# The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918/Part 2/Chapter 5

5. THE RED AND THEIR OPPONENTS.
The extremists in the Labour Party had forced it to revolution. These were found in the Red Guard. When the insurrection broke out it was therefore only natural that the Guard played the most prominent part, and felt like the real ruler of the country. Numerous arbitrary acts on the part of the Guard showed what a feeling of absolute power reigned within it. The troops lived as in the country of an enemy. Whatever they liked they took. You wanted a hotel, or a restaurant, or a motor car, or a special train. All this sort of expropriation was called "sequestration." You showed a stamped paper, or wrote a receipt, and the owner had to content himself with that. The Red Government had no little trouble with their armed forces, for they did not even respect their own authorities. They particularly made food regulation difficult by taking all the supplies they got hold of for their own use, and by stopping the food trains to the towns and looting them. But generally the desires of the Red were, of course, towards the property of the citizens. This was considered as quite lawful booty. The whole commissariat of the Red Guard was founded on the possibility of expropriation, and only the firms entering into continuous relations with the Red, and having contracts with them—and they were few—were compensated for what they took. There was a special Red "commissioner of sequestrations."
This branch of the activity of the Red mostly affected business men and manufacturers. They, of course, suffered considerable losses. A greater, personal ​inconvenience befell the great circles of citizens who were exposed to the arresting propensities of the Red. Members of the Protective Corps were, of course, eagerly sought, as well as members of the Government. During the first days of the revolution a number of Lantdag members were arrested, but most of them were liberated shortly after. On the 14th March, however, the order is given for the immediate arrest of all bourgeois members of the Lantdag. Already before—on the 6th March—the War and Economical Committee of the Central Council had preferred a proposal for the wholesale imprisonment of the following persons: All former members of the Government and district magistrates; all presidents and cashiers of the town and parish councils, all bank managers and bank cashiers, "all millionaires jobbing in shares," all merchants and manufacturers who had closed their business. All these should be kept in prison until the victory has been won. But the arrests were never very systematic. Informers flourished, bringing about the arrest of now one and now the other, and, besides, people were arrested because they had let fall a "counter-revolutionary" remark in the streets, or smiled at some absurdly bold and oddly equipped Red warrior.
The Red had a special grudge against all the functionaries who refused to work under their leadership—i.e., all government officials. It was also difficult to find out a suitable way of treating them. Of course the right to strike had been proclaimed as one of the first rights of man, but such things were not for the "bourgeois." With them it was not strike, but "sabotage." But the difficulty was that on the one hand it had been solemnly promised that the bureaucracy should be crushed—and now it had been completely destroyed—but, on the other hand, one could not do ​without the bureaucrats. Then the plan was conceived of dismissing everybody who had not offered their services before a certain day. As no one came forward, it was announced that all were dismissed. And now when whole groups of functionaries were arrested for their "sabotage," they simply referred to the fact that they had been dismissed. And there was no help for it but to let them go again. Some specially indispensable subordinate officials were forced to work by threats and violence. Some escaped and concealed themselves as best they could, others took more energetic measures. Thus a young lady who was employed in the office of the Bank of Finland at Kotka took a revolver, and fired it through her right hand, in order to become unfit for work in this way. This action did not at all impress the Red; on the contrary, a close investigation was set in train, for a thing like that expressed an appalling counter-revolutionary temper.
The unemployed subordinate officials were, however, considered to be too tantalising, and they were annoyed as much as possible. Those who lived in houses belonging to the State were put into the street—a measure felt greatly, owing to the great shortage of housing accommodation—and one proposal after another was made in the committees of the Red. Now it is a suggestion to take all food cards from a striker, now again to demand cards as members of the Labour Party, of all who have the right of getting fuel from the public supplies, etc. All these measures were, however, at last crystallised into the appointing of a Working Duty Committee which commenced its activities on the first days of April. It sent out printed forms to the Government offices requesting information about striking subordinate officials. It was intended to put them all to compulsory work for the account of the Red Guard, but the plan was ​not carried out, as the rule of the Red Guard came to an end shortly after.
There were, however, a great number of workmen in the service of the State—above all, on the railways—who saw no possibility of striking, both for economical reasons, and because they were personally known to many former fellow-workmen among the Red, and so had only slight prospect of keeping themselves successfully concealed. They remained at their work, but beyond this, they offered no helping hand to the Red. This was not as it ought to be, thought the men in power, and they began to demand a written obligation from these workmen to acknowledge the new Government. On account of the strong opposition this measure excited and as the train service—which was already beforehand very disorderly—looked as if it would quite stop, the carrying through of this claim was postponed time after time. But when the railway workmen at Helsingfors came to draw their pay on the 1st April, their pay was refused to them unless they signed the obligation. Those who gave up their pay rather than signing were not, however, allowed to go. They were arrested, and, when Helsingfors was relieved on the 12th April, 160 railway workers were found locked up in a Russian barrack. Similar methods were employed against other groups of working-men and in other parts of the realm of the Red.
