Väinö Tanner

Väinö Tanner

Väinö Alfred Tanner (born March 12, 1881 in Helsinki , † April 19, 1966 there ) was a Finnish politician and Prime Minister.

Origin and early years

Väinö Tanner was born on March 12, 1881 and was then still under the family name Thomasson. His father, Gustaf Alfred Thomasson, was a brakeman on the Finnish State Railways . Väinö grew up in simple circumstances in Helsinki, and in contrast to his parents, Väinö was able to go to school in the rapidly developing Finnish education system. From 1892 he attended the Finnish Realgymnasium Helsinki ( Helsingin Suomalainen Reaalilyseo ) founded the previous year, today's Ressu-Gymnasium . He graduated from high school in 1900 as the best in his class.

In 1896 Väinö Thomasson changed his Swedish-speaking family name to Finnish Tanner. His personal motives for this step are unknown. However, at the time, in connection with the debates about Finnish language policy, it was not uncommon to change one's name to a Finnish version. However, this did not become a mass phenomenon until 1906. It was only in that year that Väinö's parents also adopted the name Tanner.

After graduating from high school, Tanner spent a while looking for his professional path. First, he completed a year of study at the newly founded business school ( Liikemiesten kauppaopisto ). Through the agency of the school, he took a job as a clerk in a wholesale company in Tornio in northern Finland in June 1901 . However, Tanner was soon dissatisfied and returned to Helsinki in October, where he enrolled at the University of Helsinki to study law . However, the course did not pick up speed. Instead, he worked for two trading companies in brief episodes until the summer of 1902.

After Tanner was not happy in the private sector, he began to take an interest in the cooperative system on the advice of his former teacher and later economics professor Yrjö Jahnsson . This was still in its infancy in Finland. In the summer of 1902 Tanner traveled to Hamburg to familiarize himself with the conditions there. He received an internship at the Großeinkaufs-Gesellschaft Deutscher Consumvereine (GEG). There he managed to make many contacts, in particular with Heinrich Kaufmann , who became Tanner's teacher and friend. After a year he returned home in September 1903.

In Turku , he became the managing director of Vähäväkisten osuusliike , the largest consumer cooperative in the fledgling Finnish cooperative system. During his two-year tenure as managing director, Tanner vigorously promoted the productivity of the Vähäväkisten osuusliike , but also repeatedly got into disputes with the board of directors over the focus of his administration. The tensions were exacerbated by personal conflicts as well as by displeasure that Tanner repeatedly pursued his own business ventures on the side. The situation culminated in September 1905 when Tanner was dismissed from his post after several stormy general assemblies of the cooperative.

Career before 1917

Development to become a socialist

At a young age Väinö Tanner showed no inclination towards political activity. Tanner biographer Jaakko Paavolainen concludes from a number of circumstances that his ideological standpoint corresponded to the line of the then socially dominant Finnish party and was thus firmly rooted in the existing bourgeois social order. Tanner's worldview only experienced a change during his stay in Hamburg in 1902/03. In the GEG he met numerous socialist -minded work colleagues, attended numerous debates and immersed himself in socialist literature. Väinö Tanner returned to Finland as a socialist.

After his return, Tanner joined the Social Democratic Party of Finland ( Suomen sosialidemokraattinen puolue , SDP) - this had emerged immediately in August 1903 from the Finnish Workers' Party, which was founded in 1899. After his discharge from the service of Vähäväkisten osuusliike left Tanner the commercial area and took a job as editor- in in Vyborg based newspaper Wiipuri . This paper was close to the Finnish party, but had several socialist-minded editors. When the in October 1905 revolutionary unrest in Russia to a general strike came to a head, the newspaper sent Tanner rapporteur to Saint Petersburg . Tanner made a name for himself nationwide with his extensive reports. At the same time, the events were an inspiring and radicalizing experience for Tanner.

The Social Democratic Party convention held in Oulu in August 1906 prohibited party members from working as editors for newspapers belonging to other parties. At the instigation of his comrade from his time in Turku, Juho Rainio , and the seasoned party politician Eetu Salin , Tanner joined the party organ Sosialidemokraatti in Pori in November 1906 . A close contact developed with Salin up to an almost two-month stay in Salin's country house, where he wanted to recover from his alcohol consumption, which had gotten out of control. The intensive discussions with Salin, who was a representative of reformist socialism , were formative for Tanner according to his autobiographical statements.

First years in parliament

When elections to the reformed, single-chamber parliament were held for the first time in 1907 , Tanner was put up as a candidate by the Social Democratic Party in the Pori constituency and was also given a mandate. In the following years, in which the parliament was repeatedly dissolved and re-elected, Tanner's mandate was confirmed. It was not until the elections in early 1911 that Tanner initially no longer stood for election. During Tanner's first parliamentary period, the young MP did not yet occupy a prominent position politically. Due to his above-average school education compared to the other members of the parliamentary group, however, he was elected to the formally elevated position of parliamentary group secretary from the start.

Already at this time, ideological fundamental debates came to light for social democratic politics, in which the later split in the labor movement became apparent. On the one hand, the question arose whether the socialist ideology of the class struggle even allows participation in the bourgeois parliamentary system and, for example, to grant taxes to the bourgeois government. On the other hand, the national question presented the party with special problems. Finland was one with far-reaching since 1809 autonomy equipped Grand Duchy under the crown of the Russian Czars . Since the end of the 19th century, however, the crown made increasing attempts to unify the administration and legislation of the empire. The Finnish political parties largely agreed that these attempts, which reached a new high point around 1910, were incompatible with Finland's endorsed constitution. For the social democrats, however, it was problematic to join the bourgeois parties of the class enemy in defense of the country's national rights.

