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Communist Party of Finland
Name in Finnish	Suomen kommunistinen puolue (yhtenäisyys)
Name in Swedish	Finlands kommunistiska parti
Leader	Yrjö Hakanen
Founded	1986, 1997
Headquarters	Haapaniemenkatu 7 - 9 B FIN-00530 HELSINKI
Political Ideology	Communism
Political Position	Radical left
European Affiliation	European Left (observer)
International Affiliation	World Communist Movement
Colours	Red
Website	www.skp.fi
See also	Finnish Politics Finnish Parliament Finnish Government Finnish President Political parties Elections

Communist Party of Finland (Unity) (Finnish: Suomen kommunistinen puolue (yhtenäisyys), SKPy) is a Finnish political party. It was founded in August 1986 by former opposition of Communist Party of Finland (Suomen kommunistinen puolue, SKP). The opposition and the organizations it had under its control were expelled from SKP led by Arvo Aalto in 1985–1986. The opposition, however, didn't accept those expulsions and it continued to function and consider itself as the real SKP. Before SKPy was formed they were known as Central Committee of SKP Organizations.

Contents 1 History 1.1 The opposition of SKP 1.2 The founding of SKPy 1.3 KTP withdraws from SKPy 1.4 The founding of Left Alliance 1.5 Dispute over double membership 1.6 The “new” SKP 2 SKPy and Soviet Union 3 Publicity 4 Organization 4.1 Deva – SKPy's electoral front 5 Elections results 5.1 Parliament elections 5.2 Local council elections 5.3 European Parliament elections 6 Chairmen 7 External links

The internal conflict of SKP began in mid-1960s, when the party, with its new chairman Aarne Saarinen began to modernize the party line. One part of party supporters didn't accept this and accused SKP leadership of being revisionist. SKP didn't break up in the 1960s and it was formally united until mid-1980s. After SKP's 20th party congress in 1984 things changed as Arvo Aalto was elected chairman, after which the opposition didn't participate in (or was left out of) the central committee. The opposition, which was also known as “taistolaisuus”, had already called supporters of Aalto “axe liners” for years.

The central committee of SKP expelled eight opposition district organizations from the party October 13, 1985. 494 other party departments and 17 city or regional organizations were expelled June 13, 1986, which the expelled then dubbed “Black Friday”. The opposition didn't accept these moves and considered them against the law. They took the conflict to courts and because of minor technicalities Helsingin Hovioikeus court overruled SKP's decision June 11, 1987. SKP then re-expelled these same organizations in its 21st party congress (June 12–14, 1987). However, a week before this happened, the newly founded SKPy held its own “21st” party congress. The ambiguities of expelling process and opposition's firm belief in its own cause gave it the justification it needed and they considered SKPy to be the real SKP. They claimed Aalto had illegally seized the party with “paper members”. SKPy was never taken to the official party register of Finland as the party considered that to have been voluntary resignation and admission of SKPy not being the real SKP.

April 26, 1986 meeting of representatives of SKP organizations was held in Tampere and those present chose a central committee. Leader of the new central committee was Taisto Sinisalo, former vice chairman of SKP and the most well known figure of the opposition, who already had lead Committee of SKP Organizations found in November 1985. In SKPy's 21st party congress Sinisalo was re-elected. Yrjö Hakanen and Marja-Liisa Löyttyjärvi became vice chairmen while former SKP chairman Jouko Kajanoja was elected party secretary. In his congress speech, Sinisalo told the suffix “unity” meant “strong intention to gather all forces of SKP”. The congress, however, also was heading to future and building of a new party, or “rebuilding” as they thought it. Before the name SKPy was adopted the party was known in media as the unity or Tiedonantaja group.

In the late 1970s the opposition of SKP began to split as those supporting more traditional version of Marxism-Leninism began to criticize opposition leaders. When it was decided that SKPy would not be registered as an official party, some communists protested and demanded a new registered communist party. They thought SKPy was clinging to unity slogan in a situation where it no longer seemed realistic. In the 1987 party congress, these people were warned by the SKPy leadership but they chose to ignore those warnings and oriented themselves toward founding a new party. For Peace and Socialism - Communist Workers Party (Rauhan ja sosialismin puolesta – Kommunistinen työväenpuolue, KTP) was founded early in the year 1988. Founders of KTP felt to be securing the existence of a Marxist-Leninist party in Finland while criticizing SKPy for being revisionist and supporting Mikhail Gorbachev. The most famous figure in the new party was probably Markus Kainulainen, a longtime SKP district secretary of Uusimaa.