The command of the Red Guard never felt satisfied with the measures taken against the citizens. At a meeting on the 10th February they resolved that all "butcher guardsmen"—and by these were meant all men who had not joined the Red—were to do compulsory work, "particularly those who belong to the so-called educated classes." At a meeting on the 26th March there is again great indignation because all men of the ​ages of eighteen to forty-five have not yet been forced to mobilise at Helsingfors.
The Red wanted to show their power, they wished to oppress. They silenced the press, and only allowed their own productions to be issued. They arrested and annoyed everybody who did not sanction their measures. Such a thing must, however, be looked upon as the natural consequence of the masses being intoxicated with the power they had acquired, and it is, therefore, in a certain way pardonable. But what can never be pardoned is the unheard-of number of outrages committed by the Red. Violence and oppression will, perhaps, in the way of nature follow in the tracks of a revolution, robbery and murder need not.
The war methods of the Red were, of course, not those sanctioned internationally. You killed as well as you could, apart from all rules. One could hardly expect anything else from such undisciplined bands. But one thing might have been demanded of them, that they had let their prisoners of war live. But this they did not. There is abundant evidence that the Red regularly killed their captives. In the first place, the fact that White prisoners of war were never found with them (with one exception, which will be more fully related below), and in the second place, statements from doctors who had been forced to work with the field ambulances of the Red: they never got White wounded for treatment, not even when the Red accidentally became masters of the battlefield—the wounded White lying there were killed at once. In the third place, we have the evidence of the Red themselves.
​The editor of a Labour Paper at Björneborg, Hannes Uksila, writes to the Red Government on the 27th March expressing his anxiety at the reverses in the war. He sees only one possibility of victory, viz., that he himself takes the command on the whole of the Western front. If he gets it, he intends to commence an offensive at Björneborg. In this place there are 7,000 Red, armed in the best manner, "though untrained and unaccustomed to discipline." The enemy's equipment is much poorer, "and," writes Uksila, "among their men there is no doubt one-third who would give themselves up, if only we could get our men to stop killing the prisoners, and if we could bring this to the knowledge of the White." The aspirer to the post as commander-in-chief could safely speak of this absolutely non-existent third of the White army, for he knew very well that the conditions for their surrender could not be fulfilled.
On the 12th February a communication is made at the meeting of the General Staff: the Lettish soldiers at the Savolaks front report that the Finnish Red, when they had got hold of prisoners taken by the Letts, had immediately shot them—without any trial. This has had a "disheartening effect on the Letts." The General Staff do not order any investigation, they only resolve to issue an order of the day containing a warning against violence to prisoners.
On the 8th February the Red papers have a great bulletin of victory. Near Björneborg the Red have vanquished a troop of White who had barricaded themselves in a farm. Eleven were made prisoners, and taken to Björneborg, where they were shot by Russian marines. The report, which only mentions the shooting of the prisoners quite casually, looked rather queer. Partly because the whole region round Björneborg was Red, partly because the farm which was the scene of the ​fight had been troubled several times already in the summer of 1917 by the Red. The farmer and his many sons were much hated by the ruffianly element at Björneborg. And quite right. On the 10th February, first a notice is found in the papers of "Great Spoils of War," which consisted of the hundred and twelve cows and forty-eight horses of the above farm, and later a report of a soldiers' meeting at Björneborg. Here the Russian soldiers eagerly protest against the plundering of a solitary farm and murdering of unarmed prisoners. This outrage has been committed by Finnish Red Guardsmen and a few soldiers. The garrison at Björneborg now demand that all the plunder be given up "to the Red Guard as the property," of the Finnish proletariat," but at the same time the garrison demand that the robbers, as well as the murderers, should be severely punished. For itself the paper expresses the hope that the members of the Red Guard who have committed the murders and robberies may be dismissed from the Guard; as may be seen, a very mild wish. It is little credible that it was fulfilled, or that it was but seriously meant.
A more melancholy proof of the brutality of the Red Guard than this of Russian soldiers protesting against its cruelties can hardly be imagined.
As already stated, the Protective Corps at Helsingfors had left the city the day before the insurrection broke out. The greater part of it proceeded to the little town Borgå, east of Helsingfors. A "White" territory now came into existence in this place. Another arose west of the capital, in the parish of Kyrkslätt. The White Corps were very incompletely armed, and could not make a stand against the Russian artillery of the Red. First the eastern corps was disrupted, and the men dispersed in the Skerries, where they suffered terrible hardship. Several of the White fugitives who had had ​their homes at Helsingfors now tried to get into the city at night. Some were successful, but the greater part were captured and shot, either on the ice in the harbours of the city, or in the streets. Many of these people were schoolboys or young students belonging to the most noted families in the capital, and these murders were of a particularly revolting character.
