The League of Communists or Communist League ( fi, Kommunistien Liitto) is a Finnish
Marxist-Leninist political organization. The League of Communists was founded in 14.9.2002 by the Communists who were expelled from the
For Peace and Socialism - Communist Workers Party (KTP). The organization was at first known as, plainly, ''Communists'' (Kommunistit) but the name was changed to its current form during the registration process.
The dispute in the KTP arose as part of its Central Committee wished the party would join a new electoral alliance party (
Forces for Change in Finland VS in which right-wing organizations were also participating. The majority led by chairman
Hannu Harju did not approve of this and the Central Committee voted (18-9) against the initiative. The minority, including the Helsinki district organization, the main force behind the project, chose not to respect the decision, and it was expelled. The expelled Helsinki district later participated in the founding of the MVS. Some notable persons among the expelled were
Heikki Männikkö (the party secretary),
Reijo Katajaranta (the editor-in-chief of the KTP organ) and
Pekka Tiainen (the 1994 presidential candidate). In 2005, the (former) Turku district organization of the KTP joined the League of Communists.
Both parties adhere to traditional orthodox
Marxism-Leninism and support, for example,
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...
as an anti-imperialist bastion. The KTP has, however, chosen not to cooperate with their former comrades who they regard as revisionist traitors. The League of Communists has had to find their allies elsewhere. The MVS was no success and after the
general elections of 2003 the league has collaborated with several organizations, like the
Communist Party of Finland
The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.
The SKP was banned ...
(SKP) on whose list the League of Communists candidates stood in the elections to European Parliament in 2004. The only elected local councillor of the league,
Antti Siika-Aho, stood (in 2004) as a
Left Alliance candidate.
As the new organization was set in motion, a newspaper, called ''
Kansan Ääni'', was also founded. The
bimonthly paper, the editor-in-chief of which is Reijo Katajaranta, looks very similar to KTP's ''
Työkansan Sanomat''. ''Kansan Ääni'' is also published by two other organizations controlled by members of the League of Communists. These are the
People's Front Against European Union (EUVKr) and
Work Against War and Fascism (SFT), the latter of which was founded after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
by former Communist resistance fighters.
Since its beginning the League of Communists has been led by
Kalevi Wahrman whose board includes only men. The organization acts like a political party although it is not officially registered as one, an option which, however, has not been excluded.
See also
External links
*
Statement to the Brother Parties and International Communist Movement(14.6.2002)
**
'
{{DEFAULTSORT:League of Communists (Finland)
Workers Party of Finland
Political schisms