Expelled in 1915 by the Socialist Party’s conservative leadership, these Finnish-speaking revolutionary industrial unionists from the small mining town, but Socialist citadel, of Negaunee in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula hold their ground and stay loyal to their class. The revolutionary socialists and industrial unionists that dominated northern Michigan’s Finnish-speaking Socialist Party were long the target of the Party’s right, and in 1915 they succeeded in overturning the majority left in a number of Upper Great Lakes Finnish-dominated revolutionary locals. A few years later, the entire Michigan Socialist Party would be expelled, a first, in May, 1919 for their left wing opposition to the Party’s reformist path. The expelled went on to become the first independent formation in the U.S. to call for a new Communist Party. Unironically, it was the radical Finnish workers of Michigan that provided the majority base for the new party in the state., while much of the Detroit English-speaking leadership would later found the Proletarian Party.

‘Executive Committee Rule’ by T.E. Latimer from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 15 No. 8. February, 1915.

It is probable that most readers of the Review have heard something of the “Finnish Controversy,” but like many others, you have passed it by as simply a factional fight similar to those which have embroiled different groups of the Socialist Party in the past. This controversy, which began as a struggle between individuals and groups of individuals for control, has divided the Finnish Federation into radicals and conservatives, developed Committee rule in the Federation, and, with the entrance of the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party into the controversy, has brought the Party organization to the parting of the ways. The problems which have arisen out of this conflict must be faced by the entire membership, and they are so serious as to require careful consideration.

History of the Controversy.

Before the present situation is considered it may be well to review briefly the more important events which led up to the recent decision of the National Executive Committee. The Finnish Federation, organized in 1904, had grown to a membership of about 15,000 by the beginning of 1914, although at the present time there are probably less than 10,000 members. For purposes of propaganda the organization is divided into three districts, each under the control of a District Executive Committee, and each had a daily paper owned by a stock company. The papers representing the Eastern and the Middle Districts had many tilts over questions of tactics, each representing very largely the sentiment of its district, the Eastern being the more conservative and the Middle District more radical. Until 1913 these differences were almost entirely fought out in the field of academic discussion.

In that year, however, a determined effort was made to extend the influence of those dominant in the Eastern into the Middle District. This latter district had a larger membership than either of the others and its paper was the most influential, having a larger circulation than any Finnish paper in America. The contest began in Local Negaunee, Michigan, where Frank Aaltonen and William Risto had each attempted to control the Local and Risto finally secured a majority of the 200 members. It was then that Aaltonen called upon the State Executive Board to expel this Local, which demand was obeyed on March 16, 1913, on the ground that the Local Secretary had failed to send in eight ballots on a state referendum, the secretary’s excuse being that the ballots reached him too late. A new Local of Aaltonen’s friends was given a charter at once, and four days later Aaltonen and four others appeared before the Circuit Court of Marquette County and asked for an injunction against the members of the old Local on the ground given above as a reason for expulsion and on the further ground:

“that the said defendants are believers in, and advocates of, sabotage. This implies that the said defendants advocated and taught among other things, the destruction of property and the disregard of personal and property rights and personal violence, and that said defendants believed and taught that employees should take and use unlawfully measures extending from sulking and neglecting their work to the destruction of property owned by their employers, and among other things, the said defendants believed in and advocated the nonpayment of bills owing by them and others and generally advocated and believed in the overthrow of existing systems and governments by revolution and violence; that such beliefs and teachings were contrary to the principles of the Socialist Party and were contrary to the law of the land.”

He asked that the hall, $2,000 worth of personal property, and $7,000 worth of stock be turned over to the new Local; also that the members of the old Local be forbidden from holding any meetings in their hall, from even entering the hall, and from inspecting the books of the Local. If the old Local was to be broken up its property must be secured, but this resort to the capitalist courts aroused a storm of protest from Finnish Locals all over the country, and the National Executive Committee of the Federation and the Middle District Executive Committee each sent committees to Negaunee to investigate. The report of the investigators caused the action of Aaltonen (known among the Finnish comrades as “Injunction Frank”) and his friends to be condemned and the new Local was refused admission to the Federation. This action was also condemned by Tyomies, the paper of the Middle District.

Later, these men, who had maligned their comrades in injunction proceedings, entered into an agreement whereby all those who were members of the Local at the time it was expelled should be permitted to become members of the new Local. Such an agreement being an admission that there was either no truth in the injunction charges or that they were willing to condone violation of party tactics to secure a few thousand dollars’ worth of property. The fact that Tyomies had opposed these high-handed methods caused Aaltonen to look about for means to control the paper. Later a vacancy occurred and S. Alanne, a member of the State Committee of Michigan, was chosen editor and the paper then admitted that an injunction was all right under certain circumstances when the rank and file became unruly.

William Risto, one of the active members of the majority faction of Local Negaunee, was sent to the Eastern District as a representative of the Working People’s College, and the Executive Committee of that district decreed that the locals should not permit him to speak in their halls. They expelled six Locals for disobeying this order. These Locals appealed to the National Executive Committee of the Federation, which reversed the action of the District Committee, but the Locals were not reinstated.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v15n08-feb-1915-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf