# The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918/Part 2/Chapter 2

2. THE OUTBREAK OF THE INSURRECTION.
On Saturday, the 26th January, it was clear to everybody that the Red intended to proceed to serious action. How far they aimed was not known, whether the intention was only to go for all the Protective Corps in the whole country, or to attack the Government also, was uncertain. The Red bands were concentrated at Helsingfors, where Russian Red Guardsmen and marines from St. Petersburg also arrived. On the Saturday evening the weak Protective Corps retreated from the city in order to avoid hopeless fighting in the streets, and some of the members of the Government went to Wasa in Østerbotten in order to be able to sustain the lawful government there if the worst came to the worst.
​On the morning of Sunday the 27th the activities of the Red began. From the Russian arsenals in the Sveaborg fortress numbers of rifles and a lot of ammunition were transported into the town, and the Red marched forth and took possession of the railway station, the police offices, the telegraph offices, the telephone exchange and the printing offices of the bourgeoisie press. The district prison received orders to keep 150 cells ready for the prisoners of the Red. A number of house-searches and arrests were made. The Red were obviously waiting for the Protective Corps to make a sortie, so that they could honourably conquer the city with arms. They knew very well that the Protective Corps was rather inferior in number to their own forces. That they expected a fight is seen amongst other things from the proclamation which was affixed to all posts and trees, and which, verbatim, ran as follows:—
"To the Inhabitants of Helsingfors.
"All the peaceful inhabitants of Helsingfors are urged to keep out of the streets during the fight with the slaughtering guard, or the consequence will be that they may be shot down.
"The Working-men's Revolutionary Guard desire to avoid the shedding of blood of innocent persons.
"Helsingfors, 27.1.1918."
"The Working-men's Executive Committee."
But as no hostile forces appeared, shots were fired in the air and "order" energetically maintained. In the night a search for the members of the Government was started, but they were not found in their houses. Early on the Monday morning all Government offices were occupied, and a proclamation declared the city to be in a state of strike. At last the public learnt what was meant by all this, when later in the day an ​Appeal to Revolution to the People of Finland was distributed. It read as follows:—
"The hour for the great Revolution has struck for Finland's Labour Class.
"To-day the working-men of the capital have boldly overthrown the headquarters of the dark rule of few who began a sanguinary war against their own people.
"The members of the criminal senate prepared an atrocious civil war, even in the capital of the country, an invidious assault on the organised working-men of Finland. At the same time they have been guilty of such unblushing treason that they have asked foreign monarchical governments to send bands of murderers to butcher Finland's working-men. The life and liberty of our People is hereby placed in the greatest danger.
"Now all power has been taken from this butchering senate. Orders have been issued that the criminal members of this senate are to be imprisoned wherever they are met with, as the prison has already long been their proper place.
"The working class of the country are to take all governing power in Finland into their own reliable hands.
"Thus the working class have ultimately been forced to rise in order to save themselves and our country from the disaster and distress which the criminal capitalist system has cast our People into. The intrigues of the uncanny and dangerous Senate and its tools have been exposed. In order to usurp the power in the State, that power which—as it is self-evident—ought to belong to the People itself, the Senate have committed one breach of the law after another. The chief aim of all these intrigues has been to put down the Labour Movement of the whole country, to destroy all progress of democracy and bury the suffering People's hopes of a real work of progress.
​"But Finland's Working Class will never become thralls under such a terrible yoke of reaction. Such a heinous attempt at a State-stroke must break down ignominiously. And complete oppression has now begun. This dangerous, reactionary oppression force must be rooted out and rendered innocuous.
"The supreme revolutionary organ of Finland's working-men, which has been appointed by the leaders of the Social-Democratic Party, does hereby announce that—
"'All revolutionary power in Finland now belongs to the organised working-men and their revolutionary organ.'
"A Social-Democratic, revolutionary Government will now instantly be formed. At the very first opportunity the names of the members of this Government will be made public.
"The aim is not only to put in new men in the place of the former, but to overthrow the whole bureaucratic system.
"Now our organisations and Guard Corps all over the country must, each according to the best of their ability, fulfil their duty to the revolution. Within our ranks we must maintain a strict, revolutionary order.
"Russian soldiers should be well received everywhere as we know that Russian comrades are the friends of the revolutionary working-men.
