Social Democratic Party of Finland - History

History

The SDP was founded as the Finnish Labour Party (Finnish: Suomen Työväenpuolue) in 1899. The name was changed to the present form in 1903. The party remained a chiefly extra-parliamentary movement until the universal suffrage of 1906 (before Finland's independence from Russia in 1917), after which the SDP's share of the votes and seats at best reached 47% in 1916, when the party secured a majority in the parliament — the only time in the history of Finland when one party has had such a majority. The party lost its majority in the 1917 election, and in 1918, started a rebellion that escalated into the Finnish Civil War.

Former SDP members declared Finland a Socialist Republic, but were defeated by the forces of the Finnish Senate (whites). The war resulted in most party leaders on all levels being killed, imprisoned or seeking refuge in Soviet Russia. In addition, the process leading to the Civil War and the war itself had stripped the party of its political legitimacy and respectability in the eyes of the right-wing majority. However, the political support for the party remained strong, and in the election of 1919, the party, reorganised by Väinö Tanner, got 80 of the 200 seats in the parliament. Some refugee Social Democrats founded the Communist Party of Finland in Moscow in 1918. Although the Communist Party was banned in Finland until 1944, it was represented by front organizations, and the support of the Finnish working class was divided between these and the SDP.

It became the life's work of Väinö Tanner to regain the SDP's reputation as a party capable of dealing with serious matters, such as governing Finland. The result was a much more patriotic SDP, leaning less to the left and relatively isolated from its Nordic sister parties. P.E. Svinhufvud's animosity however kept SDP out of the government during his presidency in 1931–1937. With the exception of a brief period in 1926 (when Tanner formed a minority government), SDP was excluded from cabinet participation until Kyösti Kallio was elected president in 1937. During World War II the party played a central role in a series of broad coalition cabinets, symbolising national unity forged in response to the threat of the USSR in the Winter War in 1939–1940.

The SDP was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1923 and 1940.

During the first few months of the Continuation War (1941–1944), the country, the parliament, and the cabinet were divided on the question whether Finland's army should stop at the old border and thereby demonstratively refrain from any attempts of conquests. However, the country's dangerous position called for national unity, and SDP's leadership chose to refrain from any visible protests. This decision is sometimes indicated as one of the main reasons behind the post-war division between the main left-wing parties — the SDP and the Communists — and the high percentage of Communist voters in the first elections after the Continuation War.

After the Continuation War, the Communist Party was allowed to work openly, and the main feature of Finnish political life during the 1944–1949 period was fierce competition between the Social Democrats and the Communists for voters and for control of the labor unions. At this time, the political field was divided roughly equally between the Social Democrats, Communists and the Agrarian League, each party commanding some 25% of the vote. In the post-war era, the Social Democratic Party adopted a line defending the Finnish sovereignty and democracy in line with the Agrarian League and other bourgeois political parties, finally leading to the expulsion of the Communists from the cabinet in 1948. However, it remained obvious that the Soviet Union was much more openly critical against SDP than against the "openly" bourgeois parties.

Because of SDP's anti-communist activities, the United States Central Intelligence Agency supported the party by means of funds laundered through Nordic sister parties, or through organizations that bought "luxury goods" such as coffee abroad and imported them and sold them with a high profit; the post-war rationing served to inflate prices.

In the presidential election of 1956, the SDP candidate Karl-August Fagerholm lost by only one electoral college vote to Urho Kekkonen. Fagerholm would act as a prime minister in 1956–1957 and in 1958–1959. The latter cabinet was forced to resign due to Soviet pressure, leading to a series of cabinets led by the Agrarian League. In 1958, due to the election of Väinö Tanner as party chairman, a faction of SDP resigned and formed the Alliance of Finnish Workers and Small Farmers (TPSL) around the former SDP chairman Emil Skog. The dispute was over several issues: should the party function as an interest group, and should it co-operate with the anti-communists and right-wingers, or with president Kekkonen, the Agrarians and the Communists. During the 1960s, the TPSL dwindled, its members returning little by little to the SDP or joining the Communists. The founder himself, Emil Skog, returned to SDP in 1965, and in 1970, TPSL lost its seats in the parliament.

Only in 1966 was the SDP able to satisfy the Soviet Union about its friendly attitude towards her, and could thus return to the cabinet. Since then, the SDP has been represented in most Finnish cabinets, often cooperating with the centrist-agrarian Centre Party (formerly the Agrarian League), but sometimes with the liberal-conservative National Coalition Party. The SDP was in opposition in 1991–1995, when the main parties in the cabinet were the Centre Party and the National Coalition Party.

SDP chairman Paavo Lipponen headed two cabinets in 1995–2003. During this time, the party adopted a pro-European line and contributed actively to the Finnish membership of the European Union in 1995 in concert with the cabinet. In the 2003 parliamentary election, SDP won 53 of the 200 seats, ending up a close second to the Centre Party. As a result, the Lipponen became the speaker of parliament, and the Centre Party chairwoman Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the new prime minister, leading a coalition cabinet that included the SDP, which got eight ministerial posts. After two months, Jäätteenmäki resigned due to a scandal and was replaced by Matti Vanhanen, also Centre Party.

The majority of SDP members are currently over 60 years old. Approximately 60% of the members are men.