Latitude, Lenin, and Liberty

When I awake we are already in the harbour. The overnight voyage between Sweden and Finland has been calm and relaxing. I’m in the cheap seats but I’ve slept all the same.

From the Stockholm archipelago, the route takes the ship across the southern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, to finally navigate its way through the maze of small rocky islets on the Finnish side.

I’ve taken this route before, though only in summer, where twilight lasts all night. But in this late December the only light is from quayside pylons.

Once on the connecting train, I’m struck by the clean and classy compartment. It’s like travelling as part of a display in an interior design store. Just as well, as my journey is to be a long one, almost 900 kilometres, from Finland’s southern coast to the Arctic Circle. This New Year will be spent with a Finnish friend. We met as students and, well, here I am in her homeland.

This journey came back to me a few weeks ago with the mention of Rovaniemi on the news. It’s a small-ish town on the 66th latitude that I’ve visited a few times, but my first arrival was on that winter train, the likes of which I’d never seen before. Just as impressive as the unique interior design and comfy seats, was the locomotive. It appeared to have no problems with deep snowdrifts, or temperatures of about minus 25C.

This journey to Lapland took place, during the generational Cold War, that defined much of our lives. Finland enjoyed splendid isolation, straddling as it did the Iron Curtain. Neutrality served it well.

Anyway, the news which pricked my ears was talk of a possible US military presence in Rovaniemi. It’s almost surreal to think about. The town boasts floodlit skiing and an intimidating ski jump, which you can climb up, if you dare. I did, but just for the view. Then there’s Santa’s elaborate grotto just outside town. He and his elves are busy, summer and winter.

It’s difficult to get my head around the speed of change in post-neutrality Finland. Still, if the Americans can’t get their hyper-expensive temperamental F-35s to work in the Arctic temperatures, there’s always reindeer.

This winter journey came back to me for another reason, too. My latest cycling audiobook is ‘Lenin on the Train’ by Catherine Merridale. In it, the Swedish border town of Haparanda – not far from Rovaniemi – gets a mention. Haparanda has featured on my own Nordic rail travels. However, I’d no idea that Lenin had passed through the town on his momentous journey from Switzerland to Russia’s Petrograd in 1917.

So why the Sunday travelogue? Well, ‘Lenin on the Train’ takes place in the second decade of the 20th century. For those of us interested in how small countries end political forced marriages, the 1910s is a period to which we can look, and learn.

The second decade of the 20th century began with Irish and Scottish Home Rule Bills. Of course, the English parliament had no intention of ever letting the Irish or Scottish colonies go. But while the Irish took matters into their own hands in 1916, we Scots were all-in with the war among Europe’s royal households. This in spite of the fact that there was huge anti-war sentiment in Scotland. Then, as now, Scottish foreign policy aspirations remain snuffed out by the colonial parliament at Westminster.

Lenin’s eight-day trip from Zurich to Petrograd in April 1917 resulted, among other things, in the Finnish declaration of independence in December that same year. The process began in November and culminated on December 6.

“The people of Finland feel deeply that they cannot fulfil their national and international duty without complete sovereignty. The century-old desire for freedom awaits fulfilment now; Finland’s people step forward as a free nation among the other nations in the world.”

By the end of the year, the Soviet Russian government recognised Finnish independence.

Just 12 months on, a little to the west, ‘The Danish-Icelandic Act of Union’ was ratified on 1 December 1918. This gave Iceland full sovereignty. An ongoing ‘personal Union’ with the Danish king was time-limited to 25 years.

Two weeks later, on 14 December 1918, a UK general election was held with Sinn Fein standing on an abstentionist platform. As a result, Ireland’s ‘Home Rule within the UK party’ lost nearly all its seats. The 73 newly-elected members of Sinn Fein decided to forfeit the gravy train. They refused to take their seats in the House of Commons (some were in prison and couldn’t attend anyway). Instead, they met in Dublin in the Irish revolutionary assembly, the Dáil Éireann.

Of course the colonial power was having none of it. There were arrests, and a completely avoidable war of independence was fought. Colonial London finally saw sense, and a negotiated settlement was reached. That was the beginning of the prosperous Ireland we see today. And now, a century later, the poisoned partition that London created on the Emerald Isle, looks to be on its last legs.

And what of us? Scotland was “the milch cow of the Empire”, according to Lord Rosebery. And he was right. At the time, two thirds of our wealth was swallowed up by London. Yet, one hundred years on from three small nations seizing the moment to reclaim their independence, our nation’s riches, resources, and the very lives of our people, are still being sacrificed on the alter of England’s imperial rule.

Finland, Iceland, and Ireland understood that their moment had come. They saw that the tide of history was in their favour. They seized the moment to strike out for independence.

Scotland had its own firebrand politicians and activists during those years, but after the Irish experience it was unlikely that England would permit another defection from its celtic colonies. Certainly not without a fight. As in 1820, Scottish aspirations were subverted by English spies and provocateurs, and they have been, ever since.

