It was established in 1911 as the Finnish Socialist Organization of Canada (Kanadan Suomalainen Sosialistinen Järjestö).
It has fewer than 200 members, who are mostly senior citizens in the areas of Toronto, Vancouver, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
A key person in its founding was the Finnish-Canadian agitator and feminist Sanna Kannasto.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the organization came into almost continuous conflict with liberal, social-democratic, and conservative factions both within and without the Finnish community in Canada, evidenced by the rumours of "reception committees" active in communities around Sudbury where newly immigrated Finns would be vetted by local committees which would separate them into "Reds" or "Whites", with identified Reds being approved to settle and Whites encouraged to move elsewhere.
[3] In 1931 the social democrats left the FOC and organization was fully related with communists.