The growth of industry in Finland is…
1876 CE to 1887 CE
As in early industrialization elsewhere, the living and working conditions of the new industrial laborers are poor, and these laborers seek to improve their situation through trade unions.
Trade unions are legalized in 1883, and soon a number of them will be established, including, in 1907, a national trade union organization, the Finnish Trade Union Federation (Suomen Ammattijarjesto—SAJ).
Workers found a political party in 1899 to represent them in the Diet, and in 1903 it will be renamed the Finnish Social Democratic Party (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue—SDP).
By the elections of 1907, the SDP will already be the largest single party in politics.
Both the SAJ and the SDP are heavily influenced by their counterparts in Germany, and, as a consequence, their doctrines have a pronounced Marxist character.
The SDP will grow even more radical, in part because of the resistance of the middle-class parties to virtually all aspects of social reform, but also because of its strict adherence to the Marxist dogma of class conflict.
One example of its radicalism wis its persistent unwillingness to cooperate with any of the other political parties.
Another is its program, which will begin in 1911 to change from upholding the right of farmers to own their own land to demanding that land be nationalized—a change that will cost the SDP most of its support among agricultural laborers.
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North Europe
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