When the Russians promulgated a new military service act passive resistance became the more serious. It was organized and directed by a secret group calling itself the Kagal, and which soon gained an important role in the direction of all passive resistance. The resistance-minded wanted to make it impossible to materialize conscription from the very beginning: the clergy were not to read the conscription notices to their parishes; the parish clerks were not to prepare lists of draftees or the communes to appoint draft boards; doctors were to refuse to examine the draftees, and the draftees themselves were not to report for service. The major result of this battle against illegal conscription was an increase in emigration.

At the same time, the Finnish labor movement began to take shape as a political factor. Its antecedents had been labor societies, predominantly under the control of an intelligentsia which had tried to guide the rising labor movement into channels offering no threats to existing society. However, the movement quickly became more radical, and in a meeting in Turku in the summer of 1899, a program for the new party was approved, and so the Finnish Labor Party, accepting the principles adopted by the international labor movement as regarded social progress strove in every way to achieve the economic and social liberation of Finnish workers. Beginning with a declaration promising to maintain and guard Finland's legal position, its immediate goal became the granting of a general, equal, direct and secret franchise for all Finnish citizens, regardless of sex, on reaching the age of 21. In addition, the right to initiate legislation and to levy taxes for Finland through parliament was demanded, as well as unlimited freedom of assembly, speech and press, an 8-hour work day and the setting of minimum wages, compulsory free education, the complete equality of men and women, prohibition, the development of protective laws for labor, a graduated income and inheritance tax and the removal of all indirect taxes, and the free use of the courts and free medical care. This program was prepared in accordance with German prototypes, although the later Finnish Social Democrats were also influenced by the revolutionary movements in Russia. In a party meeting in Viipuri in 1901, the question of joining the international socialistic movement was discussed, but the decision to join was not made until the Forssa meeting in 1903. This decision to support the international class struggle was a blow to the nation's home front, but at the same time the politically organized workers were resolute against repressive Russian tactics and autocracy, and

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