While Tanner during his time in Hamburg, according to his biographer Paavolainen, was one of the supporters of the orthodox Marxism represented by Karl Kautsky and always underpinned his speeches in a Marxist-ideological way, in practice he tended to work pragmatically across party lines. Even if he never declared himself to be one, he was soon widely regarded as a revisionist . All the more so when Tanner was elected first deputy speaker of parliament on March 2, 1910. While the acceptance of this office was suspicious from an Orthodox point of view, it led to a small public uproar that Tanner respectfully dressed in a cutaway for the election ceremony . This prompted Tanner's orthodox socialists to mock articles in the party press, which in turn brought Väinö Tanner to the attention of the bourgeois press for the first time. So wrote the newspaper Uusi Suometar :

"... you elected Mr. Tanner to the office, who honored the event by dressing himself in a civil frock coat and received a complaint at the Työmies for this disregard for socialist impudence ."

Lawyer and cooperative leader

After his return to Helsinki, Tanner devoted himself again to the cooperative system. In 1909 he was elected to the supervisory board of the Central Association of Finnish Consumer Cooperatives ( Suomen osuuskauppojen keskuskunta , SOK) and chaired it for several years. Years of dispute over the ideological orientation of the cooperative system led to the split in the central association in 1915. Tanner was from 1916 chairman of the supervisory board of the newly founded, the Social Democratic Party affiliated central association of consumer cooperatives ( Kulutusosuuskuntien keskusliitto , KK). In this position he remained, apart from a three-year hiatus from 1946, until 1964.

Tanner earned his living from 1910 to 1911 as secretary of the supervisory board in the service of Elanto , founded in Helsinki in 1905 , which at that time was already the largest consumer cooperative in the country. From 1910 he also resumed his legal studies and graduated in 1911. In the autumn he accepted a position as a lawyer in a law firm in Sortavala . In autumn 1913 he returned to Helsinki and opened his own law firm there.

Political career

Member of Parliament and independence of Finland

He began his political career in 1907 when he was elected to the Finnish Parliament . There he represented the interests of the newly founded Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) . From 1918 to 1926 he was chairman of the SDP for the first time.

In April 1920 he was appointed representative of Finnish interests in Bucharest , and a few days later Finland was diplomatic recognition by Romania . Tanner remained envoy in Bucharest until the embassy was closed in 1922 for cost reasons. From 1920 to 1923 he also acted as the Finnish ambassador to Turkey , based in Bucharest.

Prime Minister 1926 to 1927

On December 13, 1926, Tanner succeeded Kyösti Kallio as Prime Minister of a social democratic coalition government. He held the office of Prime Minister until his replacement by Juho Sunila on December 17, 1927.

Minister during the Second World War

Between 1937 and 1944 he then held several ministerial offices.

First he was Minister of Finance in Aimo Cajander's third cabinet from March 1937 to December 1939 . In this capacity he was a member of the delegation to avoid war with the Soviet Union . However, the war could not be avoided. On November 30, 1939, the Finnish-Soviet Winter War began after the invasion of the Red Army . Then he was Foreign Minister in Risto Ryti's cabinet until March 1940 . On March 13, 1940, Finland had to cede large parts of Karelia to the Soviet Union due to its defeat in the Winter War . He was then Minister of Supply for a short time and Minister of Commerce until 1942.

After the German Reich invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Finland fought against the Red Army in the Continuation War with the support of the German Wehrmacht .

From May 1942 to August 1944 he was again Minister of Finance in the cabinets of Johan Wilhelm Rangell and Edwin Linkomies .

Finnish leaders condemned by the Soviet Union, Tanner 2nd from right

Post war, conviction and party leader

After the armistice between Finland and the Soviet Union on September 19, 1944, Tanner was viewed by the Soviet leadership as a collaborator and was no longer a member of any government. In the trial against those responsible for the Continuation War from November 1945 to February 1946, Tanner was sentenced to five and a half years in prison. In 1948 he was released under an amnesty .

In 1951 he was elected a member of the Reichstag . In 1957 he was re-elected chairman of the SDP. In this function he suppressed the left wing of the SDP loyal to the Soviet Union and initiated a pro-Western and anti-Soviet course of his party. In 1963 he resigned as party chairman.

literature

• Jaakko Paavolainen: Nuori Tanner - menestyvä sosialisti. Elämäkerta vuoteen 1911. Tammi, Helsinki, 1977, ISBN 951-30-3257-4 (quoted: Paavolainen I ).

Web links

Commons : Väinö Tanner  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Newspaper article about Väinö Tanner in the press kit 20th Century of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 13-83.
2. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 56-59.
3. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 84-119.
4. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 120-165.
5. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 166-233.
6. ↑ Paavolainen I, p. 96 f and p. 120 f.
7. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 137-150.
8. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 236-246.
9. ↑ Paavolainen I, 267-282.
10. ↑ Paavolainen I, 283-299.
11. ↑ Paavolainen I, p. 455 f.
12. ↑ Paavolainen I, pp. 354-366.
13. ↑ Quoted from Paavolainen I, p. 363. Original text: … valitsivat he toimeen hra Tannerin, joka kunnioitti tapahtumaa pukeutumalla porvarilliseen pitkääntakkiin, saaden tästä sosialistisen moukkamaisuuden halveksimisesta muistiehessuksen.
14. ^ History of the Finnish Embassy in Bucharest on finland.ro , accessed on May 27, 2011.