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For People’s Power: The Known and Unknown Revolutions in Finland (1899–1932)

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Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

The history of Finland is not known for revolutions but rather for stable social development and as a homogenous society without striking societal cleavages concerning religion, ethnicity or class. This simplified view, the master narrative of a new state (since 1917), focused in the ‘national struggle’ and declined the societal factors of political development. In fact, the first decades of the twentieth century saw a row of revolutions, i.e. moments when the state authority was challenged and reorganized. This chapter studies the dramatic societal transformation of the early 20th century as a revolution—as it was understood then.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Giovanni Levi, ‘On Microhistory’, in Peter Burke (ed.), New Perspectives on Historical Writing (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992), pp. 93–113, here p. 110.

  2. 2.

    In the Finnish language revolution (vallankumous) means literally ‘overthrow of power’. In the political language of the time it was usually synonymous to coup d’etat, as it was also used in the works by Anthony Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917–1918 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press 1980), Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1988), Jussi T. Lappalainen et al., Yhden kortin varassa: Suomalainen vallankumous 1918 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1989), Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50, Seppo Tiihonen, Vallan kumoukset Suomessa 1917–1919. Suomi ja vallan verkostot (Helsinki: Otava, 2019) and by Viktor Holodkovski, Suomen työväen vallankumous 1918 (Moskova: Edistys, 1978) in his Soviet Marxist interpretation.

  3. 3.

    A short account of the war is Pertti Haapala and Marko Tikka, ‘Revolution, Civil War and Terror in Finland in 1918’ in Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds.), War and Peace. Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 72–84 and Marko Tikka, ‘Finland’s Civil War of 1918’, in Alexander Marshall and John W. Steinberg and Steven Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2019), pp. 79–98. Recent historiographic summaries are Tiina Kinnunen, ‘The Post-Cold War Memory Culture of the Civil War. Old-New Patterns and New Approaches’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 401–440; Risto Alapuro, ‘The Legacy of the Civil War of 1918 in Finland’, in Bill Kissane (ed.), After Civil War Division, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Contemporary Europe (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), pp. 17–42 and Marko Tikka, ‘Hitaasti koottu palapeli. Suomen sisällissota historiankirjoituksessa’, Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 2 (2018), pp. 118–125. About the commemoration of 1918 in 2018, see Finland 100: Together. Centenary Celebration Report. Prime Minister’s Office 2018, available at: URL https://suomi100raportti.fi/en/.

  4. 4.

    The party was founded in 1899 and was first named Finnish Labour Party. It adopted a socialist program in 1903, following the Germans’ Erfurt program, and was renamed Social Democratic Party. The abbreviation in Finnish was SDP, which us used here, too.

  5. 5.

    Broad overviews of the civil war and its impact: Pertti Haapala and Tuomas Hoppu (eds.), Sisällissodan pikkujättiläinen (Helsinki: WSOY, 2009); Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918. History, Memory, Legacy (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014).

  6. 6.

    A detailed history of the red administration is Osmo Rinta-Tassi, Kansanvaltuuskunta Punaisen Suomen hallituksena. Punaisen Suomen historia 1918 (Helsinki: VAPK, 1986), shortly in Sami Suodenjoki, ‘Siviilihallinto’, in Pertti Haapala and Tuomas Hoppu (eds.), Sisällissodan pikkujättiläinen (Helsinki: WSOY, 2009), pp. 246–275.

  7. 7.

    The major documents are published widely, first in Hannu Soikkanen (ed.), Kansalaissota dokumentteina I–II (Helsinki: Tammi, 1967–1969).

  8. 8.

    About the difficult relationship between the (state) church and the Reds, see Ilkka Huhta (ed.), Sisällissota ja kirkko 1918 (Helsinki: SKHS, 2009) and Huhta 2010. Ten pastors (of one thousand) were killed by the Reds and few of them supported the Reds.

  9. 9.

    David Kirby, ‘Stockholm – Petrograd – Berlin. International Social Democracy and Finnish Independence 1917’, The Slavonic and East European Review (1974), pp. 63–84; Hannu Soikkanen, ‘Revisionism, Reformism and the Finnish Labour Movement Before the First World War’, Scandinavian Journal of History 3 (1978), pp. 347–360.

  10. 10.

