The Finnish Revolution/Chapter 2
November, we had been successful in getting a decision from the Democratic majority of the Diet, according to which the Diet itself, and not merely a Government "bloc," would have wielded the supreme power in the country. This seemed a real step, small enough it is true, towards pure democracy. In the Constituent Commission we were already tracing the fundamental lines of this régime, so fine in perspective, and decided to institute a competition for the best design tor a flag for the Finnish Democratic State.
It was then that we heard from the lips of M. Svinhufoud the constitution ef the Capitalist State. It contained but one paragraph:—" A strong police force."
It was an ignoble and sanguinary constitution. But it was bound to the historic reality of the class-war, and the repression of the masses at a time when more than one Social-Democrat was still dreaming of a Democratic Constitution springing from victories gained at the polls.
II.
FOR DEMOCRACY.
During the revolution which swept over Finland last winter, the Finnish Social-Democracy did not follow its tendency beyond the régime of general popular representation. On the contrary it sought as much as possible to create a régime which should be democratic in the highest degree. In the same order of ideas was the plan for setting up a "popular commissariat," a plan which seemed from time to time on the point of being adopted by referendum during the spring. By this project, the Diet elected on a democratic basis was to exercise the supreme power; the Government was only to be its executive committee; the president was not to have the right of independent action, and was to be subject to regular and direct control from the Diet; the people's power of initiative was to be very wide; officials were to be nominated for a certain length of time, and high officials were to be nominated by the Diet.
Of course this form of Government was not the final aim of the people's commissariat, but simply an instrument whose object was to realise social and economic aspirations. By this means it was hoped to create conditions favourable to evolution in the direction of Socialism, and to institute reforms from which the Socialist society should finally emerge.
This idea appeared perfectly natural in the conditions then existing in Finland. A democratic régime in Finland would apparently have guaranteed a majority to the popular representation, a great part of which would openly have put forward claims to a Socialist régime, and probably the remainder would not have displayed much opposition to reforms, going cautiously and step by step in this direction. The adversaries of Socialism would certainly have formed a minority in the Diet, and would have been powerless in such a situation. Such at least was our opinion.
Taking into consideration the economic lite of Finland, an idea of this kind did not seem impossible of realisation. Apart from the fact that capitalist evolution was not in an advanced stage in Finland, it ought to have been easy by reason of the simple nature of the conditions of production, to allow the State to take over most establishments—easier at anyrate than in many countries having a more complex economic life. The timber and paper industries are those which are of the greatest importance in Finland, us regards the value of what is produced. Already two-thirds of the forests belong to the State. The paper industry is relatively centralised, and the taking over of about ten of the chief firms would evidently be tantamount to administering the whole industry. The same thing applies to the wood-sawing industry. Production is practically in the hands of a very small number of big companies, who, by the way, are not looked upon favourably by the peasant proprietors. It was rightly maintained that the sequestration of a couple of hundred firms would have placed entire control in the hands of the State, and consequently would have given a decisive influence on the other branches of capitalism. In this way the State would have become the preponderating capitalist, not as an State ruled by the bourgeoisie and private capital to serve as an instrument of class, but as a "Populist State," in which the bourgeoisie, being in the minority, would no longer have held supreme power. Power would have fallen completely into the hands of the working-class majority, who would have used it to their own advantage so as to change the economic activity of the State in such wise as to make it watch over more and more over the interests of the workers, and so to transform the State into a Socialist Society.
A social policy on these lines was in the minds of the Finnish People's Commissariat. At anyrate a certain number of its members expected that, the majority of the Democratic Diet would adopt the measure of taking over the big timber and paper factories on the scale mentioned above, and of putting external commerce under State control, which would, of course, have resulted in a change in the situation of the State Bank. It is difficult and useless now to speculate as to what would have happened if German Imperialism had not come to the rescue of the capitalists of Finland: if the workers had obtained the victory. But without yielding to such vague speculations, it can now be seen that the idea of the Democratic State, with which the People's Commissariat deluded itself, was historically false.
It wished to build a bridge, to construct a passage from Capitalism to Socialism. But Democracy is unable to bear the burden of such a mission. Its historic character has made itself felt in the course of the Revolution. It satisfied neither the bourgeois now the workers, although no one openly declared against it. The bourgeoisie did not think it prudent to declare against democracy, and the workers, these same workers who in 1904–5 had fought with such glowing enthusiasm for democracy, remained indifferent enough. For one party as for the other, the dictatorship was now alone to be desired for the bourgeoisie the White Dictatorship, for the workers the Red Dictatorship. Both felt in their secret hearts that the democratic plan was neither a compromise nor a reconciliation. To one and to the other, their own power seemed to be preferred to any popular power or Democracy.
Democracy was the governing system of the previous year in Finland. The Russian bourgeois revolution of March had made a present of it to our country. On paper it did not exist any more than it did as a generally recognised and fundamental law, but it existed "de facto" for all that. It was by no means a complete form of Democracy comparable with the scheme put forward later on by the People's Commissariat; but it was as good as it was possible for it to be in a Bourgeois State. To go farther along the democratic road, in other words to make use of the class war without having recourse to violent methods, was an historical impossibility.
It is easy enough at this distance to discover this important truth, but it was more difficult to do so in Finland last year. The relative feebleness of the Finnish bourgeoisie. its inability to carry on a Parliamentary struggle, and the fact that it had no armed forces, were so many factors through which we Social-Democrats were predestined to suffer from the democratic illusion, inasmuch as we wished to reach Socialism by means of a struggle in the Diet and by democratic representation of the people. This was equivalent to entering on a course which could not agree with the true postulates of history—to seek to avoid a Socialist Revolution, to shun the real bridge between Capitalism and Socialism, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is an historical necessity.
In our eyes the Democracy of the past year appeared as the programme of the future, not as a thing of the past. It showed itself, however, to be too much stained with error, too feeble, to be capable of serving as a foundation for the erection of the Socialist edifice. That is why it was so necessary to complete and strengthen it. It was weak, extremely weak. We did not perceive that it was so weak that it was impossible to buttress it. Weakness was, in fact, its main characteristic, a weakness to which Democracy is perforce condemned in every bourgeois society. It was weak even as a stay for the bourgeoisie, and still more so as an arm in the working-class struggle. Its sole historic advantage—an advantage for both parties at one and the same time—was that which had always characterised Democracy, namely, that it allowed the class-war to be carried on in relative freedom. It allowed it to develop up to that point when a decision by force of arms became necessary. Thus the historic mission of this democracy was to crumble as useless, after having fulfilled its task and served as an old worm-eaten bulwark between the two conflicting fronts.