The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-04-22
For a Workingclass Policy in the
Co-operatives
BY Fred Ellis
How the Present Right Deviation Has
Developed.

How the Present Right Deviation Has
Developed.
This is now the third differentiation in the
process of rehabilitation in which the Finnish
labor movement of America has passed during
the last Is years. The first differentiation
took place in 1914 with the exit of the I. w.
w. followers from the Finnish Federation Of
the socialist party, and with the grouping
around the "Industrialisti" Some of the most
militant l. w. w. elements returned after
few years again to the socialist party until,
under the influence of the Russian Revolu-
tion-and the revolutionary fighting in Fin
land-during the liquidation of the war, new
differentiation had begun, which, toward the
end of 1920, brought about the withdrawal of
the entire Finnish organization from the So
cialist party At the same time the social
democrats, grouped around the newspaper
"Ravaya" withdrew from the main organiza-
ton of the Finnish workers, and, together
with the followers still grouped around the
"Industralst," remained to represent
purely bourgeois land at the same time anti
Soviet) labor government among the Firms of
America. The main part of the Finnish or
ganzation together with three daily news
papers), on the contrary, went over to the
Communist movement, which had just begun.
After this the Communist activities of the
Firms were conducted with rather lively revo-
lutionary enthusiasm, although within too mar
row. boundaries, which due to the infan~
tile sickness of Communism particularly ex-
cessive conspiracy, which at that time him
dered the whole Communist movement of the
United States. But after the underground
work was entirely substituted by legal activ-
ity, when the Workers Party was founded
and the Finnish Federation completely affili-
ated to it, the life and activity of the Fin
nsh organizations grew numb and actually
became the same as they had been earlier in
the socialist party, although outwardly (and
in their own behalf) they now stood under
the revolutionary Communist banner.
This numbness, anaemea and even opportu-
nistic state of stagnation, naturally, was
linked up with partial sterilization, achieved
by postwar capitalism in its second period,
which in the United States had manifested
itself as comparatively the strongest. The
prosperity of United States capitalism in
this second period enabled the bourgeoisie,
with the help of the American Federation of
Labor, to paralize the fighting capacity of the
broad masses sufficient to introduce, without
any general resistance the most outrageous
system of exploitation of human labor under
the name of decentralization of industry.
grants into the country was stopped, a Sec
ton of those who had arrived earlier began
to hope for somewhat better work, hoped to
obtain the position of at least semi-skilled
workers, and, although in reality only a few
individuals, at best, could succeed in that,
this circumstance helped to spread among
some of the workers petty-bourgeois individu-
alist psychology of grabbing everything one
could get This influence began to have it's
effect on certain (although not large) sections
of the Finnish workers of the United States,
since some Of them also had obtained slightly
better positions or had engaged in small I'M
dertakngs, or had found some way of secur-
ing some permanent additional earnings, and
thus raised their status as consumer to
petty-bourgeois level Ito the level of small
clerk for example,, obtained the possibility of
sending their children to bourgeois high schools
or acquired, as kind of haven against unenl-
ployment, a farm, which. some of them, by
their labor, had succeeded in making pay, etc.
Although the social dsmocratic "Ravaya"