    Social conditions prior to WWI, see Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995), cf. Stephen Smith, Russia in Revolution. An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) and Alessandro Stanziani, ‘Russian Economic History in Global Perspective’, in Mathias Middel (ed.), The Practice of Global History. European Perspectives (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), pp. 115–136.

  11. 11.

    Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1995) (and its literature); Osmo Jussila, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta 1809–1917 (Helsinki: WSOY, 2004) (state formation).

  12. 12.

    Finland was a bilingual society Swedish being the traditional dominant language among the ‘bättre folk’ (better people) and in administration and university. See Max Engman, Språkfrågan. Finlandssvenskhetens uppkomst 1812–1922 (Helsinfors and Stockholm: SLS and Atlantis, 2016).

  13. 13.

    Risto Alapuro et al. (eds.), Kansa liikkeessä (Vaasa: Kirjayhtymä, 1989); Antti Harmainen and Mikko Kemppainen, ‘Paremman sosialismin asialla’, Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 1/2020, pp. 20–32; Mikko Kemppainen, Sosialismin, uskonnon ja sukupuolen dynamiikka: 1900-luvun alun työväenliikkeen naiskirjailijat aatteen määrittelijöinä (Helsinki: THPTS, 2020).

  14. 14.

    Juhani Niemi (ed.), Arvid Järnefel. Kirjailija ajassa ja ikuisuudessa (Helsinki: SKS, 2005). Järnefelt was a known novellist associated with Lev Tolstoy and a son of an aristocratic German-Russian-Swedish family which turned to Fennomania like many intellectuals.

  15. 15.

    Jari Ehrnrooth, Sanan vallassa, vihan voimalla. Sosialistiset vallankumousopit ja niiden vaikutus Suomen työväenliikkeessä 1905–1914 (Helsinki: SHS, 1992) (on rhetorics); Jouko Heikkilä, Kansallista luokkapolitiikkaa. Sosiaalidemokraatit ja Suomen autonomian puolustus 1905–1917 (Helsinki: SHS, 1993) (on politics). On the the concept and comprehension of socialism, see Risto Turunen, Shades of Red. Evolution of the Political Language of Finnish Socialism from the 19th Century until the Civil War of 1918 (Tampere: The Finnish Society for Labour History, 2021).

  16. 16.

    Vesa Vares, ‘Demokratian haasteet 1907–1919’, in Vesa Vares et al. (eds.), Kansanvalta koetuksella (Helsinki: Edita, 2006), pp. 10–149. The bourgeois parties called Old Fennomen (conservative nationalists), Young Fennomen (radical nationalists), Vikings (lSwedish speakers) and the Agrarian Union (small farmers) were almost equally strong and made varying allies depending on topic—but not with socialists.

  17. 17.

    Tuomas Hoppu, Historian unohtamat. Suomalaiset vapaaehtoiset Venäjän armeijassa 1. Maailmansodassa 1914–1918 (Tampere: SKS, 2005); Matti Lackman, Suomen vai Saksan puolesta? Jääkäriliikkeen tuntematon historia (Helsinki: Otava, 2000); Pertti Luntinen, The Imperial Russian Army and Navy in Finland 1808–1918 (Helsinki: SHS, 1997), pp. 270–405; Harri Korpisaari, Itsenäisen Suomen puolesta. Sotilaskomitea 1915–1918 (Helsinki: SKS, 2009).

  18. 18.

    Alexander Marshall, ‘Lenin and the World Revolution’, in Alexander Marshall and John W. Steinberg and Steven Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2019), pp. 25–62. The optimistic atmosphere in St.Petersburg and Finland can be read in John Reed’s reportage of the revolution (1919). He travelled through Finland and was helped by many Finns. Max Engman and Jerker Eriksson, Vallankumouksen salamatkustaja John Reed Suomessa (Helsinki: WSOY, 1982).

  19. 19.

    On Reds’ local administration, see Juhani Piilonen, Vallankumous kunnallishallinnossa. Punaisen Suomen historia 1918 (Helsinki: VAPK, 1982). Numerous local studies confirm the role of local activity in the making of the revolution.

  20. 20.

    Tuomas Hoppu, ‘Taistelevat osapuolet ja johtajat’, in Pertti Haapala and Tuomas Hoppu (eds.), Sisällissodan pikkujättiläinen (Helsinki: WSOY, 2009), pp. 112–144. Around 4000 Russians participated some how in the war but no more than 1000 were in the front in the same time.

