We publish a statement we received.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Against crisis and militarization! Forward in the construction of the revolutionary movement!
On the 1st of May, the day of struggle of the international working class, we revolutionaries march under our red flag amid the sharp intensification of the general crisis of imperialism. Imperialism, the final stage of capitalism, proves that it is a dying system that has nothing to offer the broad masses of the world but misery and destruction. We march shoulder to shoulder with our comrades around the world, demonstrating that the world’s workers and oppressed peoples constitute the majority that will build the world of the future.
This crisis is also evident in Finland. According to a report published by Soste in March, the number of people “at risk of poverty or social exclusion” has increased by 120,000 since 2019, even though the goal has been to reduce this figure by 100,000 by 2030. According to the report, there are 958,000 people in Finland who, for example, cannot afford to pay rent, mortgage payments or bills on time, or who are unable to keep their homes warm enough. According to Soste, it is likely that this trend will continue and the number of people at “risk of poverty” will exceed one million.
Already in 2023, it was reported that 10% of the population in Finland owns half of all wealth. According to Statistics Finland, in every survey, the wealth of this segment of the population has increased, while the wealth of other segments has decreased. Internationally, the 12 richest people in the world own as much as the poorest half.
As the pace of work accelerates in the workplace and markets are flooded with products pushed onto them, consumers can no longer afford these goods. This is reflected in a record number of bankruptcies, as well as a record number of credit defaults. Over 385,000 Finns have a credit default on their record. This indicates that efforts are being made to offset increased productivity by encouraging borrowing and creating new “necessities.” This indicates that the current economic crisis is specifically a crisis of overproduction, at the heart of which lies the fact that the enrichment of a small group requires the exploitation of the majority’s labor and the suppression of wages at an ever-accelerating pace.
Inflation is accelerating as the bourgeoisie attempts to shift the burden of the costs of the wars it unleashes on the masses, in an effort to hold on to its profits. Inflation is accelerating faster than expected. Food prices are projected to rise by an estimated 2.5% annually this year and next. Food prices are already high in Finland, and they have risen sharply in recent years. It is to be expected that rising energy prices will have a major impact on the intensification of the struggle, particularly in the oppressed nations, where rising oil prices will significantly exacerbate the poverty of the working-class and peasant masses. This will also have a significant impact on the further intensification of the crisis of Finnish imperialism.
Orpo government has taken a hard-line approach to implementing measures aimed at resolving the crisis of Finnish imperialism. These measures have been specifically designed to increase the supply of labor, thereby enabling the suppression of wages and the acceleration of the pace of work in the workplace—in other words, to intensify exploitation. At the same time, efforts have been made to bring in foreign labor from countries such as India, the Philippines, and Brazil. Many measures of stricter ”immigration policy”, for example, regarding residence permits and social security for immigrants, have further intensified competition for jobs. Furthermore, ability of the working class to fight back has been weakened by the removal of the right of political strike. Elections are portrayed as the only way for influence, yet no one to monitors whether the promises made are kept, and no party can offer any real solution to the crisis unfolding as part of the general crisis of imperialism—the final, parasitic, and dying phase of capitalism. The bourgeoisie wants by all means to prevent the working class from developing its own, independent movement.
Everywhere, imperialists are beating the drums of war to protect the interests of a small group of exploiters. They are launching new wars of aggression against oppressed nations to seize new markets and sources of raw materials and cheap labor in order to resolve their own crises. They demonstrate that the sovereignty of nations, democracy, and human rights apply only to a small portion of the world’s population, just as in slave-owning societies only the free were considered human.
It is the military-industrial complex that is booming, while other industries suffer from declining demand. Patria, for example, has posted a new record profit. Its revenue has grown by 45.2% compared to the previous year. While the government continues to prepare new cuts targeting, among other things, social and health services, there is plenty of money for military spending. We are told that we must live and die for the sake of the bourgeois state, even though it has nothing to offer us but misery. The government has secretly prepared a legislative amendment that would allow nuclear weapons to be brought into Finland, specifically to support NATO operations.
In interviews with foreign media, the President of Finland openly states that the strength of Finnish imperialism lies in its conscript army and its location in close proximity to Russia’s key nuclear weapons. In this way, he declares that Finnish imperialism is the most willing to send its working class to die in an imperialist war, justifying why the United States should take it into account in its plans, why it should be part of the imperialist division of spoils. Society is being militarized at an accelerating pace, creating scare scenarios of a military threat against Finland. As a result of Ukraine’s legitimate actions against the imperialist aggressor, a few drones fell on Finland, giving the bourgeoisie an excuse to stir up panic, justify accelerating the arms race, call reservists to training, and promote various national defense courses. Every day, the media feeds us images of the threat of war.
The First World War gave birth to the Soviet Union; the Second World War, in turn, gave rise to the vast socialist camp. We revolutionaries do not fear a world war. We must focus on the revolution, for it will either prevent a world war or emerge from it. If the imperialists want to start such a slaughter, if they even want to unleash the horrors of nuclear war, it will be their end.
The main trend in the world is revolution, for the masses are the makers of history, not a small band of exploiters.
Further proof of this is the fact that the International Anti-Imperialist League was founded in Colombia in early April. This organization was born out of struggle, a testament to the defiance of oppressed peoples: the congress had to be moved from Ecuador at a week’s notice due to the escalating war against the people in the country, waged in the name of the fight against “narcoterrorism.” Anti-imperialists from 14 different countries united in the “backyard” of U.S. imperialism, declaring the need and readiness to fight against it and all other imperialists. It demonstrated the power of the determination of oppressed peoples to remove all obstacles in their path.
