On the Political Mobilization of the Agrarian Population in Finland: Problems and Hypotheses
Authors: ALAPURO RISTO 
Published: April 2008

The hypotheses and suggestions laid out in the preceding pages have as their premiss the view that the political mobilization of the agrarian population in Finland could and should be studied by analyzing regional variations in the changeover from peasant to farmer. What were the major shifts in the institutional context within which men had to make their choices? What were the emerging alternative institutions, and could the peasant make a viable commitment to them when he could no longer rely on his accustomed institutional arrangements? No area remained outside this process of change‐over which in Finland gathered momentum in the 1870s. However, the dissolution of the traditional institutional structures took place in different ways and to a different extent in each region of the country.

This paper has suggested that the most appropriate starting point is provided by the differential impact of the forest industry in the countryside. The fact that some areas were overwhelmed by the boom and other areas were not has importance as such. Yet the structure and nature of the peasant communities which experienced the boom affected the mode of its impact. Because these factors are intertwined with so many others, it is difficult to assess their importance; therefore the following suggestions may well need modification. Certainly one of the important problems in need of further study is how, in a concrete way, the prior and also contemporaneous ‐ indications of the market orientation among peasants through grain and butter sales were related to the impact of the timber boom.

In Ostrobothnia and the province of Viipuri the impact of the rise of the forest industry was not essential to political mobilization. In those areas, the prevailing social organization was preserved and political mobilization took place within this framework: consequently, the Conservatives and/or the Agrarian Union found strong support in these areas. Specific conditions in these two regions ‐ which in some respects bore marks of backwardness' ‐ became increasingly pronounced, because political mobilization was making comparisons within the national framework relevant for the first time. More than elsewhere, the prevailing arrangements were undermined in the southwestern and eastern regions. In the southwest, lumbering had decisively contributed to a class conflict between different agrarian groups ‐ hence the strong support for the Social Democrats and Conservatives. Ant capitalist feelings were strong also in the east. However, they did not become manifest in relations between agrarian groups, but rather in relation to an outsider, the economic mediator through which capitalism intruded into the eastern countryside. The timber companies had the central role in mediation; ant capitalism was partly socialist and partly peasantist by nature.

To conclude: where capitalism intruded into the countryside through lumbering, the Social Democrats received heavy support indicating the heightening of class conflict in those regions. In regions where class conflict was manifest in the relations between agrarian groups, the Social Democratic support was accompanied by support for the Conservatives; in those areas where the conflict brought by capitalism manifested more in relations between the agrarian population and the outside economic agent, Social Democratic support was accompanied by support for the Agrarian Union. On the other hand, in those areas where capitalism did not intrude into the countryside through lumbering and where there was no sharp break with the past, the Agrarian Union alone, or the Agrarian Union and the Conservatives together, gained the most support.