When later on the western corps stood face to face with destruction, the Swedish Ambassador at Helsingfors intervened, and succeeded in concluding an agreement in consequence of which the White, who had already been driven out of their fortified positions, surrendered to the Red. The latter on their side promised to permit Swedish control of the treatment of the prisoners. In this way a collection of 600 White prisoners of war got into the hands of the Red, and these 600 were excellently suited for advertising the humane warfare of the Red in Sweden.
For it must be remembered that the Red had a wholesome fear that Sweden would take proceedings against them, and they did what they could to create an opinion in their favour in this country, strong enough to prevent all official interference. As one of the many weapons used in the campaign, the 600 prisoners were employed. The latter were, however, a thorn in the flesh of the Red Guard, and more than once, at the meetings of the officers of the Guard, a just indignation was expressed that they were too well treated, and also discontent with the Swedish interference on the whole. Thus on the 7th March, at a meeting of officers, a deputation is chosen which is to lay before the General Staff the desire of the assembly that the Swedish Consul should not interfere with the treatment of the prisoners. But other forces acted in the opposite direction. We see this clearly, e.g., in the following communication on the telephone, from the staff of the Guard at Tammerfors to the Red ​authorities at Helsingfors on the 27th February (the telephone conversations of the Tammerfors staff were secretly pried upon by the White): "A deputation wall arrive from Sweden under the leadership of Mayor Lindhagen—four persons in all. Our Swedish comrades' behaviour to us will depend on the way we treat the captive butcher guardsmen. Warn the staff there to see to it that the prisoners have no complaints to make. The prisoners will be personally questioned." How little a humanity of this kind was in accordance with the habits of the Red is seen from the next telephone conversation. It is Björneborg ringing up. "The Russians will not go to the front before they have plundered. What are we to do?" The answer is: "Let them plunder as many millions of citizens' palaces as they like."
The Red campaign abroad was very energetic. It employed many other means than that of the 600 live prisoners, who were exhibited with pride. It attempted to make the Social-Democrats of Europe believe that the Red were noble fellow-partisans who had been obliged to take up aims against a black reaction, and, above all, it tried to make it credible that the White army carried on with brutal cruelty. Finally, it was very positively asserted that the outrages committed by the Red which could not be denied were carried out by the anarchist elements which had crept into the army, and which it in every way attempted to exterminate. On the whole, the efforts were directed towards convincing the foreign countries—above all, Sweden—that the civil war was carried on by two equal parties, of which one was no better than the other, and that the only proper attitude for the foreign powers to take would be a strictly neutral one.
The value of all these assertions need not here be ​specially tried. Only one point will be more closely examined: that of the comparative innocence of the Red with regard to the crimes committed.
We must, then, first note the agitation-work against the "bourgeois" carried on by the Red Press. There was not exactly any fear of blood-dripping words. Here is an example: "The bloodhounds of the White Guard lick their chaps when they smell the warm blood of the working-men wherewith they quench their burning blood-thirst."
One or two extracts from a lengthy article with the superscription, "Barbarians!:—
"We know that a thinker has said: 'No wild beast is so cruel as the bourgeois if you touch his purse.' The recent events show that this is really so. Already before this state of affairs (thus it was preferred to designate the insurrection!) took its beginning, it was clearly seen that the citizens feared for their cheque-books, and puzzled out the most shameful expedients for preventing the People's hand from getting at them. It was already a bold enough thing to push on the development of things as they did in order to evoke civil war. But this was not enough for them. Even a civil war seemed too humane to the citizens when it was not accompanied by the most atrociously vindictive murders and the most brutal outrages."
The article goes on to state all sorts of fabricated cruelties by the White, and continues:—
"It need not be pointed out whither that sort of cruelties will lead. Hitherto the Red Guardsmen have not offered violence to unarmed citizens, and much less to their women and children! But what will be the consequence of the continuance of such atrocities on the part of the opponents? No example is more infectious than that of the vendetta."
​The intention of this is obvious. What is wanted is to neutralise the effect of the many outrages committed by the Red. They were wholly and solely the natural consequence of the behaviour of the White! As regards the methods of war of the White, they must undoubtedly be characterised as stern. As they had to do with an enemy who murdered and maimed all their enemies, as all the bodies of the fallen were plundered, and as they knew what cruelties the Red had been guilty of behind the front, it was difficult to make room for any leniency. The White fought against insurgents and traitors; their war was a war of liberation against Russians and ruffians; they were really no army at war, but a hastily collected number of volunteers who had gone out to punish malefactors and enemies of their country. No wonder then if they sometimes made short work of the trial; if exasperation led to severity, harshness, and—if you will—to brutality. But this is one thing; the cruelties and torture spoken of by the Red Press, another. Of such things the White army was innocent, but the Red army, guilty.
