Talk:Social Democratic Party of Finland

Untitled
"by Nordic standards, remained a relatively small party since the disastrous Civil War in Finland of 1918, gaining on average about one-quarter of the vote."

SDP is the biggest, or atleast the other of the two biggest political parties in Finland. There's nothing 'relatively small' about it, or its influence on Finland's politics.

"After two months Jäätteenmäki was switched for Matti Vanhanen due to scandalous lies."

Alleged scandalous lies. It's really a matter of a point of view whether there was anything scandalous about the incident. Whether the incident has a personal meaning to the writer or not, the way you express it disgraceful for encyclopedia. Finlander 00:01, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

unencyclopaedic etc
Some of the writing in this article is totally unencyclopaedic and needs a general factual cleanup, alot of it is really one sided. Ciriii 22:56, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Attempt to improve
I cleaned up and added more material about the party history. Before my edits, the article told nothing about the problematic relation between SDP and communists which is nonetheless essential for understanding the role of SDP in the Finnish political balance. I also tried to improve the first few sentences to a more meaningful form. --MPorciusCato 14:03, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Some questionable claims about the party's history
Some even debate that the SDP's influence is so extensive, that it can freely elect which one of the two other major parties it takes into a coalition to form a cabinet, regardless of whether SDP has lost or won the election.

I'm not sure this questionable theory should be given such a prominent place in the article, if indeed it should be included at all. As the article notes elsewhere, SDP was in the opposition as recently as in 1991-1995. Who are these some who debate this?

After that, SDP has steadily commanded 20–25% of the total votes in all elections where communists or their fronts have been allowed to operate.

Except in 1924 (29,02%), 1927 (28,30%), 1929 (27,36%), 1948 (26,32%), 1951 (26,52%), 1954 (26,25%), 1966 (27,23%), 1972 (25,78%), 1983 (26,71%), and 1995 (28,25%). I'm not sure if commanding 20-29 percent of the vote can be characterized as steady; that's a pretty sizeable swing.

It became the life's work of Väinö Tanner to regain the SDP's reputation as a housetrained party, capable of dealing with serious matters - such as governing Finland.

"Housetrained" doesn't seem like a particularly neutral word.

The emergence of an extreme right wing after the world depression following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 however postponed SDP's rehabilitation until after President Svinhufvud's term.

It wasn't the extreme right wing that kept SDP from the government, but rather Svinhufvud. He was an old school conservative law-and-order type who was instrumental in putting down the Lapua Movement, hardly representative of the newly emergent radical right.

This decision is often indicated as one of the main reasons behind the increased and cemented weakness of the Social Democrats, and the high percentage of Communist voters in the first elections after the Continuation War, the other main reason being the rebellion 1918 leading to the Civil War in Finland.

SDP was the biggest party in the country in the first four elections after the wars and took part in many Cabinets during this period. This talk of their "weakness" can be misleading, especially if no point of comparison is given.

''However, later the same year, Fagerholm formed a Social Democratic minority Cabinet with the support of the right-wing National Coalition Party and the Agrarian League. The government was, however, forced to resign in 1958 due to Soviet pressure, leading to a series of Agrarian League Cabinets.''

The 1956 Fagerholm Cabinet (Fagerholm II) was not a minority one, but rather a majority one comprising of SDP, the Agrarian League, and the Swedish People's Party. It resigned in 1957 and was not followed by a series of Agrarian Cabinets. Maybe the author meant Fagerholm III (1958-1959), which was the so-called Night Frost Cabinet. In any case, the facts here need work.

As a result, the Soviet-friendly faction of the party resigned and formed the Alliance of Finnish Workers and Small Farmers around the former SDP chairman Emil Skog.

The Skogsters split from SDP after the 1958 parliamentary election. It wasn't due to Fagerholm or his Cabinets, but rather the election of Väinö Tanner as party chairman in 1957.

--Jouten 14:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I took a stab at fixing these. See what you think. --Jouten 00:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * The former edition was my work, but I was not bold enough in making the corrections to the previous, extremely biased version. I think your work is really good. In fact, I'm a little ashamed at having made so many mistakes for you to correct. --MPorciusCato 15:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

That logo
is kind of old... --88.114.239.240 11:02, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
 * But still the official insignia. The one with white letters "SDP" on red background is only the marketing logo. The image is straight from the party's own website, used with fair use rationale. --MPorciusCato 11:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

English name
I noticed that Finland's Ministry of Justice and SDP's own website  use the form "Finnish Social Democratic Party". Should this article also use "Finnish..." instead of "...of Finland"? My experience is that "...of Finland" is more common and a Google search supported that, so it's not entirely cut-and-dried. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jouten (talk • contribs) 14:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Redundant ideologies
This article's infobox, similarly to those in the articles on other social-democratic parties, especially those from Scandinavian countries, are full of redundant ideologies like "Nordic social democracy" and "Third way". I do think that "social democracy" is enough as description. --Checco (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Ps: I suggest that a joint discussion might take place at Talk:Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party. --Checco (talk) 10:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

NATO
"The SDP is opposed to Finland joining NATO"... I think the "Ideology" section may need an update. STeamTraen (talk) 17:42, 26 May 2022 (UTC)