Minority Nationalism and Socialism K

70 TYÖVÄENTUTKIMUS VUOSIKIRJA 2020 MINORITY NATIONALISM AND SOCIALISM K. H. Wiik and the National Question in Finnish Social Democracy from 1900s to 1940s Matias Kaihovirta Postdoctoral researcher, Political History, University of Helsinki Introduction: Ethnic identification of the cruellest genocides in human history and Swedish minority nationalism that would take place at the heart of Europe. in Finnish social democracy The question of the future role of the Swedish- speaking minority in Finland was one of many First, we must abandon the notion that eve- national issues in which the role of minori- rything concerning national issues would be ties in the post-First World War nationalising nationalism and therefore unworthy for a so- 2 cialist.1 nation states became a political question. As this article will demonstrate, the future role of These were the words used by the Swedish- the Swedish-speaking minority would have a speaking Finnish social democratic politician decisive impact on both Finnish domestic and Karl Harald Wiik (1883–1946) in a speech foreign policy according to the Finnish Swed- he gave in 1921 in Helsinki for the Finnish ish-speaking socialist politician K. H. Wiik. Swedish-speaking social democrats. Wiik was, By studying Wiik and his role as a politi- at the time, regarded as an expert on national cal and ideological foreground figure of the issues within the Finnish Social Democratic Swedish-speaking labour movement in Fin- Party (SDP). National issues were extremely land, this article aims to study the relationship relevant throughout Europe after the First between national issues, class and socialism in World War, especially with the fall of the the history of the Finnish social democratic multinational Eastern- and Central-European labour movement. This article problematises empires. The rise of national issues lay in the the language issue (in Finnish “kielikysymys” ideological currents of nationalism and so- or in Swedish “språkfrågan”) generally under- cialism, which had emerged during the 19th stood as a mere practical matter concerning century and would considerably accelerate the spoken language of the members and ac- democratic developments in Europe during tivists of the labour movement. In this article, the 20th century. But national and ethnic is- language is connected to ethnic identity and sues also created new conflicts, wars and one nationalism. How was the question of ethnic 1 Karl H. Wiik, ”Den svenska befolkningen i Finland: Vår nationalitetsfråga och socialdemokratins ställning till densamma,” Arbetarbladet, 8 April 1921. 2 Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge University press, 1996), 55–60. OTHER ARTICLES 71 identity connected to social democracy and were, as Wiik points out, not unworthy for a socialist politics? What were the underlying socialist; on the contrary, they were considered conflicts and ideological solutions for linking as extremely important for socialist politics. In national questions and socialism in the early existing research on the relationship between 20th century Finnish labour movement? My socialism and nationalism, it has been pointed focus is on the politics dealing with ethnic out that a nation and nation state have been identification and issues concerning national the framework for the labour movement on identity and the role it played not solely for which to realise their political goals, e.g. the the Swedish-speaking labour movement but welfare state.4 for the historical development of Finnish so- However, the nation was not just instru- cial democracy and the multinational societal mental for waging the class struggle for so- history of Finland. cialists, as some labour historians such as Eric Wiik was a significant individual and his Hobsbawm have wished to assert.5 Another uniqueness as a theoretically oriented politi- more recent point of view is that the labour cian and socialist internationalist and his con- movement’s class struggle has managed to viction in the supremacy of Marxist thought, include the struggle for national sovereignty are issues which have been the focus of numer- whilst also contributing to the ideological con- ous historical studies of K. H. Wiik.3 In my tent of nationalist movements and projects. research, the focus on Wiik illuminates the The labour movement’s relationship with na- complexity of the relationship between social- tion and nationalism has at times in Marxist ism and nationalism. Wiik’s involvement in history been narrowly defined based on the issues concerning the Swedish-speaking mi- words “the working men have no country” nority within the Finnish labour movement from the Communist Manifesto. This state- reveals on a close reading how social democ- ment would, nevertheless, lead to a demand racy handled national