During the world-war it has been seen more than once how difficult it is to verify all the tales of cruelties committed. Besides, in themselves they only prove that there are some individuals who are able to commit any atrocity in their frenzy. By such things an army cannot be judged, nor—as in this case—a mass movement in its entirety. The thing to be considered is the mentality of the fighting masses as a whole, the discipline and self-control to be found, and the punishments the malefactors were subjected to in their own ranks. In the posthumous papers of the Red we get a sufficiently clear image of the spirit reigning among them to be able to convict them. They were not all robbers and murderers, but those who were not did nothing, absolutely ​nothing, to put a stop to the regular mania for theft and murder raging in their ranks. Here the proclamations against cruelties bow and again published in their papers cannot come under consideration; they were not designed for their own bands, but for the audience—i.e., the foreign countries, and especially Sweden. Besides, the proclamations regularly contained such a number of accusations against the White that they acted more like incitements than dampers. And between them column after column was filled with the most blood-curdling descriptions of the cruelty and bloodthirstiness of the White. The service at the front did not in general please the Red—not a few meetings of the men resolved that the troops had had enough of offensive operations and now intended to pass over to guard service in their homes. It was therefore desired to force them to see the necessity for fighting; if for no other reason, so as not to fall into the hands of the wild beast White. In the meanwhile the many and lengthy descriptions also resulted in the behaviour of the Red becoming cruel beyond all description. Perhaps this was not the intention, but it was the natural consequence.
We shall now proceed to the consideration of the darkest chapter in the history of the Red insurrection, the murders behind the front.
How many unarmed persons have fallen victims to the lust for murder among the Red cannot, unfortunately, be accurately ascertained as yet. Many have disappeared, of whom their relatives have not yet given up all hope; now and again a dead body is still found in the woods; and the sea, as well as the lakes, may yet cast up many dead on the shore. But it is certain that the number exceeds one thousand. At least one thousand murders. And the murderers? Not one of them has been punished by the Red Government. This fact must be kept well ​in mind when judging of the ideality and humanity of the Red.
It has a certain interest to see what trades and classes are chiefly represented among the murdered. A hastily made out list of 624 shows the following distribution:—
| Agriculturists | 193 | (or 31 per cent.) |
| Students, schoolboys | 141 | (or„ 22 per„ cent.)„ |
| Engineers, clerks, business men, bank clerks | 129 | (or„ 21 per„ cent.)„ |
| Working-men | 66 | (or„ 10 per„ cent.)„ |
| District magistrates, policemen | 23 | (or„ 7 per„ cent.)„ |
| Subordinate officials | 20 | (or„ 7 per„ cent.)„ |
| Teachers | 15 | (or„ 4 per„ cent.)„ |
| Clergymen | 10 | (or„ 4 per„ cent.)„ |
| Women | 5 | (or„ 3 per„ cent.)„ |
| Lantdag members | 3 | (or„ 3 per„ cent.)„ |
| Veterinaries, apothecaries | 6 | (or„ 3 per„ cent.)„ |
| Physicians | 3 |
| Sailors, etc | 10 | (or„ 2 per„ cent.)„ |
| Total | 624 | (or 100 per cent.] |
The list shows that it is above all the rural districts which have been ravaged. The first group, which mainly embraces peasants, but also landed proprietors, stewards, and inspectors, together with the third group, mainly embracing the staffs of various works, constitutes half of the whole number. The largest group but one, the students and schoolboys, comprises such who were either suspected of belonging to the Protective Corps, or really did belong to them, and either tried to get to the White through the lines of the Red, or were fugitives after their separate corps had been beaten by the Red. Though they could thus be reckoned as belonging to the forces ​of the opponents, yet they were unarmed when they were captured and shot.
The number of murdered working-men is comparatively large. They were such as would not on any conditions join the Red movement, and were therefore regarded as traitors. There are also many murders of clergymen. These murders—and in several cases they were combined with torture and the violation and pillage of the church—are the result of the campaign of the Labour Press against the Church and its men. The murders of police officers again prove how large a part the old police customers and jail-birds played in the Red Guard. They now revenged themselves for the months and years they had been imprisoned.
In a number of cases the motives for the murders may thus be inferred. But in most cases we have only to reckon with the generally accepted opinion that all opponents—all that did not agree with the Red—were to be murdered. The best idea of the causes of the murders, and the manner in which they were committed, we shall get by choosing some examples. Among the papers of the Red a number of documents concerning the murders are found, and they often throw a clear light on the views of the Red. For it sometimes happened that some murder occasioned a "Red" investigation.
This first occurred when the arrested member of the Lantdag, A. Mikkola, a barrister, the author of the petition concerning the re-establishment of the army, and the young physician, G. Schybergson, were murdered. Schybergson was arrested on the 2nd February at the hospital where he was doing service, was taken to a park and shot. Finland's Association of Physicians, as well as the Swedish Ambassador at Helsingfors entered a protest against the murder of Schybergson. The Red were obliged to make investigations. "If needful, the ​delinquents are to be arrested," it was resolved by the General Staff of the Red Guard.