"A general strike will not be necessary everywhere for the success of the revolution. The revolutionary working-men must themselves decide in their organisations where this remedy is to be employed. But, for the sake of the revolution, according to our opinion, a general strike should at once be proclaimed in Helsingfors.
"The working-men must, where it is deemed useful and fitting, take over the leadership of communal affairs and other offices.
​"No one must fail or give up! No long negotations with armed perfidious enemies! The victory of the working-men must be a complete victory!
"Peaceful fellow-citizens who do not wish to support the enemies of the working-man have nothing to fear from the revolution. Humble folks in the country and in the cities must not spread such lies as that the working-men wish to get hold of their property. On the contrary, the victory of the working class may also better their position in society. The power of the working-men is a just power, which always tries to prevent unnecessary violence, and to mitigate the sufferings of innocent men and women. But the armed handy-men of the overthrown Senate must be pursued without mercy. Would that those, who have treacherously been tempted, at once throw down their weapons now they have come to recognise that it has been hoped to make them fight against the noble cause of the working People.
"The revolution of the working-men is magnanimous but hard. Hard towards the enemies of the People, but a helpful support to all that are oppressed and suffering.
"Look to the revolutionary power of the working-men with confidence! At the present moment a fight for the power is going on in many parts. But irresistibly it will carry victory to our colours!
"It is our firm conviction that the working-men of our country, the present as well as the coming generations, will truly bless this revolution, which is to take Finland into a new and happier time.
"The Executive Committee of the
Working-men of Finland,
"Eero Haapalainen."
Simultaneously with this, a number of "instructions" were issued with regard to the duty of assisting the Red ​troops, etc. In these Finland is also declared to be in "a state of militant revolution," a situation the import of which has always remained obscure. But as Finland already during the whole of the war had been both in a state of siege and a state of war, something new was required to make an impression. The whole day long motor-cars drove about the town packed full of armed Red Guardsmen and Russians. They fired into the air and at the walls of the houses. Also the patrolling Red Guardsmen fired volley upon volley with their rifles. Still, only two persons were wounded. The whole was a faithful copy of the incidents of the March revolution: this was the exact way in which it was supposed a revolution should proceed. An attempt was also made on that day to imitate the tactics used at the murders of the officers. The chief rate collector of the city was arrested in his office, but liberated late in the evening. In order that he might reach his home unmolested, he was provided with an escort of two Red Guardsmen. When they reached a side street, the two "protectors" abandoned the prisoner they were to protect. The rate collector heard the click of a gun, and turned his head. In the same instant the shot fell. The bullet entered at the back of the neck and went out at the ear. The rate collector fell down and the Red fled. The wounded man was found in the street, was carefully nursed, and eventually recovered.
On the Tuesday the new Government and their programme were made known to the public. Of course, the Government was formed on Lenin lines; of course, "Commissioners," not ministers, ruled. And over the Government was a Central Council—as in Russia—which was to control the measures suggested by the Commissioners. In reality, it was four of the members of the Government who ruled everything, four already ​well-known party men. First, the chief of the Government, Kullervo Manner, who had been president of the Lantdag during the summer, and who had begun his political career in the first years of the century by going the errands of the Russian rule of oppression. An ambitious struggler. In the second place, the food controller, Oskari Tokoi, an adventurer of the purest water, formerly a miner in America, later the trusted man of the party, once president of the Lantdag, chief of the Government in the spring and summer of 1917. A good intellect, but without any backbone or character. In the third place, Yrjö Sirola, once a student like Manner, journalist, party-leader, now Minister for Foreign Affairs. A quiet-mannered fanatic, and fairly efficient statesman. Finally, Eero Haapalainen, expelled student, a violent and brutal person, who had had many battles with the police, as he often got drunk, but never could learn how to carry his drink, and so always got exceedingly ferocious and eager to fight. Now Minister of the interior and Commander-in-Chief of the Red Guard.