  21. 21.

    Eino Ketola, Kansalliseen kansanvaltaan. Suomen itsenäisyys, sosiaalidemokraatit ja Venäjän vallankumous 1917 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1987), p. 458 (Lenin’s notes in early January 1918 when he was resting in Finland).

  22. 22.

    Ketola 1987, pp. 455–467; Tuomas Hoppu, Vallatkaa Helsinki Saksan hyökkäys punaiseen pääkaupunkiin 1918 (Helsinki: Gummerus, 2018).

  23. 23.

    Jussi T. Lappalainen et al., Yhden kortin varassa: Suomalainen vallankumous 1918 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1989); Sampo Ahto, ‘Sotaretkellä’, in Ohto Manninen et al., Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 2 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1993), pp. 180–447; Tuomas Hoppu, Vallatkaa Helsinki. Saksan hyökkäys punaiseen pääkaupunkiin 1918 (Helsinki: Gummerus, 2018).

  24. 24.

    Vesta.narc.fi/en (Finnish National Archives data base of the war casualties 1914–1922).

  25. 25.

    Marko Tikka, ‘Warfare and Terror’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden & Boston, MA: Brill 2014), pp. 90–118 (based on large primary data). I would not name the executions as genocide, as some do, or ‘the first of the savage counter-revolutionary campaigns that would open a new chapter in the 20th century political violence’ (Adam Tooze, The Deluge. The Great War and the Remaking of Global Order [New York, NY: Viking, 2014], p. xxxix and Stephen Smith, Russia in Revolution. An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017], p. 158). Court-martials were halted when they came widely public and violence ended with the war. Cf. Aapo Roselius, Teloittajien jäljillä. Valkoisten väkivalta Suomen sisällissodassa (Helsinki: Tammi, 2007) and Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds.), War and Peace. Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). A detailed study on deaths and their causes in the prison camps is Sture Lindholm, Vankileirihelvetti Dragsvik. Tammisaaren joukkokuolema 1918 (Jyväskylä: Atena, 2018).

  26. 26.

    Lasse Lehtinen and Risto Volanen, 1918. Kuinka vallankumous levisi Suomeen (Helsinki: Otava, 2018) is an example of belated and loosely argumented judgement of Leninism.

  27. 27.

    Stephen Smith, Russia in Revolution. An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 173; Aapo Roselius and Oula Silvennoinen, Villi itä. Suomen heimosodat ja Itä-Euroopan murros 1918–1921 (Helsinki: Tammi, 2019) (on Finnish ‘Freikorps’ fighting Bolsheviks in Carelia and the Baltic 1919–1921). A detailed listing of Finns in the Russian Civil war, see Mirko Harjula, Suomalaiset Venäjän sisällissodassa 1917–1922 (Helsinki: SKS, 2006).

  28. 28.

    Eino Ketola, Kansalliseen kansanvaltaan. Suomen itsenäisyys, sosiaalidemokraatit ja Venäjän vallankumous 1917 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1987), pp. 325–331; Tuomo Polvinen, Venäjän vallankumous ja Suomi 1917–1920. 1. Helmikuu 1917 – toukokuu 1918 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1967), pp. 105–116; V. I. Lenin, Suomesta. Kirjoituksia, lausuntoja, asiakirjoja. Toim. J. Sykiäinen (Moskova: Edistys, 1966) [Lenin’s writings, comments and documents on Finland], pp. 91–95 (Lenin to Smilga October 10, 1917); Pertti Luntinen, The Imperial Russian Army and Navy in Finland 1808–1918 (Helsinki: SHS, 1997), pp. 350–357. See also Norman Saul, ‘The Helsingfors (Helsinki) Sailors’ Assembly 1917’ in Alexander Marshall, John W. Steinberg and Steven Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2019), pp. 63–78, here 73–78.

  29. 29.

    Tuomo Polvinen, Imperial Borderland: Bobrikov and the Attempted Russification of Finland, 1898–1904 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995); Pertti Luntinen, Sota Venäjällä – Venäjä sodassa (Helsinki: SKS, 2008), ch. 8–10.

  30. 30.