A Commission for the Investigation of Murder and other Outrages committed in Helsingfors and Environs during the Revolution was now appointed, i.e., not until the 13th February. The murderers had had ample time to disappear! The work of the Commission gives the following result: About the murderers of Doctor Schybergson nothing is known. Information had been communicated to the Red Guard, from which it appeared that at the same hospital in which he was doing service there was a head nurse, Mrs. Blom, in whose rooms members of the Protective Corps used to meet. A big troop of Red Guardsmen were sent to the hospital. They rung the bell of Schybergson's door, and enquired for Mrs. Blom. But now a calamity occurred. The Red were not able to pronounce the name properly, as there is no "b" sound in the Finnish language. They thought they could perceive a note of scorn in the voice of the young physician when in answer to their very stuttering question, due to the difficulties of pronunciation, he replied: "There is nobody but I living here." The Red then retired, but, feeling rather cheap at the meagre result, on their way home they recollected the hint of a smile on the physician's face, and they turned back. They searched the house, took Schybergson with them, shot him, and rifled the dead body.
The murder of Mikkola gave the Commission more trouble, for here there was no question of an unpremeditated act. The author of the military petition, the anti-militarist Labour Party's hated "war-Antti," had been put out of the way on account of his parliamentary activity. A murder of revenge, that is to say. The evidence really reveals nothing until the rumour gets abroad that a certain Red captain has fallen at the front. ​Relying on this, in fact, incorrect communication, the witnesses, who now feel unrestricted, begin to speak. The said captain had come to the army service corps of the Red Guard the day after the murder of Mikkola, and boasted before the officials there that he had already murdered thirteen persons, and, amongst other things, said, "this war-Antti had a hard pate." At the same time it was brought to light that the captain had acted as executioner, while it was his mayor who had ordered the murder. The affair ought, therefore, to be plain enough.
It was, unfortunately, only too plain. Besides these two murders, the commission had enquired into yet a third case: that of a working man who had been found shot in the street. He had been murdered by two former friends, who were now Red Guardsmen. It was unfortunate that the commission arrived at such plain results. On the 26th February it sends in two written communications to its Government. In the first it mentiones that Mikkola's murderers are "probably" the two above-mentioned persons, and is of opinion that they ought to be tried. But "as these persons are now at the front, and the commission do not find that their authority is sufficient to summon persons of the rank of officers, the commission must leave it to be decided by the Commander-in-Chief and the procurator whether steps should be taken, and in that case—what steps."
The other communication is of the following tenor:—
"The Commission does hereby communicate that its work cannot be continued any longer, on account of the defective composition of the Commission, and because the Red Guard does not regard it with a favourable eye. The three representatives elected to the Commission by the Red Guard have not taken part in its work, and ​as no other members have been elected, in spite of the repeated requests of the Commission, the undersigned solicit exemption from being members of the Commission,
From an undated account of the activity of the Commission, it is further seen that the representatives of the Red Guard have to a great extent kept away from the Commission meetings. These amounted to twelve. At the first three, two members of the Red Guard were present, at the next five, one, and at the last three the chairman and the secretary were quite alone.
From the above documents, we see how much energy the Red Government exerted in its activity against the "anarchist elements" it used to speak about. Two inviolable persons, a physician and a representative of the people, are murdered; the murders are enquired into owing to strong pressure, and, when the investigators begin to get the scent of a result, the enquiry is terminated. It is the Red Guard that takes a hostile view of all such steps.
The Guard ruled, and the Guard would suffer no criticism. There are many examples of this. In March the entire staff of the big timber firm Ahlström was arrested in Norrmark in the vicintiy of Björneborg, and taken away. On the way all the sixteen prisoners were murdered. The organ of the Red at Björneborg considers this rather awkward, and, as the outrage has caused a melancholy sensation in those parts, the paper denounces it in mild terms. The Helsingfors paper, Työmies, prints the article. But immediately the paper receives an indignant protest from two Red Guardsmen, who sign their names. "When reading such things," they write, "one gets into a very melancholy mood, for an article like this comes either from short-sightedness or provocation. It is not fitting to throw a shadow on all our noble ​and valiant boys in the Red Guard, for they are sacrificing their lives for the rights of man, for equality and fraternity, and for the good of the coming generations." The paper gives as an excuse that the article was taken from a provincial paper! Such a defence of murderers who have assaulted sixteen unarmed prisoners, people who have never taken up arms against the Red, speaks its own plain language.
The revolutionary tribunals excite the indignation of the Red Guard. Their sentences are absolutely too mild. As early as the 8th February, the General Staff express their dissatisfaction with this. On the 10th February the officers of the Guard have a meeting, and declare that the sentences passed by the tribunals are mere jokes—the Guard must intervene. "If the punishment of the butchers is not made more stringent," it is said among other things, "the number of prisoners will be greatly reduced, for then the men will begin to make use of self-redress."