The programme of the Government of course comprehends a lot of promises of reform. But nothing is found about the constitutent assembly which had before been so energetically demanded. Nor does the programme contain anything about a coming parcellation of land—a considerable divergence that from the programme of the Russian social revolution. But for the rest, it was not a little that was promised. The reforms were briefly these: A complete alteration of the administration of the State, the crushing of the bureaucracy for ever and aye, a chastisement once for all of the wilfulness of the tribunals, an alteration of the whole form of government on democratic lines, in order to safeguard the rights of the working-man, old-age and invalid insurance, the purging of the education work of reactionary efforts, ​the emancipation of crofters and small tenants from the rule of the landlord, the bank funds under the control of the community, and the taking over and working by the community, of "the great plundering enterprises" for the profit of the community without any regard to private property. All these reforms, it further said, could be carried through only by revolutionary measures taken by the revolutionary organs.
The first official action of the new Commission was to send a hearty greeting to the Government at St. Petersburg, next they informed the governments of the states, which had acknowledged the independence of Finland, of the revolution. By this act, according to the opinion of the Commissioners, the lawful Government of the independent Finland of ten weeks past had been removed, and the country had been subjected to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
But things did not run as smoothly as all that. The vanished Government came to light again at Wasa, somewhat decimated certainly, but still a threatening phantom to the Commissioners. Quite a new figure appeared on the scene at the same time, a personality about whom only few knew that he had been the leader of the organisation of the Protective Corps at Østerbotten for the last few weeks. This was General Gustaf Mannerheim. It is difficult to describe the rejoicings called forth by his first bulletin, which was secretly made known through Helsingfors, among all who had studied the revolutionary appeal of the Red with disgust, and regarded the shooting gangs of the Red savages in the streets with abhorrence. There was a new note in Mannerheim's telegram, a note of hope and confidence in the sound core of the people, which gave glimpses of the fairest vistas. Now both the Russian and the Red were to be driven out, now the country was to be ​torn from out of the talons of the revolution. The telegram in which the population of South Finland, which had been brought to the verge of despair, found all these promising communications ran as follows:—
"The outrages, pillage and murder committed among the peaceful population by the lowest elements in the community together with the Russian soldiers, among which outrages especially the occurrences at Viborg have excited the fierce indignation of the liberty-loving peasants at Østerbotten, have obliged me to disarm the Russian troops at Wasa, Lappo, Ylistaro, Seinäjoki, Jakobstad, Gamlakarleby and other places.
"If the Red Guardsmen do not submit to the lawful Government, the exasperated peasant troops of this country will be obliged with arms in hand to pass judgment on the traitors.
"A guarantee of personal safety is given to the 5,000 disarmed Russian soldiers, and they will be liberated as soon as an arrangement to that effect has been come to between Finland and Russia.
"The Commander-in-Chief of the Protective Corps,
"General Mannerheim."
So then there was a White army, as well as a Red one. Not for one instant was the final victory of the White doubted.
But the great thing was to offer resistance to the Red even in those parts where they had appropriated the power. A call was made for a general strike among the functionaries, and it was carried through without the least disagreement. Only the physicians and the rationing departments continued work. The banks were kept closed, and the Employers' Union stopped all manufacturing business. Life became extremely ​complicated. The Red gave chase to the members of the Government and the Lantdag, to the officials and bankers in order to arrest them. All these and all who had had anything to do with the Protective Corps had to keep themselves concealed. They stayed with one another, moved sometimes, let their beards grow, and neglected appearances. Disguised thus, the pursued could sometimes take a little walk in the evening. After nine in the evening it was forbidden to go out in Helsingfors. Nor did anybody care to, for every evening there was the sound of shooting in the streets.
Perhaps the worst of all was the absolute uncertainty Red Finland was completely isolated from the outer world, and only had connection with Lenin's St. Petersburg. No Scandinavian newspapers, no letters, no enlightening telegrams got through. Rumours were afloat, and the only sources of news were the newspapers of the Red. They were not to be trusted. The cruelties of the "butchers" and their enormous losses in the fights were the chief contents; from abroad the only news obtained was of the sort that the Kaiser had been deposed, that revolution was breaking out both in France and Norway, that the power of the Bolsheviks in Russia was increasing day by day. People sat nervous and idle in their homes, only this single thought revolving in their minds: "When will Mannerheim come?"
In the meanwhile the Red were at work. They searched houses, made arrests and seizures. They had to fill all the Government offices with their own people, and organise their army. The war operations became the centre of the efforts both of the White and the Red. The result, of course, was dependent on them. There may therefore be some reason for pausing to look a little at the army of the Red.