    V. Smirnov, Lenin Suomen vaiheissa (Helsinki: Otava, 1970), pp. 36–42, pp. 70–72; N. Krupskaja, Muistelmia Leninistä. Bolshevikkien maanalaista toimintaa ja Toveri Lenin Suomessa vv. 1905–1907 (Helsinki: Kansankulttuuri, 1969), p. 51.

  31. 31.

    V. I. Lenin, Suomesta. Kirjoituksia, lausuntoja, asiakirjoja. Toim. J. Sykiäinen (Moskova: Edistys, 1966), pp. 34–36, p. 107 (A letter to Finnish comrades 11.11.1917).

  32. 32.

    V. Smirnov, Lenin Suomen vaiheissa (Helsinki: Otava, 1970), pp. 84–97.

  33. 33.

    Tomo Polvinen, Venäjän vallankumous ja Suomi 1917–1920: 1. Helmikuu 1917 – toukokuu 1918 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1967), pp. 191–193. In March 1918 Lenin was criticized by his comrades of losing Finland when making peace with Germany. His defence was that he followed the wish of Finnish socialists who claimed that they had a better chance to win if Finland was independent (V. I. Lenin, Suomesta. Kirjoituksia, lausuntoja, asiakirjoja. Toim. J. Sykiäinen [Moskova: Edistys, 1966], pp. 129–131). Later he didn’t challenge the separation of Finland but claimed in 1919 that the Entente ‘squeezed Finland worse than any Tsar ever could’ (V. I. Lenin, Suomesta. Kirjoituksia, lausuntoja, asiakirjoja. Toim. J. Sykiäinen (Moskova: Edistys, 1966), pp. 173–175).

  34. 34.

    Cf. the reactions in Ireland, Andrew Newby, ‘“The Same Thing Could Happen in Finland”. The Anti-Imperial Movement in Ireland and Finland, 1916–1917’, in Enrico Dal Lago, Róisín Healy, and Gearóid Barry (eds.), 1916 in Global Context. An Anti-Imperial Moment (London: Routledge, 2016), pp. 188–207.

  35. 35.

    Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50, in detail see Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995), 152–228. According to Norman Saul, ‘The Helsingfors (Helsinki) Sailors’ Assembly 1917’, in Alexander Marshall and John W. Steinberg and Steven Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 [Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2019], pp. 63–78, here pp. 68–69) U.S. paid 75 million dollars to cover the salaries in the Helsinki naval base—and hence unintentionally supported the revolution!

  36. 36.

    He had emigrated to U.S. in 1891 and returned in 1900 with a good experience of the American labour movement. After 1918 he served in the British troops against the White Russians and escaped to USA in 1920 where he edited a socialist newspaper Raivaaja. Oskari Tokoi, Sisu. Even Through a Stone Wall. The Autobiography of the First Premier of Finland (New York: Speller & Sons, 1957) (autobiography).

  37. 37.

    Osmo Jussila, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta 1809–1917 (Helsinki: WSOY, 2004), pp. 750–769; Seppo Tiihonen, Vallan kumoukset Suomessa 1917–1919. Suomi ja vallan verkostot (Helsinki: Otava, 2019), pp. 117–118, pp. 169–176.

  38. 38.

    On political sentiments in 1917, see e.g. Juha Siltala, ‘Being Absorbed into an Unintended War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 51–89; Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50. Anthony Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917–1918 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980) is a vivid description but relies too much on the politized press of the time.

  39. 39.

    Tomo Polvinen, Venäjän vallankumous ja Suomi 1917–1920: 1. Helmikuu 1917 – toukokuu 1918 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1967), pp. 67–83.

  40. 40.

    Pasi Ihalainen, The Springs of Democracy. National and Transnational Debates on Constitutional Reform in the British, German, Swedish and Finnish Parliaments, 1917–1919 (Helsinki: FLS, 2017), pp. 256–280 sees revolutionary rhetorics as ‘bolshevization’ of SDP. It looks like that if one studies the texts of the time only and neglects the logic of party activity, claims Antti Kujala, ‘Neljän maan parlamenttihistorian vertailua’, Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 4 (2018), pp. 485–487.

  41. 41.

    Kansan Lehti 11.11.1905.

  42. 42.

    Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50, here pp. 42–49; Juha Siltala, ‘Being Absorbed into an Unintended War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 51–89.

  43. 43.