The secretary of the revolutionary tribunal at Helsingfors defends his institution in a newspaper paragraph on the 17th February. He says: "We do not intend to be lenient with the really guilty, but hitherto only very few such have been given to us. Do your best, you who know the really guilty. Prove their guilt, for without proof no one can be sentenced."
No, this was exactly where the difficulty was. Who was guilty, and how could his guilt be proved; this guilt which consisted in a "counter-revolutionary spirit," the refusal to support the Red, the fact of being a "bourgeois," or, on the whole, unsympathetic? No tribunal could cope with such things. Such things the Red Guard must try to manage by themselves.
There were, however, revolutionary tribunals that suited the Red better. An investigation they were ​obliged to carry out at the station town of Toijala in Tavastland may serve as an example. Hear, first, a small incident as an instance of revolutionary idealism. A strict officer at the front had sent a Red Guardsman to this tribunal who had been in a state of excessive intoxication when the order was given to attack. The tribunal finds: "The court have not been able to look at the accused in the same light as our opponents, but are of opinion that as an enthusiastic fellow fighter he should remain at the front and, following an inner call, should there fight for liberty against our enemies."
Counsel for the prosecution at the tribunal at Toijala was a certain Tanner, a shoemaker, who had been liberated by the Red from the house of correction, where he had served three terms; the last time, for robbery and murder. At the disposal of the tribunal there was a "flying corps" led by one, Vuori, a tailor. The latter drove round with his troop, and arrested the employers in the neighbourhood, took them away for "trial," but shot them on the way, and rifled the bodies. The number of his victims was not known, but Tanner, who was arrested and tried after the insurrection, confessed to having been the author of about thirty murders at which Vuori did service as executioner.
A peculiar reason makes the Red themselves commence an investigation of these outrages. A "White" railway guard, Soivio, living at Toijala, had been arrested, and was tried after he had been kept several days in prison. He is found not guilty, and is to be liberated, but the liberation is postponed until seven in the evening. The cause is that it is desired to await the approach of darkness. When it is going on for seven, Tanner gets uneasy, for Vuori has not appeared. He then asks two other soldiers to be so kind as to see to Soivio, "if Vuori is not in time." Soivio is to be taken home by sleigh, ​and shot on the way. At seven o'clock, however, when Soivio comes out with his little daughter by the hand—she had come to fetch him—there is a sleigh drawn up outside the gate. Vuori who has now come, and a comrade, invite Soivio to get into the sleigh. Soivio hesitates, but finally takes his seat with his daughter on his knee. But Vuori lifts the little one down again, muttering something about "trespassers" not being allowed. Vuori sits beside Soivio, the other Red man stands on the runners behind them. When they have driven for a while Vuori says to Soivio: "This is your last drive." Soivio makes no answer, though, according to Vuori's evidence, he grows "perceptibly nervous." When they pass Soivio's home, he asks permission to put a basket of provisions he has with him in the road, as a sign that he has passed. The Red do not permit it. They reach the outskirts of the forest, and here the murder is to be perpetrated. But by this time Soivio, too, has made up his mind. Suddenly he throws his arms round Vuori, and tries to throw him out of the sleigh. They wrestle for a while, but in the meanwhile he who is behind has got out his revolver. It is, however, out of order, and he must content himself with striking Soivio's head with the butt-end with all his might. Vuori has let go the reins, the horse bolts, and finally Vuori is in the snow. In no time his comrade is also thrown out and gone. Vuori has got up and shoots like one possessed. But Soivio is lying at the bottom of the sleigh, and the horse is in a panic. It races across fields and meadows, the sleigh is hurled across fences, but at last Soivio can jump out at the edge of the parsonage wood. He walks quietly back to his home.
This occurrence gives rise to an investigation on the 27th February. Vuori—but not Tanner—is considered to be so heavily compromised that on the 11th March ​he is brought before a tribunal of comrades. Here it transpires that every time he has shot a prisoner Vuori has gone up to the body, and cut off the head with his sword. He is in the habit of showing his bloody sword, and boasting of the many throats he has cut. Vuori, however, will not put up with standing in the pillory alone. He summons his immediate superiors, "the Staff" (to which also Tanner belonged) before the tribunal of comrades, and accuses them of having given him vague orders. The Staff have never said that prisoners should not be murdered; on the contrary, they have recommended him to do what he likes with them, "and," they have added, "if you find a swamp, throw them into it." "Besides," says Vuori, "it was the general opinion in the Red Guard that we should not be able to get the better of our opponents if we did not kill them." The Staff have done nothing to counteract this opinion.
The judicial proceedings are, of course, without result, but Vuori's statement is confirmed by an "impartial" witness.