Esko-Juhani Tennilä, a member of the Parliament of Finland, was elected new chairman of SKPy October 22, 1989 when Kajanoja decided to resign while strongly criticizing his comrades. Tennilä has later told he took the job to secure that the founding of a new united left party would not be sabotaged by his own party comrades many of which were quite critical of it. The Left Alliance (Vasemmistoliitto) was founded in spring 1990 and members of SKPy and its electoral front Deva also joined even though prejudices were very high on both sides at this point.

Many people in the Left Alliance didn't like SKPy members coming to the party. It was thus decided that SKPy members couldn't participate in the LA's electoral lists, even though they could be members. Because of this, Tennilä also had to quit his job as party chairman when joining LA group in parliament. Yrjö Hakanen was chosen Tennilä's successor. The dispute over double membership, as it was called, led to many SKPy members leaving LA and relations between the two parties got even colder. On the other hand, many (if not most?) former SKPy members were actively participating in LA.

In its 1993 party congress (August 28–29) SKPy clearly oriented towards founding a new officially registered communist party and drafting of a new party program. New party logo was also introduced to mark renewal. It was suggested that a congress to continue SKP's work should be held and that happened next year (November 26–27). In that congress the suffix “unity” was dropped from the name as SKPy now considered to consist of all those comrades who wanted to have an independent communist party. An athletic club was made the basis of new organization and renamed SKP. The decision split the party as some supporters would have preferred SKP to have a lesser role as “Marxist forum” of some kind. Leadership of Left Alliance was also not pleased with those plans. SKP would have wanted to stay inside LA but that wasn't possible and the parties split already in spring 1994. SKP wasn't however “re-registered” until 1997. There was some confusion, as the new SKP didn't accept responsibility for debts of the old one, which had gone bankrupt in the late 1980s.

SKPy was very committed to Soviet Union and the political line of its communist party (CPSU), which was going through great changes during Gorbachev's time. SKPy supported perestroika but criticized those who claimed to have been gorbachevist even before Gorbachev's time. SKPy claimed SKP to be anti-SU and tried to give Finnish people as positive a picture as possible of that country. When SKP split the monetary support from Soviet Union was halted and, for example, the very profitable publishing deals SKP had gone to SKPy. Gorbachev's CPSU however had relations with both parties.

The main organ of SKPy was Tiedonantaja, which had already served as opposition's main paper from the 1960s. Tiedonantaja was also an organ of Deva when it existed (1986-1990). The editor-in-chief was Erkki Susi, who still runs the paper. SKPy and Deva also had some local papers.

As SKPy considered itself to be the real SKP it also had the same organizational structure. It was based on Leninist principle of democratic centralism.

While SKPy was never officially registered, its supporters founded Democratic Alternative (Demokraattinen vaihtoehto, Deva), which participated in elections. Those MPs of Finnish People's Democratic League (Suomen kansan demokraattinen liitto, SKDL, a front organization dominated by SKP) who were against expulsions were expelled from SKDL and they found parliamentary group of Deva. Deva was SKPy's SKDL and it was supposed to attract some democratic allies. The very small Socialist Workers Party (Sosialistinen työväenpuolue, STP) did join Deva but it was closed down soon after that. Young supporters of SKPy founded Revolutionary Youth League (Vallankumouksellinen nuorisoliitto, VKN) which was Deva's youth organization. SKDL's Socialist Student League (Sosialistinen opiskelijaliitto, SOL) also joined. Deva was led by actress Kristiina Halkola.

In 1987 parliamentary elections Deva got 4.3% of votes and four MPs. In 1988 presidential elections Deva candidate Jouko Kajanoja got 1.6%. Not even all members of SKPy supported Kajanoja who was the party chairman then. Deva was closed down in 1990 when Left Alliance was founded and its members joined the new party.

Year	MPs	Votes	Share of votes
1999	0	20 442	0,75%
2003	0	21 079	0,75%
2007	0	18 277	0,65%

Year	Councillors	Votes	Share of votes
2000	14	10 460	0,47%
2004	16	12 844	0,53%

Year	MEPs	Votes	Share of votes
1999	0	7 556	0,61%
2004	0	10 134	0,61%

• Taisto Sinisalo (1986–1988)
• Jouko Kajanoja (1988–1989)
• Esko-Juhani Tennilä (1989–1990)
• Yrjö Hakanen (1990–1994...)

• Suomen kommunistinen puolue — The official site of "new" SKP. (Finnish)
• Tiedonantaja (Finnish)

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Centre Party - Christian Democrats in Finland - Green League - Left Alliance - National Coalition Party - Social Democratic Party of Finland - Swedish People's Party - True Finns Communist Party of Finland - Finnish Seniors' Party - For Peace and Socialism - Communist Workers Party - Workers Party of Finland
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