issues, questions con- for popular democratic rights and freedoms cerning ethnic minorities and the relationship for the working classes within the existing na- between socialist internationalism and the tion states in the 19th and 20th centuries. For nation state. In a comparative historical per- some Marxists, the consolidation of the na- spective, Wiik was in good company among tion was regarded as a necessary step towards many other contemporary socialist politicians, socialist internationalism. But, as some labour who were spending much time thinking and historians have demonstrated, the use of the re-thinking the role of nation in working-class concept of the nation fell in the multi-ethnic and socialist politics. For them, national issues and multi-national social reality of the work- 3 Kalevi Pihanurmi & Aimo Poutiainen, ”Teoreetikko K. H. Wiik,” in Tiennäyttäjät: Suomen työväenliikkeen merkkimiehiä Ursinista Tanneriin, vol. 3, ed. Hannu Soikkanen (Tammi: Helsinki, 1968); Erkki Tuomioja, K. H. Wiik, vol. 1, Itsenäisyysmies ja internationalisti: Elämäkerta vuoteen 1918 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1979); Sep po Hentilä, Veljeyttä yli pohjanlahden: Suomen ja Ruotsin työväenliikkeen kosketuskohtia suuresta Sundsvallin lakosta Suomen kansalaissotaan (Gaudeamus: Helsinki, 1980), 75–105; Erkki Tuomioja, K. H. Wiik, vol. 2, Puoluesihteeri ja oppositiososialisti: Elämäkerta 1918–1946 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1982). 4 Stefan Berger & Angel Smith, ”Between Scylla and Charybdis: Nationalism, Labour and Ethnicity Across Five Continents, 1870–1939,” in Nationalism, Labour and Ethnicity 1870–1939, eds. Stefan Berger & Angel Smith (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 1–30; John Schwarzmantel, ”Nationalism and Socialist Internationalism,” in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Nationalism, ed. John Breuilly (Oxford University Press, 2013), 639–646. 5 John Breuilly, ”Eric Hobsbawm: Nationalism and Revolution,” Nations and Nationalism 21, no. 4 (2015): 630–657, https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12138. 72 TYÖVÄENTUTKIMUS VUOSIKIRJA 2020 ing classes in most European countries in the linguistic rights among the Finnish-speaking early 20th century, where ethnic divisions and majority.8 conflicts restricted the practice of socialist in- This also opens up a perspective on social ternationalism in the everyday lives of work- and minority national rights, which were ers. Therefore, socialists have not only applied at the centre of the political struggle of the civic but also ethnic understanding of the na- Swedish-speaking labour movement, as a dis- tion and how the working classes represent the tinct form of what can heuristically be ana- “true” people of the nation.6 lysed as socialist minority nationalism. The Wiik’s significance for the Swedish-speaking significance of using minority nationalism as labour movement cannot be underestimated. an analytical tool is to delineate a clear divi- Both during his lifetime and after his death, he sion between the concepts of the nation (as an was celebrated and held a special place of ad- ethnic-linguistic community) and the nation miration among Swedish-speaking socialists. state (as a civic community including or ex- For example, the dispute over Wiik’s political cluding one or multiple nations). In Finland, heritage would lead to a severe divide in the the nation state construction was character- Finnish-Swedish labour movement, which in ised by the ethno-lingual conflict between the turn threatened to have a serious impact on Finnish and Swedish. However, a third catego- the entire SDP and its future during the post- ry marking the bi-nationalist and civic charac- war years in the late 1940s.7 However, the terisation of Finnishness (“suomenmaalaisuus” Swedish-speaking labour movement must not or “finländskhet”) would develop as the offi- be reduced to a personality cult around K. H. cial status for the bi-national ethnolinguistic Wiik; it was more the ideas he put forward that neutral norm of citizenship in the Finnish na- the members listened to and which they could tion state. These conflicting nationalisms in relate to in their social and political reality. It Finland are also a universal phenomenon in has been claimed that the Swedish-speaking the history of nationalism, and, for example, labour movement and working class faced a Belgium and Canada have a similar history of dual exclusion: as an ideological minority in bi-nationalism.9 the bourgeoisie dominated Finland-Swedish In previous research, the SDP has been por- ethnic group and as a linguistic ethnic minor- trayed as neutral with regards to the “language ity in the Finnish labour movement. Whilst issue”, a perspective that lies partly in the

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