    Eino Ketola, Kansalliseen kansanvaltaan. Suomen itsenäisyys, sosiaalidemokraatit ja Venäjän vallankumous 1917 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1987), pp. 356–364.

  44. 44.

    Jouko Heikkilä, Kansallista luokkapolitiikkaa. Sosiaalidemokraatit ja Suomen autonomian puolustus 1905–1917 (Helsinki: SHS, 1993).

  45. 45.

    On ‘revolutionary situation’, see Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press 1988), pp. 160–176. Strikes and other ‘losses’ were carefully reported in the Official Statistics of Finland.

  46. 46.

    Eino Ketola, Kansalliseen kansanvaltaan. Suomen itsenäisyys, sosiaalidemokraatit ja Venäjän vallankumous 1917 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1987), pp. 455–458.

  47. 47.

    The course of events is based on the minutes and memos of the participants and has been reported in several histories, like Tuomo Polvinen, Venäjän vallankumous ja Suomi 1917–1920: 1. Helmikuu 1917 – toukokuu 1918 (Porvoo: WSOY, 1967), Hannu Soikkanen, Kohti kansanvaltaa 1. Suomen sosialidemokraattisen puolueen historia 1899–1937 (Vaasa: SDP 1975), Anthony Upton, Finnish Revolution 1917–1918 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), Eino Ketola, Kansalliseen kansanvaltaan. Suomen itsenäisyys, sosiaalidemokraatit ja Venäjän vallankumous 1917 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1987), Ohto Manninen et al., Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 1 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1992).

  48. 48.

    Ohto Manninen et al., Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 1 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1992), pp. 346–397.

  49. 49.

    Ohto Manninen et al., Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 1 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1992), pp. 398–433; Marko Tikka, ‘Finland’s Civil War of 1918’ in Alexander Marshall, John W. Steinberg, and Steven Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 (Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2019).

  50. 50.

    Schmoller’s major work Die soziale Frage was known in Finland but only the last part of it (on classes and class struggle) was translated in 1920 as ‘a lesson to learn’.

  51. 51.

    Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995), 90–151; Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50.

  52. 52.

    A detailed study of 5000 members of Tampere Red Guard (Aimo Klemettilä, Tampereen punakaarti ja sen jäsenistö [Tampere: Acta Universitatis Tamperensis, 1976]) is strongly in favor of this thesis. Seppo Aalto, Kapina tehtaalla. Kuusankoski 1918 (Helsinki: Siltala 2018) tells a story of ruthless violence in Kymi industrial community which had a long tradition of violent but organized srikes.

  53. 53.

    Väinö Voionmaa, Tampereen historia IV: Tampereen uusin historia (Tampere: Tampereen kaupunki, 1935), pp. 63–65.

  54. 54.

    Matti Peltonen, Talolliset ja torpparit. Vuosisadan vaihteen maatalouskysymys Suomessa (Helsinki: SHS, 1992), pp. 239–306; Sami Suodenjoki, ‘Turning the landless into socialists Agrarian reforms and resistance as drivers of political mobilisation in Finland, 1880–1914’, in Joe Regan and Cathal Smith (eds.), Agrarian Reform and Resistance in an Age of Globalisation. The Euro-American World and Beyond, 1780–1914 (London: Routledge, 2018), pp. 170–184; Anna Rajavuori, Esityksen politiikka. Sosialistinen agitaatio keskisuomalaisella maaseudulla 1906–1908 (on socialist agitation in rural Finland) (Helsinki: The Finnish Society for Labour History, 2017); Risto Turunen and Sami Suodenjoki (eds.), Työväki kumouksessa (Helsinki: THPTS, 2017). Crofter (torppari) was a tenant farmer with a long-time contract. The rent varied much but it was often 30% of the annual harvest.

  55. 55.

    Pertti Haapala, ‘The Expected and Non-Expected Roots of Chaos. Preconditions of the Finnish Civil War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 21–50; Samu Nyström, Poikkeusajan kaupunkielämäkerta. Helsinki ja helsinkiläiset maailmansodassa 1915–1918 (Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto, 2013); Juha Siltala, ‘Being Absorbed into an Unintended War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 51–89.

  56. 56.

