On this day in 1918, the Finnish People's Delegation declared a socialist workers' republic (known "Red Finland"), at the start of the Finnish Civil War. The burgeoning working class movement was crushed by imperialist German forces.
Prior to 1917, Finland had been ruled as a Grand Duchy, an autonomous part of the Russian Empire. With the collapse of the Tsarist state in the wake of February Revolution and a long-term increase in nationalist sentiment, Finland declared independence on December 4th, 1917, formally recognized by the Russian Bolsheviks on December 31st.
Due to industrialized Finland having a strong revolutionary labor movement, conservative and proletarian forces were immediately thrown into conflict.
Red Guard paramilitary units representing the labor movement found themselves in a cycle of escalation with loyalist "White" Guards, culminating in a mass uprising of Reds in Helsinki on January 27th, 1918, marking the start of revolution. The following day, the Finnish People's Delegation was formed by members of the Social Democratic Party. Bourgeois forces fled to Vaasa, where they set up their own "White Senate".
The war saw the Whites, under the leadership of General Mannerheim, receive support from the German Empire, which was more well-established than the Reds' primary ally, the newly-created Russian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Following an imperialist intervention by Germany on the side of the Whites in March 1918, the war ended in defeat for the Reds in May. Over 12,000 people perished from starvation and hunger while imprisoned in White-operated POW camps, and reparations were not paid to former victims of the White Terror until 1973.
Lessons of the Finnish Revolution of 1917–1918
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Is it good? I like Wright but I thought it looked kind of lame I was really shocked to see it was nominated for best picture
It's very funny, but I guess it's a little bit superficial. Like just screaming its message at you the entire time.
I guess I was a little concerned from the trailer than there would be a sort of a sneering at poor black people, that there's an implied hierarchy that books written by rich educated people are obviously better and that it's some sort of obvious injustice being done to educated writers that people are reading books written by poor people. Are the politics of the movie good?
It's tough to tell the intent. It does make fun of the expectation that white consumers have forcing rich black writers to essentially do caricatures of poor black people. It's possible that the writer of the movie intended to mean it's debasing to have to do these caricatures because the writers are above it all, but making every black writer in the show clearly come from affluent backgrounds can't really have been a coincidence. So I think a part of the commentary may well be that poor black voices are left unheard under the current structure.
Is this about the new movie of the author writing a "Black" Book? I am gonna try and see it in theaters. But I was following up with MF_COOM about the book club info he requested.
Oooh that makes sense! Yeah it is. As I said it's a funny movie, but commenting about the politics is complicated because some things can be up for interpretation.
Sent you a DM!
I want to see your take as well.