Taistoism
Taistoism (from Finnish taistoa, "to struggle") was the pro-Soviet current within the Finnish Communist Party (SKP) from the 1960s–1980s, centered on Taisto Sinisalo — the hardline Marxist-Leninist wing opposing the party's Eurocommunist drift.
Content
- Defense of the Soviet Union against both Western anti-communism and internal revisionism; loyalty to Moscow during the Sino-Soviet and Czechoslovak crises (the Taistoists backed the 1968 invasion).
- Strongholds in the trade unions, Tampere, and the youth league; the minority published Tiedonantaja.
- The SKP's eventual split (mid-1980s) and collapse in 1990 ended the current.
Analytical use
Taistoism matters to Infrared as the case of loyal opposition inside a bourgeois-parliamentary framework: Finnish communists operated legally within NATO-adjacent social democracy ("Finlandization"), gaining institutional weight while losing strategic direction. The lesson drawn is double-edged — legality without state power breeds revisionism; but the Taistoist current also demonstrated that small nations' communist parties could anchor mass working-class culture (see Gomułka Thought, Socialism With a Human Face).