A militiaman has been called to a village near Toijala by the relatives of one of the murdered men. He reports as follows: "The murder has been committed by Vuori and his troop. On the telephone I gave an account of my investigation to the Staff of the Red Guard, and asked them to send on some men who could protect the population. But I got the reply that the matter does not concern the Staff, and that such cases need not be investigated. At the same time I learned that the Red Guardsmen considered it permissible to kill prisoners, and, according to my conception, this view has been supported by the Staff, as the latter has given Vuori continued authority to act as chief of the flying corps, although the Staff know very well about the murders committed—even from Vuori himself."
​It cannot be denied that the Red Government's proclamations against deeds of violence and cruelties look very feeble and pale against a background of this sort. Why were such men as Vuori and Tanner not punished? Why was nothing done to counteract the "general opinion" in the Red Guard that prisoners could be murdered?
But we continue. The papers of the Red contain many proofs that the grossest criminals were allowed to go scot free.
In the Labour suburb Kottby, outside Helsingfors, there was a flying corps whose chief was the butcher, Hjalmar Felin. His most trusted man was called Lilja. Already on the 2nd February Felin has murdered three persons, and on the 3rd February he murders a fourth—an organised working-man. From the murder he goes straight to the home of the dead man, and institutes a "house-search." On that occasion he stole a gold ring, but to the enquiry of the dead man's wife about what had become of the body of her husband, he gives no reply. (It was, as a rule, difficult to get the Red to hand over the bodies, for they were only unwillingly shown to the relatives, maimed and rifled as they were.)
Felin was, however, arrested on the 5th February, and his comrades examined. In like manner Lilja is taken into custody. Nothing transpires as regards Lilja during the inquest. Only a witness has seen him dragging an old man along the high road. Lilja had at last landed his man in a snow drift, and kicked him so long in the face till the heel of his boot had battered in his forehead. But this took place already during the general strike in November. As the matter may, therefore, be considered stale, Lilja is set free on the 12th February. Felin's case is worse. The examination of the witnesses which takes place in the Government ​Buildings—by whom conducted it is not stated—-gives inter alia the following result: "Felin's comrades have not taken part in the murders, but 'if the murdered men were butchers they approve of the action.'" At all house-searches Felin has pocketed objects of value. A witness describes the following incident: The witness is walking along the high road and sees Felin conducting a man into the wood. Some shots are heard, and Felin comes out of the wood again. He says to the witness: "Now Träskman is shot." The witness: "But that was not Träskman at all. It was the old man we arrested already during the general strike, but who was set free again later on." Felin: "Indeed! Well, then, it was not Träskman, but anyway, it is all the same. It was always a novelty to this one to be shot."
Such a thing was not, however, considered a sufficient reason for sentencing Felin to imprisonment. On the 24th February Felin's comrades carry the following resolution by eighty-eight votes against nil.
"We, members of Kottby Red Guard, have every day read in the papers with what terrible brutality the citizens of Finland are fighting against us without shunning any means whatever. We therefore will not allow that our comrade is kept imprisoned in such times, owing to the information of private persons, with which crimes we, all men of the Guard, have not had occasion to make ourselves acquainted, then we demand that our comrade is at once set free, and sent to serve with his troop."
The style is, as will be seen, a little clumsy, but the intention is good enough. The minutes further contain a resolution that all the papers concerning the investigation against Felin are to be burnt. This, however, has not been done. At any rate, here we see what were the results of the tales about the cruelties of the White. On the 25th February the "leading commission" set Felin free.
​The papers of the Red yet contain many more proofs of the spirit of cruelty reigning among them. The Government received letters from the relatives of the murdered requesting investigation, and so an enquiry was often instituted. In reality, there was very little to investigate, for generally the writer already knew the names of the murderers. Nevertheless an inquest was held.
On the 3rd April a murder and robbery was investigated in the parish of Sibbo. The two murderers confess, but are not imprisoned. They only receive a warning not to absent themselves. On the 2nd April the perpetrators of the murder of an innkeeper in the parish of Mohla are brought to trial. They are two young Red Guardsmen. They seized the innkeeper in his home, and took him before the Staff. Here he was sentenced to death. They then seized him again, and were going to take him to the wood, but on the way he ran to a little house where some of his relatives lived. He begged and prayed the two to shoot him near the house, so that his body might remain with his people, but this could not be allowed. He was shot in the wood, his body rifled and thrown into the river. When the members of the Staff were examined, they explained that the innkeeper had been sentenced by them in their capacity of members of the "summary court-martial," because he was an eager adherent of the butchers. They had ordered him to be shot, but had not taken the trouble to ascertain whether or how the sentence was accomplished. The solemn abolition of capital punishment was not thus taken seriously by the tribunals themselves. In the parish of Strömfors the Red Guardsmen openly confess to having murdered and plundered two peasants. On the 22nd February a crofter's son has been murdered, and the body rifled and thrown into the river; also the ​home of the murdered man has been plundered. The murderer is known, "but could not be tried as he is at the front." In the parish of Mäntsälä three cases of murder are investigated. One of the murdered persons has been shot, the other has had his head shattered, and the third has been strangled. The committee for the investigation report that, besides these three, about twenty persons in the same parish have been murdered. Among the murdered are also "neutrals." At Helsingfors an ex-policeman has been shot. A witness communicates the names of the two murderers. To the question whether the murderers were acquaintances of the murdered man the witness replies: "No, they did not belong to his friends, but they had had to do with him before, for he had sometimes been obliged to take them into custody when on duty." The day after the murder one of the murderers had been to the mortuary to look at the dead body. "He only wanted to see where the bullet had gone in," he said. An ardent interest in the trade!
