Socialism Advances in Finland

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 9, 1907

Socialism Advances in Finland

The socialist journal Appeal to Reason is rejoicing over what it terms “the spread of the red,” that is, the growth of socialism. This is how it views the result of the recent elections in Finland:—

Another victory has been achieved. One after another the nations of the earth are falling into the revolutionary line! Hurrah for the spread of the red!

Finland is latest to contribute to the swelling anthem of the coming emancipation. The election there has resulted in an immense increase in the socialist vote that came near capturing the kingdom.

The official results show that the socialists won eighty-three of the two hundred seats in the diet. With the thirteen agrarians the socialists lack only eight of an absolute majority. The actual figures are as follows: socialists, 83; conservatives, 47; reactionary, 54; agrarians, 13.

In the next election Finland will sweep the reigning dynasty into oblivion. Grand and thrilling, majestic and inspiring, is the march of the international socialist movement.

The dark ages—and all the ages of class rule, covering all the centuries of human history, are dark ages—are passing. Every national election indicating the triumphant march of the working class, is a rift in the clouds. Everywhere the light is breaking, the tyrants are trembling, the thrones are tottering, and the people, the people, are rejoicing.

Hail to the sunrise!

Hurrah for the spread of the red!

Here is a movement with which the governments of earth must reckon—they are indeed already forced to reckon with this power, growing and aggressive, which is one of the strongest factors in bringing about that perplexity of the nations that was to mark our time as the “time of the end.” The following cablegram from France, published in this country, speaks very plainly of the power of that movement:—

The marvelous and startling growth of socialism in France is attracting the attention of students of political economy throughout Europe. Socialism is reaching a development and a strength here that it never has attained in Germany, Belgium, or any other of its strongholds. . . . It puts out the lights of Paris in one night. It threatens openly to deprive every city of France of food on any day which it may select, and announces that no warning will be given. . . . Let the federation of government employees with non-governmental workmen be accomplished, and there will be but one power in the country—that of the labor socialists.

The Appeal to Reason glories in the present conditions and prospects, as the following editorial utterance in that journal, of April 27, plainly indicates:—

The capitalist papers can no longer conceal the truth or misrepresent the facts. The working class in France is rising nobly to the demands of the international movement. These are the heirs of the proletariat in the revolutions of the last century, the sturdy sons of the patriotic sires who were shot and sabred in the Commune by Gallifet at the command of the brutal bourgeoisie. Over all the wires flash the reports of the triumphant march of the hosts of emancipation.

Thus holding before the laboring class of this generation the prospect of release from the capitalistic class, the deceiver of souls is ensnaring millions with his “new religion.” It is the religion of salvation by works and by force. It is a religion without an atonement, a salvation that can promise little here and nothing beyond the grave. Yet myriads of people are flocking to it to be saved from their misery without a change of heart. Instead of giving its cloak also to the man who demands its coat, its doctrine is to stand stiffly for its own rights and demand a division of the hoards of the wealthy. And it grows—this movement that is compassing the world and building a brotherhood of the dissatisfied in all the nations. It is one of the signs of our times, plainly depicted in Holy Writ, and it is marshaling the people for the final separation. Hearts are not changed by legislation and by force, and souls can not be saved by the dogmas of socialism. If socialism should succeed in dominating the earth, it never could eradicate from the hearts of men a single evil that it now condemns. The gospel of Jesus Christ alone has the power to accomplish that miracle.