Industrialisti

"Industrialisti" was the official Finnish language daily newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Published by the Workers' Socialist Publishing Company in Duluth, Minnesota, the paper existed as the Finnish voice of industrial unionism from 1918 to 1975, although the last years of the paper's existence were characterised by irregular and infrequent publishing. At its peak, the paper printed around 10 000 copies per run and was the only daily paper in the history of the Industrial Workers of the World.

The readership was mainly in Northern Minnesota, Northern Ontario, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula; areas with high concentrations of Finnish immigrants employed in industries like logging and mining where Wobbly influence was the strongest. The two most significant communities were Duluth, Minnesota and Port Arthur, Ontario (now Thunder Bay, Ontario). These communities featured significant Wobbly infrastructure such as the Work People's College in Duluth and the Finnish Labour Temple in Port Arthur (which also housed Industrialisti's Canadian News Agency), as well as a network of worker and consumer co-operatives and active union locals.

In the early days, the paper included a "Young Peoples Section," which ran every Tuesday and was entirely in English aiming at second- and third-generation, young Finnish-Americans and Finnish-Canadians, and members of the Junior Wobblies. Wobbly humourist and Finnish-American T-Bone Slim was a regular contributor.

Industrialisti's editorial line can be best summed up as advocating industrial unionism, with a Marxist class analysis and a perspective closely resembling anarcho-syndicalism. The Bolsheviks were harshly condemned for their authoritarianism, as was Leon Trotsky for his role in the Kronstadt Rebellion. During the Spanish Civil War, the paper actively rallied in support of the anarchist labour union the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, appealing to the readership to donate funds directly to the union's supporters rather than to Communist Party dominated aid committees. During the Finnish Winter War and Continuation War with the Soviet Union, the paper helped raise funds for relief efforts in Finland.

External links

* [http://www.genealogia.fi/emi/art/article256e.htm A Dissenting Voice of Finnish Radicals in America: The Formative Years of Sosialisti-Industrialisti in the 1910s]