    Viljo Rasila, Kansalaissodan sosiaalinen tausta (Helsinki: Tammi, 1968); Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995), pp. 90–151. Sirkka Arosalo, Poliittisen väkivallan yhteiskunnallisista edellytyksistä. Punainen ja valkoinen väkivalta Suomessa vuonna 1918 (Tampere: Acta universitatis tamperensis, 1994) has found a correlation between economic deprivation and political violence in 1918 but the measurement is not always accurate, cf. Pertti Haapala, ‘Kadonneen korrelaation metsästys’, Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 2 (1995), pp. 175–178.

  57. 57.

    A detailed study on urban workers is Pertti Haapala, Tehtaan valossa. Teollistuminen ja työväestön muodostuminen Tampereella 1820–1920 (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1986). About the psychology of discontent, see also Juha Siltala, ‘Being absorbed into an Unintended War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2014), pp. 51–89. Jari Ehrnrooth, Sanan vallassa, vihan voimalla. Sosialistiset vallankumousopit ja niiden vaikutus Suomen työväenliikkeessä 1905–1914 (Helsinki: SHS, 1992) has presented an opposite view, i.e. labour movement channelled the ‘archaic hate’of the lower classes, which became the engine of the revolution, cf. Tuomas Tepora, ‘The Mystified War: Regeneration and Sacrifice’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill 2014), pp. 159–200, here 163, 174 and passim.

  58. 58.

    A comparison of Europe and USA: Ira Katznelson and Aristide Zolberg (eds.), Working-Class Formation. Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).

  59. 59.

    Väinö Voionmaa, ‘Yhdistyselämä’, in Suomen kulttuurihistoria IV: Industrialismin ja kansallisen nousun aika (Jyväskylä: Gummerus, 1936), pp. 467–484, here p. 474 (citation); Väinö Voionmaa, Tampereen historia III: Itämaisesta sodasta suurlakon aikoihin (Tampere: Tampereen kaupunki, 1932), pp. 22–25. ‘People’s power’ was a popular, now obsolete, synonym to democracy, i.e. equal participation.

  60. 60.

    Väinö Voionmaa, Tampereen historia IV: Tampereen uusin historia (Tampere: Tampereen kaupunki, 1935), pp. 63–65. Seikko Eskola, Suomen hurja vuosi 1917 Ruotsin peilissä (Helsinki: Edita, 2010) compares the public discussion in Sweden and Finland in the ‘wild year’ of 1917. Sweden faced similar type problems but the political machine was able to integrate socialists.

  61. 61.

    After separation from Sweden in 1809, Finland maintained its legal system which was never codified with the Russian system. A long history of the legal position of Finland is Osmo Jussila, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta 1809–1917 (Helsinki: WSOY, 2004). About the state and civil society in a Nordic perspective, see Henrik Stenius, ‘Paradoxes of the Finnish Political Culture’, in Jóhan Páll Árnason and Björn Wittrock (eds.), Nordic Paths to Modernity (New York: Berghahn, 2012), pp. 207–228, and Risto Alapuro, ‘The Construction of the Voter in Finland, c. 1860–1907’. Redescriptions: Yearbook of Political Thought and Conceptual History 10 (2006), pp. 41–64.

  62. 62.

    Pertti Haapala, Olli Löytty, Kukku Melkas, and Marko Tikka, (eds.), Kansa kaikkivaltias. Suurlakko Suomessa 1905 (Helsinki: Teos, 2008) is a wide and deep description of experiencing a revolution in 1905. On political imagination and confrontations in and after 1905 see also Anu-Hanna Anttila, Ralf Kauranen, Olli Löytty, Mikko Pollari, Pekka Rantanen, and Petri Ruuska, Petri, Kuriton kansa. Poliittinen mielikuvitus vuoden 1905 suurlakon ajan Suomessa (Tampere: Vastapaino 2009) and Antti Kujala, Vastakkainasettelun synty. Syksyn 1905 suurlakko Helsingissä ja muualla Suomessa (Helsinki: THPTS, 2016). A short account in English is Antti Kujala, ‘Finland in 1905. The Political and Social History of the Revolution’, in Jonathan D. Smele and Anthony Heywood (eds.), The Russian Revolution of 1905: Centenary Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge 2005), pp. 79–93.

  63. 63.

    About the legal arguments in 1917 debates, see Seppo Tiihonen, Vallan kumoukset Suomessa 1917–1919: Suomi ja vallan verkostot (Helsinki: Otava, 2019), pp. 65–92, and Pasi Ihalainen, The Springs of Democracy. National and Transnational Debates on Constitutional Reform in the British, German, Swedish and Finnish Parliaments, 1917–1919 (Helsinki: FLS, 2017), pp. 176–213.

