The folling is the original speech of the comrades from Punalippu from Finnland.
Speech at Karl Marx 200 Celebration in Bremen by Finnish Comrades from Punalippu
Dear comrades of the International Communist Movement and all our friends who have gathered here today! On behalf of Finnish comrades of the Red Flag Collective, I want to present our red salute to this 200 year celebration of the birth of Karl Marx. We are honored of having been invited to this event and of having this opportunity to participate in celebrating our great founder.
This bicentenary coincides with the centenary of the Workers' Revolution and Class War in Finland 1918, which we celebrated in January. Their mutual historical and ideological significance is much greater than their coincidence in the same year. Hundred years ago Marxism was incompletely grasped by the Finnish proletariat, whose social-democratic leadership was dominated by Kautskyism. The political work of the Bolshevik Party and the theoretical contributions of the great Lenin were not well known, except for their friendly stance on the Finnish labour movement and the right to national self-determination of Finland, which until the Great Socialist October Revolution was a colony of the Russian empire.
In the Finnish Class War, the proletarian masses fought heroically for the conquest of the Power. The war was lost to the white-guardist proto-fascist counterrevolution, but it was the highest point so far in the class struggle in Finland. The defeat was caused mainly by the lack of Leftist leadership in the Party, which suffered from Rightist sabotage and mainly Centrist vacillation. This was manifested in the lack of determination, initiative, and preparedness, which are of decisive importance in revolutionary warfare. These elements were neglected despite the teachings of Marx and Engels, which stressed the preparation for revolutionary war and pointed the need of the proletariat to have its own military theory. Now we have the military theory, established by Chairman Mao it is the People's War.
For a century we have lived under the consequences of the defeat that is, under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The solution, of course, is the socialist revolution aiming towards the final emancipation of the proletariat in forever golden communism. The defeat, however, taught Finnish communists the necessity of a Party of a new type, which was constituted in August 1918 and which we will celebrate while highlighting the heavy lessons of losing it to modern revisionism since 1944. As self-evident as the necessity of the socialist revolution and the Party that leads it in an all-round way, is that Marxism has developed through two great leaps since then and is now Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
In synthesis, we stand for the reconstitution of the glorious Communist Party of Finland as a Maoist party of the proletariat, and we are devoted to working whole-heartedly towards this delayed aim of strategic significance for the revolution. We hold that the key is to grasp, defend, and apply Marxist principles, established originally by Marx and Engels 170 years ago in the Communist Manifesto, which still is the programme of the international proletariat. Today the Marxist principles can only be realized as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, principally Maoism, including also the universal contributions of Chairman Gonzalo. As proletarian internationalists we struggle for revolution in our own imperialist home country as part of and in service of the World Proletarian Revolution, supporting the revolutionary line in all countries, as it weakens our common enemy imperialism. As we celebrate today in the middle of the ever deepening decay of capitalism-imperialism, may the immortal figure of Karl Marx ever more clearly guide our class in its war, the people's war, until communism.
In conclusion, we want to raise the following slogans:
For the reconstitution of the Communist Party of Finland!
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
Thank you!
