The Red Declaration ( fi, punainen julistus) is a document published in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

on 14 November 1905, though it was dated under the "old style" calendar used in the Russian Empire at the time as 1 November 1905. It called for the Senate of Finland to resign; demanded

universal suffrage Universal suffrage (also called universal franchise, general suffrage, and common suffrage of the common man) gives the right to vote to all adult citizens, regardless of wealth, income, gender, social status, race, ethnicity, or political stan ...

freedom of assembly Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...

, and

freedom of association Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline mem ...

; as well as asking for an end to

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

. The text was drafted by Yrjö Mäkelin, the chief editor of the Tampere social democratic newspaper ''

Kansan Lehti ''Kansan Lehti'' (Finnish: ''People’s Newspaper'') was a social democratic newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray back ...

'' on 12 November (30 October O.S.), during the time of the general strike in response to the Russian Revolution. It was read out by poet Kössi Lindström on the balcony of Tampere Town Hall on 14 November. The declaration was printed on red paper, from which it got its name; this was not an intentional reference to the political left. The text contained the demands of the workers, but even the constitutionalists endorsed its contents. One of the consequences was a parliamentary reform that gave workers - and even women - the right to vote. Retrieved 23 July 2023

References

External links

Political history of Finland 1905 in Finland {{Finland-poli-stub