  64. 64.

    V. I. Lenin, ‘Syrjäisen neuvoja’, in Lenin, Valitut teokset 3. Moskova, Edistys 1967, pp. 288–289 (8.10.1917). In March 1918 he declared that the task was completed: ‘a new kind of soviet state’ without bureaucracy, police or army, had won in Finland (!). V. I. Lenin, Suomesta. Kirjoituksia, lausuntoja, asiakirjoja. Toim. J. Sykiäinen (Moskova: Edistys 1966), p. 128.

  65. 65.

    Cit. Z. Topelius, Maamme kirja (Helsinki: WSOY, 1985), ch. 2 and p. 193 (first print 1875). Note how Topelius placed the Emperor below the law. His books were crucial in creating the idea of a nation, Pertti Haapala, ‘Writing Our History. The History of the ‘Finnish People’ (As Written) by Zacharias Topelius and Väinö Linna’, in Pertti Haapala, Marja Jalava, and Simon Larsson (eds.), Making Nordic Historiography. Connections, Tensions and Methodology, 1850–1970 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2017), pp. 25–54, here pp. 25–38.

  66. 66.

    Päiviö Tommila, Suuri adressi (Helsinki: WSOY, 1999); Antti Kujala, Vallankumous ja kansallinen itsemääräämisoikeus: Venäjän sosialistiset puolueet ja suomalainen radikalismi vuosisadan alussa (Helsinki: SHS 1989). Terror against Russians was not accepted by all Finns, and it divided the parties to conciliators and constitutionalists. Some workers took part in nationalistic activism.

  67. 67.

    Pertti Luntinen, A. Seyn. A Political Biography of a Tsarist Imperialist as Administrator of Finland (Helsinki: SHS, 1985); Antti Kujala, Vastakkainasettelun synty. Syksyn 1905 suurlakko Helsingissä ja muualla Suomessa (Helsinki: THPTS, 2016), 213–225; Pirkko Leino-Kaukiainen, Sensuuri ja sanomalehdistö Suomessa vuosina 1891–1905 (Helsinki: SHS 1984) (on cencorship).

  68. 68.

    Juha Siltala, ‘Being absorbed into an Unintended War’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden & Boston: Brill 2014), pp. 51–89 (and its references); Tuomas Tepora, ‘The Mystified War: Regeneration and Sacrifice’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), pp. 159–200; Risto Turunen and Sami Suodenjoki (eds.), Työväki kumouksessa (Helsinki: THPTS, 2017).

  69. 69.

    Disturbances are described in detail in Ohto Manninen, Turo Manninen, and Pertti Luntinen, Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 1 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1992).

  70. 70.

    Ibid; Aimo Klemettilä, Tampereen punakaarti ja sen jäsenistö (Tampere: Acta Universitatis Tamperensis, 1976); Pertti Haapala, Tehtaan valossa. Teollistuminen ja työväestön muodostuminen Tampereella 1820–1920 (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1986), pp. 308–320; Pertti Haapala, Tuomas Hoppu, Mervi Kaarninen, Sami Suodenjoki, and Marko Tikkka, Tampere 1918. A Town in the Civil War (Tampere: Tampere Museums, 2010).

  71. 71.

    Many of those who survived and continued their political career in the 1920s wrote their memoirs and gave different and contradicting explanations to what actually happened and by whom, i.e. there is no one and uniform narrative of what the party did.

  72. 72.

    Turunen 2021, ch .4; Hannu Soikkanen, ‘Edvard Valpas-Hänninen’, in Hannu Soikkanen (ed.), Tiennäyttäjät 1 (Helsinki: Tammi, 1967); Hannu Soikkanen, ‘Revisionism, Reformism and the Finnish Labour Movement before the First World War’, Scandinavian Journal of History 3 (1978), pp. 347–360. Valpas escaped to Russia in 1918 but returned in 1920, was sentenced for rebellion and was pardonned by the president in 1924.

  73. 73.

    Cf. Ute Frevert, A Nation in Barracks. Modern Germany, Military Conscription and Civil Society (Oxford & New York: Berg, 2004) on the German case of becoming a militarized society.

