Original sentence: After four months of bitter fighting, the Red Guards were defeated and the White Guards were recognized as one of the key agents in the victory, downplaying for political reasons the role of the German intervention units and the German-trained 2,000 Jaegers.However the White victory was achieved with assistance from the Germans.The Civil War was portrayed as a liberation from Russian control after a 20 year long Russification programme, with the Whites stressing the links of the Reds to the Russian Bolshevik regime.There were reparations in the aftermath of the Civil War
Edited sentence: After four months of bitter fighting, the Red Guards were defeated and the White Guards were recognized as one of the key agents in the victory.Consequently, the Reds were stamped as traitors, although the White victory was achieved with assistance from the Germans.In reality, the German intervention units and especially the 2,000 Jaegers trained by Germans had been instrumental in the White victory, but for political reasons the importance of the White Guards was heavily stressed.In this situation it was easy for large sections of the Finnish public to assume that the Civil War had been The War of Liberation from Russia.It is estimated that some 9,720 Finns were executed in the Civil War and its aftermath.The Civil War erupted at a time when Finland was focusing on the Russian threat: Russia had been trying to "Russify" Finland for 20 years; White Russia wanted to limit Finland's autonomy; Russian soldiers had been a major source of disorder before the war; and Russian Bolsheviks were perceived as dangerous ideological enemies.The White Guards were accordingly depicted as Finland's freedom fighters.The aftermath of the Civil War was, however, extremely bloody