Toward a Red Melting Pot Aleksi Huhta Melting Pot a Red Toward This dissertation examines the racial thinking of Finnish radicals in the early twentieth century United States. It studies how and why Finnish radical immigrants used racial ideas to describe and explain human difference. It also examines how and why Finnish thinking on race changed during this time. The study focuses on the time period between 1900 and the late 1930s. During these years, Finns formed one of the largest immigrant groups in the Socialist Party, the IWW and the Communist Party. Yet, the ex- tensive research on the U.S. Left’s troubled relationship with race has largely ignored these immigrant radicals. Studies on Europe- an immigrants’ racial thought, on the other hand, have often not paid due attention to radical immigrants’ ideas on race. The main sources for this study are six Finnish-language labor newspapers that were published in the early 1900s in the United States. The present work also makes use of non-fiction books, memoirs, Aleksi Huhta pamphlets and other printed material that was written by both Finnish and American radicals in the United States. Toward a Red Melting Pot The Racial Thinking of Finnish-American Radicals, 1900–1938 Toward a red melting pot Aleksi Huhta Toward a red melting pot The Racial Thinking of Finnish-American Radicals, 1900–1938 Työväen historian ja perinteen tutkimuksen seura 2021 Papers on Labour History VIII 2021 © Aleksi Huhta ja THPTS Layout design: Raimo Parikka Cover Image: Knut E. Heikkinen: Meidän poikamme Espanjas- sa. Finnish Workers Federation: New York 1939, p. 179. Photo- graph from image: Aleksi Huhta. ISBN 978-952-5976-91-5 (Nid.) ISBN 978-952-5976-92-2 (PDF) Hansaprint Turenki 2021 4 Table of Contents List of Abbreviations ... 7 List of Illustrations ... 8 Acknowledgements ... 9 Introduction ... 15 Does Red Run in the Body of Every Man? ... 15 Race and Nation in Cross-Border Context ... 21 Immigrants and Others: Beyond the Ethnicity Paradigm ... 34 Material, Methods and Concepts ... 47 Research Questions and Structure ... 59 1. Uplifting the Race: Socialists and the Finnish Self-Image ... 63 1.1. Fit for Industrial America? ... 65 1.2. The Sointula Experiment: Escape from Industrial America ... 72 1.3. Reaching Out: Marxists and the Nationality Question ... 81 1.4. Catching Up: Marxists and Racial Uplift ... 96 1.5. Industrial Action as Civilization: The Mesabi Strike of 1907 ... 108 2. Developing Others: Socialists and the Immigration Debate ... 123 2.1. Are Finns Mongols? ... 125 2.2. Empire and Subaltern Solidarity ... 138 2.3. Asian Exclusion as Pragmatism ... 152 2.4. All Men are Equal, except Chinamen? ... 169 2.5. Wobblies and Developmental Optimism ... 181 3. White Crimes: Lynching and Race Riots ... 198 3.1. Southern Horrors, American Crimes ... 201 3.2. Limits of Economic Determinism: Explaining Race Riots ... 214 4 5 3.3. Red Scare and Red Summer ... 229 3.4. The Duluth Lynchings of 1920 ... 240 3.5. “Did You See the Circus?” Witnessing Violence and Making Race ... 252 4. Down with Chauvinism: Communists and Race ... 261 4.1. World War I and the Nationality Question: Racial Mixture as Modernity? ... 263 4.2. Communist Finns and Black Americans ... 270 4.3. Finnish Communists and the Anti-Chauvinist Struggle ... 279 4.4. Race Hatred on Trial: The Case of August Jokinen ... 293 4.5. Race, Gender and Finnishness: The Debate on the Jokinen Case ... 302 4.6. The Fight Continues: Finnish Communists and Race after the Jokinen Trial ... 322 5. Antifascist Nationalism: the Contradictions of the Popular Front ... 337 5.1. Karelian Fever: Formulating Progressive Finnishness ... 338 5.2. Toward “Americanization” ... 354 5.3. Popular Front Patriotism and the Politics of Ancestry ... 367 5.4. The Antifascist Anniversary: The Delaware Tercentenary of 1938 ... 376 5.5. The Limits of the Red Melting Pot? ... 389 Conclusion ... 398 Sources ... 408 Appendix 1: Labor Newspapers Used as Main Sources ... 443 Abstract ... 444 Abstrakti ... 446 6 List of Abbreviations AFL: American Federation of Labor CPF: Communist Party of Finland CPUSA: Communist Party of the United States FSF: Finnish Socialist Federation FWF: Finnish Workers’ Federation IWW: Industrial Workers of the World LSU: Labor Sports Union NKVD: People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (USSR) SDP: Social Democratic Party of Finland SPA: Socialist Party of America WFM: Western Federation of Miners WPA: Work Progress Administration 6 7 List of Illustrations 1. Toveri kymmenvuotias 1907–1917. Toveri Press: Astoria 1917, p. 121. 2. Lapatossu, 1.12.1914, p. 142. 3. “Joulun vietto Indiassa.” Työmiehen joulu, 1.12.1908, p. 147. 4. Moses Hahl: Kehitysopin aakkoset. Ihanneliittokoulujen ylempiä luokkia ja kotiopetusta varten. Amerikan suom. Sos. Kustannusliikkeet: Fitchburg 1919, p. 221. 5. Punikki, 15.6.1931, p. 325. 6. Knut E. Heikkinen: Meidän poikamme Espanjassa. Finnish Workers Federation: New York 1939, p. 364. 