Finally, we shall here communicate one or two Red documents of another description, yet characteristic, too. On the 21st March an anonymous subordinate official in the hospital of the Red at Hyvinge writes to the procurator—"the supreme guardian of the laws." In the letter the murders in this part are very casually mentioned, though they were revolting enough. Eleven persons had been shot, among them a woman and four working-men. The reason for this was a list that had been found containing the names of these eleven. It concerned the distribution of food, or something equally neutral. The eleven were, however, shot, and the Red Press stated that the murders had been committed "by mistake." The anonymous correspondent wishes to call the attention of the procurator to the fact that besides the murders, ​embezzlement, extortion, and the like has taken place, all of which, "if not directly criminal, is at least liable to cause disapproval." He wishes, however, to have an investigation started. It cannot be carried out by the local judges and "staffs," as they are all compromised. Therefore a special commission ought to be sent to the place, but in order to be able to accomplish anything it must be accompanied by an "armed command."
A militia constable at Helsingfors reports as follows:—
On the 5th February at ten id the evening he observed four Red Guardsmen taking a prisoner on to the ice at Hagnäs Square. He went up to them, and asked them where they were taking the prisoner. They answered, "He has been sentenced." The militiaman asked them to show him the document. They declared that they had nothing to show, as the sentence had been passed orally from a passing motor car. The Red Guardsmen were angry, and declared that the whole matter did not concern the constable, that it was an "internal affair of the Red Guard." The constable was, no doubt, of the same opinion, but as a crowd had collected round them, he was obliged to keep to his interference, and demand that the four should take their prisoner to the "staff" in the People's House close by. Two of the four now went away with savage curses, the others obeyed the constable—ascribing it to the crowd—and the prisoner was conducted to the staff.
As more than one thousand murders have been committed, volumes might, of course, be filled with descriptions of the different variations of cruelty and brutality with which they were carried out. Often the murder is caused by an informer. This was the case when the manager of a commercial-school at Helsingfors, Mr. Rosenquist, was arrested because his servant had ​seen some counter-revolutionary papers on his writing table, and murdered in the motor car on the way to the prison. The same is the case when an ex-policeman was shot because he was White. His wife had informed against him. Many examples of inhuman cruelty and sustained torture could be cited. A seventy-year-old clergyman is murdered with bayonets in his bed, and another clergyman is held fast while a Red Guardsman kicks him, and two other cut a cross in his naked breast, and rub salt into the wound. Some unfortunate people were buried alive in a swamp; on others the fingers were cut off to get at the rings before they were killed; one victim was boiled in a Russian camp kitchen, etc. There is evidence that outrages without number of this kind have been committed. This is confirmed by the inquests, as well as by the Red prisoners' own confessions. But in the statement above only such outrages have been included as have been mentioned by the Red in their own documents. They give us the best idea of the insurgents' view of the crime.
From them it would seem safe to infer that the leaders did not evince any special energy in putting a stop to the savage epidemic of murder. This negligence on the part of the chiefs also forced all the better elements in the Guard to silence and subjection. For, of course, "better elements" were found. In many districts there were honest Red "staffs" who did no man harm. They only kept guard, and wrote passports and certificates of curious orthography. But, besides them, there were all these "flying corps," all these revolutionary tribunals and staffs, where liberated convicts and their like played the principal part. They took the lead. They showed how a real revolutionary ought to treat citizens and butchers. They drowned the scruples of their comrades by giving them stolen property, and letting them buy ​valuable objects cheap that had been taken from the bodies. Thus all became participants in the crime; thus one defended oneself against the cowards and timid persons. And when the murderers were allowed free play it became the general opinion that all who had not joined the Red movement were legitimate sport. Their homes might be plundered, their lives taken; they were butchers and the enemies of the people, no matter what position they filled in society.
However, it was not until defeat began to be obvious to all that the thefts, murders, and general ravages began with unequalled fury. The destruction of the last weeks can only be conceived as the work of mobs worked up into a state of frenzy.
In the following these ravages will be briefly touched upon.