We must unite all possible forces in this struggle. Israel and its imperialist master, the United States, are striving to brutally crush the national liberation struggle in Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East, but in reality they have only piled more fuel onto the fire. They no longer even pretend; they are carrying out open genocide and other crimes with no attempt at concealment. This has also inspired large numbers of people in Finland to show their solidarity with the struggle of the peoples in Palestine, but also in Lebanon, Iran, Sudan, and Ukraine, as well as in other oppressed nations. Anger is growing: why is Finland doing nothing to condemn these crimes? Why does it continue to trade arms with a state that is committing genocide? The momentum gained by the Palestine movement in particular demonstrates how the Palestinian national resistance—which has shown that in war, people decide the outcome, not weapons—has dealt a powerful blow to the face of imperialism. It shows that even in imperialist countries, masses are rising up to oppose the reality of imperialism, that an instinctive consciousness is forming which recognizes the significance of the anti-imperialist struggle of the oppressed nations. The Anti-Imperialist League, in which organizations from oppressed nations play a significant role, serves to develop this consciousness in order to support, in particular, the struggle of oppressed nations against imperialism.
Here in Finland, we proletarian revolutionaries are fighting for a socialist revolution. That is how we can strike a blow against Finnish imperialism. Finland is not innocent simply because it is a weaker imperialist power than the United States, for example: it benefits from the subjugation of oppressed nations.
A very significant way in which it seeks to profit from oppressed nations is by bringing in cheap labor, taking advantage of the mass migration set in motion by imperialism. The Confederation of Finnish Industries has repeatedly called for more immigration, and the government program also includes a commitment to recruit “international experts” from countries such as India and the Philippines. What is the reality that awaits these masses, who are often highly educated or pursuing higher education in Finland? Conditions comparable to slavery, where their desperation is mercilessly exploited to line the pockets of Finnish financial capital. The importation of labor, on the one hand, and the inflaming of racism and stricter immigration policy, on the other, complement each other. They serve to divide the working class into domestic and foreign workers, in order to prevent their class-conscious unification against the bourgeoisie. This exploitation of foreign workers has also been championed by the so-called left-wing parties as a supposed solution to the crisis of the welfare state. How could we revolutionaries demand that a part of the Finnish working class be allowed to live a privileged, comfortable life at the expense of the world’s majority, to live in a crumbling utopia in the midst of a dying system? We cannot. We must expose the actions of Finnish imperialism around the world and, at home, build and defend the class-conscious unity of the working class against the bourgeoisie.
The welfare state is a utopia that is simply no longer sustainable. For decades, even under so-called left-wing governments, there has been no significant change in the status of workers. We have seen nothing but deterioration, and in fact, it is precisely the left-wing governments that have paved the way for increasingly harsh measures against workers, as happened under the guise of the corona pandemic during the Marin government: the background to the restrictions on the right to strike and the justification for trampling on fundamental rights in the name of crisis lies precisely here. Real wages have been stagnant for nearly 20 years. The working class is not the most suffering victim, but the class that will abolish all classes—for class division was justified only as long as it was impossible to secure a livelihood for all members of society. The enormous development of productive forces brought about by capitalism has made this possible, but private ownership still holds back this immense potential. Why, then, should the working class—that class which owns nothing but has created everything through its labor—be content with mere crumbs? Why could it not transform the whole of society in its own image? Our founders, Marx and Engels, were already very clear on this: a revolution is needed, a fundamental transformation of society. The working class must seize political power.
Today, the communist parties leading the People’s Wars in Peru, Turkey, the Philippines, and India are marching at the forefront of the world revolution. In India, despite the massacres and the assassination of the General Secretary of the Party, Comrade Basaravaj, the old Indian state has failed to crush the People’s War: the reactionaries have been forced to admit the losses suffered by their forces, even though it declared this so-called “worst internal security threat” to have been crushed in March. The People’s Wars are proof that the path to power for the working class is long and rocky, but under the leadership of the Communist Party, guided by the ideology of the proletariat, and firmly relying on the people’s own strength, they will overcome all difficulties, for objectively, imperialism is a dying system that will sooner or later be consigned to the dustbin of history, just like all other systems of exploitation before it.
The imperialists and their lackeys fail in their objectives. Russia is bogged down in its war of aggression in Ukraine, where negotiations on the partition of the country have still not progressed as the national resistance continues. The United States went to war in Iran with great fanfare, but despite all the assassinations, atrocities, and crimes committed by it and Israel, it is getting bogged down; this demonstrates weakness, not strength. In Palestine and Lebanon, Israel has failed to crush the national resistance. The Palestinian people continue to stand defiant against the occupier.
Today, a revolutionary storm is rising from the oppressed nations. Sooner or later, it will sweep over Finland as well. We cannot demand special privileges or remain on the sidelines of the world’s storms. We must move forward toward socialism; we must be prepared for the explosion of mass struggle. The times we live in call for us to move forward fearlessly and with confidence in building the revolutionary movement in response to the deepening crisis of the imperialist system, seeing that the world is not at peace, that masses are on the move everywhere, everywhere they are seeking revolution, everywhere they are rising up in massive explosions—this is visible, if one is willing to see it. It is time to clear all obstacles from our path and build a powerful revolutionary movement.
To the streets on the 1st of May against crisis and militarization!
1st of May – the day of struggle of the international working class!
Down with the butcher State! Forwards in the construction of the revolutionary movement!
It is right to rebel!
The Red Action
April 2026
