In March the Party's proletarian virtue was exposed to temptation and to fall into sin; and in fact our Social-Democracy prostituted itself just as much with the bourgeoisie of Finland as with that of Russia (at
- ↑ 1918.