Many of us thought that our time had come when the Better Together promises were watered down and essentially reneged on. We had 56 of 59 MPs in 2015, but for some inexplicable reason, they remained passive. They had one task, and they failed. Then along came the Brexit result like a gift from the gods. The political map of Scotland turned yellow, again. We were offered a second shot at an open goal. As many have stated, that was our moment to withdraw from the Union. Once again, though, 56 of 59 MPs did nothing. A few years before, they had marched into the chamber in triumph, each wearing the bonnie white rose of Scotland. But it was Tommy Sheppard who let the cat out of the bag in his maiden speech.

“We did not in this election seek a mandate for independence, and we did not get one. We have not come to this chamber to argue the case for independence.“

Why was there no uproar at this speech? Yes, it was Sturgeon who stated, in her presidential style, that the 2015 election was not about independence. But who gave her the right to decide that? She seemed to believe she was elected as an absolute monarch. She wasn’t. In any case, how can a vote for a party, whose sole reason to exist is ending the Union, not be a vote for independence? It was at least a vote to ensure every Better Together promise was fulfilled. Essentially the SNP had self-neutered. They achieved nothing. They did nothing. Although, to be fair, some did put on a lot of weight and others, well, pardon my French, screwed around.

With time running out on delay and obfuscation, Sturgeon embraced Stonewall with the psyop of gender politics. And in the idiom of Rene Artois, ‘People close to her, whom she did not know, connived with her husband, whose activities she was unaware of, together with top leadership apparatchiks, with whom she had no contact, to join in a vicious character assassination of independence champion, Alex Salmond.’ 

Years of distraction, division, is about to be followed by electoral disaster. Sturgeon’s alright though, she’s off with a fortune. The nodding dogs and hapless careerists are left in charge. Some rats are fleeing the sinking ship and defecting to Unionism. Meanwhile the few decent, pro-indy MPs are chased out of the party, or deselected.

Some ill-advised comments about ISP and Colette Walker, suggested that standing in the recent by-election would destroy them. How so? Her platform was possibly, the most radical of an indy politician and party, ever. Abstentionism is here to stay. 

One hundred years after Irish MPs remained in Dublin to let Ireland rule itself, why vote for any Scottish politician who plans to sit in the colonial parliament? How much more convincing do we need, that they are in it merely to feather their nests. To pass ‘go’, and collect £86K plus expenses, prospective Scottish MPs have to suspend logic, swallow national pride, and swear fealty to an English monarch who has not taken the Scottish oath. He’s not even the rightful King of Scots! Imposter syndrome, anyone?

If Scottish pro-indy parties believe Westminster is the answer, they’ve been asking the wrong question. It’s time to abandon the colonial parliament and to boycott any so-called pro-indy politician planning to plant their fat arses on the green benches.

The Sturgeonist SNP is disintegrating before our eyes. By #GE2024 it may well be a fully-fledged and completely unelectable Karaoke glee club. For those rebels who remain, it’s time to get out, resign, or engage in open rebellion. It will soon be too late to excuse doing nothing, while the ‘vehicle to independence’ is stripped of its last functioning parts and painted in garish colours.

About 150 metres from Copenhagen main station, there’s a plaque with the name ‘V.I. Lenin’. It’s hung in a tenement yard.

To find it, you’ll have to turn left, physically, and perhaps metaphorically, after exiting the station.

Years before his 1917 rail odyssey, Lenin was here in the Danish capital for the 8th Congress of the Second International in 1910. He stayed in this modest accommodation in August and September that same year. That’s what the wall plaque says at least. The Congress was held a few months after the Second International Socialist Women’s Conference, also in Copenhagen. That was the conference that established International Women’s Day, on the 8th of March each year. The contemporary reports from these events are quite an eye-opener. They cover topics still hugely relevant today, from women’s rights, disarmament, ending militarism, and, as you’d imagine, workers’ rights.

To my surprise, I discovered I’d crossed Lenin’s footsteps once again. The 8th Congress, though billed as ‘in Copenhagen’, was held at a Spa Hotel to the north of the city. I actually worked at this same coastal hotel for a few years, after completing my degree. A student friend (with a Danish girlfriend) had got me a job as a general dogsbody. I had nowhere to go or stay in Scotland, so I trudged the exile path. I graduated from dogsbody to a morning shift (4am to 12 noon) preparing breakfasts for the entire place. Hard work and solitude by the sea. Putting bread in the mouths of the masses. I suppose Lenin would have approved.

No one at the 8th Congress of the Second International could have foreseen how the decade of the 1910s would unfold. Now, as then, there are movements for fundamental change to the world order. The US empire is in decline and the global south is rising. BRICS nations are abandoning the US dollar. French and American colonialism is being rejected, just as the English monarchy is being abandoned by former colonies.

Scotland could, in these circumstances, find ‘gallant allies abroad’, but the entirety of our ruling political classes seem focused on travelling to London to collect wads of cash for 5-year terms. They appear unaware of the momentous changes taking place in our world, events that could prove propitious for Scotland’s cause. A historic opportunity is opening for our nation once again, but even our erstwhile pro-indy politicians have no higher ambition than mitigating colonial exploitation, rather than ending it. The political exception, though, is Colette Walker and the ISP. She and her party understand that Scotland’s cause is now a liberation struggle. And beyond politics, the same is true for salvo.scot and The Scottish National Congress.