7. Punikki, 2.11.1935, p. 374. 8. Eteenpäin, 26.6.1938, p. 392. 8 Acknowledgements Many people have helped me in the process of writing my dis- sertation. I have had great supervisors, who have offered insight- ful comments and criticisms throughout my research. Professor Auvo Kostiainen has followed and supported the development of this project from my first attempt at a research proposal. He also helped me to get started as a doctoral researcher at the Depart- ment of European and World History at the University of Turku. Docent Johanna Leinonen has also offered important support throughout this project. I would like to especially thank her for her many insightful comments regarding theoretical questions and U.S. immigration history. I am also much indebted to Pro- fessor Taina Syrjämaa, who has read and commented on my se- minar papers from the beginning of my dissertation project. Her comments on methods, theoretical approaches and other issues have always helped me to develop my thinking and writing. Whi- le all of my supervisors have offered important help in issues of substance, I have come to appreciate their continuing encourage- ment most of all. Thank you. Professor David Roediger and Professor Peter Kivisto served as the pre-examiners for this thesis. I came to appreciate their scholarly work as a student of American immigration and ethnic history, which is why I was greatly honored that they agreed to examine my thesis and evaluate its contribution to the field. Their comments helped me to develop my manuscript and better un- derstand the contribution and implications of my research vis-à- vis studies of race and ethnicity in the United States. I would also like to thank Professor Kivisto for traveling to Finland to serve as my opponent at my dissertation defense in December 2017. 8 9 The Department of European and World History at the Uni- versity of Turku has been a great place to undertake a PhD thesis. The department has offered an inspiring intellectual environ- ment, but even more important has been its warm and suppor- tive atmosphere. I would like to thank all the people I have wor- ked alongside and shared coffee breaks with: Erja Aarnio, Pertti Grönholm, Essi Huuhka, Andrei Kalinitchev, Markus Kantola, Emilia Karppinen, Leila Koivunen, Pia Koivunen, Yana Krugli- kova, Eero Kuparinen, Anniina Lehtokari, Raita Merivirta, Jari Nikkola, Antti-Jussi Nygård, Heli Paalumäki, Tuomas Räsänen, Kirsi Salonen, Tiago Silva, Johanna Skurnik, Mari Tanninen and Janne Tunturi. I would like to especially thank Professor Leila Koivunen who has offered insightful and supportive comments to my seminar papers throughout my research project. I also ex- tend a special gratitude to my long-time roommates and fellow doctoral students Anniina, Antti-Jussi and Johanna. Thank you for the laughs, peer support and friendship. I spent the fall of 2016 at the Swedish Institute for North Ame- rican Studies at Uppsala University in Sweden. I would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Dag Blanck, who invited me to Uppsala, provided me with a great writing environment and gave insightful comments about my research. He also organized a se- minar in which I was able to discuss my work and get feedback from scholars of immigration history and Finnish studies at Upp- sala. My time in Uppsala was instrumental for this dissertation since much of it was written there. Thank you Dag, the Depart- ment of English and Café Storken. The research seminar on Multicultural and Postcolonial Inter- sections at the University of Turku has been an important venue to present and discuss my ideas throughout my dissertation process. I would like to thank Suvi Keskinen, Johanna Leinonen and Sal- la Tuori for organizing and coordinating the seminar. They have always offered insightful comments when I have presented parts of this thesis at the seminar. Their comments have helped me to develop my thinking on questions of race, gender and class. I also wish to thank my fellow doctoral candidates at the Intersections 10 seminar for all the discussions and support: Pauline Hortelano, Saara Pellander, Minna Seikkula, Janka Szombati, Mari Toivanen, Chuan-Ying Liu and others. Many people at different seminars have read early drafts of chapters and other related texts, and I would like to acknowledge at least some of them: Les Back, Umut Erel, Donna Gabaccia, Adam Hjorthén, Irene Molina, Einar Nie- mi and Teemu Ryymin. Marsha Penti and Jim Kurtti have offered important help with their knowledge of Finnish-American his- tory. I would also like to thank the great staff at the John Morton Center for North American Studies at the University of Turku (especially Benita Heiskanen and Samira Saramo) for their valu- able work in bringing together Finnish scholars working on issu- es related to North America. Robert Collis proofread my manuscript with great care and in- sight. The text is much more readable because of his input.