  74. 74.

    The author, Eetu Salin, a popular leader and speaker, wrote from prison in late 1918, before his near death, that despite he was against the war, he did not regret anything.

  75. 75.

    Heikki Ylikangas, Der Weg nach Tampere: die Niederlage der Roten im finnischen Bürgerkrieg 1918 (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2002) claims that the men really expected that they were fighting against Russians and were surprised when found themselves in a battle with the workers of Tampere with whom they had not any rational conflict.

  76. 76.

    Marjaliisa Hentilä and Seppo Hentilä, Saksalainen Suomi 1918 (Helsinki: Siltala, 2016).

  77. 77.

    Aapo Roselius, ‘The War of Liberation, the Civil Guards, and the Veterans’ Union: Public Memory in the Interwar Period’, in Tuomas Tepora and Aapo Roselius (eds.), The Finnish Civil War 1918 (Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2014), pp. 297–330.

  78. 78.

    Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995), pp. 243–254. Both armies spent around 300 million Marks of public funds – which made warfare possible. After the war that was covered in public debt and by selling ‘Freedom Bonds’ to citizens.

  79. 79.

    A good number of examples (including Finland) is presented in Risto Alapuro, ‘The Legacy of the Civil War of 1918 in Finland’, in Bill Kissane (ed.), After Civil War: Division, Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Contemporary Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), pp. 17–42.

  80. 80.

    Niko Kannisto, Vaaleanpunainen tasavalta: SDP, itsenäisyys ja kansallisen yhtenäisyyden kysymys vuosina 1918–1924 (Helsinki: THPTS, 2016) (on SDP’s positioning and identity in the post-war polity).

  81. 81.

    Miika Siironen, Valkoiset. Vapaussodan perintö (Tampere: Vastapaino, 2012); Oula Silvennoinen, Marko Tikka, and Aapo Roselius, Suomalaiset fasistit: Mustan sarastuksen airuet (Helsinki: WSOY, 2016) emphasize the actual influence of fascism in Finland. Vesa Vares, Viileää Veljeyttä. Suomi ja Saksa 1918–1939 (Helsinki: Otava, 2018) depreciates the power of Nazis on Finnish politics.

  82. 82.

    Aappo Kähönen, ‘Vallankumouksen ja nationalismin ristipaineessa 1905–1932: Suomi hauraana valtiona’, in Juhani Koponen and Sakari Saaritsa (eds.), Nälkämaasta hyvinvointivaltioksi (Helsinki: Gaudeamus, 2019), pp. 295–311 (comparing Finland to other new nation states).

  83. 83.

    Ulla-Maija Peltonen, Punakapinan muistot. Tutkimus työväen muistelukerronnan muotoutumisesta vuoden 1918 jälkeen (Helsinki: SKS, 1996); Andreas McKeough, Kirjoittaen kerrottu sota. Tutkimus vuoden 1918 sodan kerronnallisesta käsittelystä omaelämökerrallisissa teksteissä (Helsinki: THPTS, 2017); Bill Kissane, ‘On the shock of civil war: cultural trauma and national identity in Finland and Ireland’, Nations and Nationalism 26/1 (2019), pp. 22–43.

  84. 84.

    Tauno Saarela, Finnish Communism Visited (Helsinki: The Finnish Society for Labour History, 2015); Ossi Kamppinen, Palkkana pelko ja kuolema. Neuvosto-Karjalan suomalaiset rakentajat (Helsinki: Docendo, 2019). In the years of the Great Depression the Finnish population in Carelia was increased by 15,000 Finnish and 6,500 American-Finnish emigrants.

  85. 85.

    E.g. Ohto Manninen, Turo Manninen, and Pertti Luntinen, Itsenäistymisen vuodet 1917–1920: 1 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus, 1992); Heikki Ylikangas, Der Weg nach Tampere: die Niederlage der Roten im finnischen Bürgerkrieg 1918 (Berlin: Berlin Verlag, 2002).

  86. 86.

    Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), ch 11. His work refers much to the ideas of state-making and mobilization by Barrington Moore and Charles Tilly. His later micro-historical study extended the explanation to the role of local political dynamics (Risto Alapuro, Suomen synty paikallisena ilmiönä 1890–1933 [Helsinki; Hanki ja jää, 1994]). Similar conclusions but in a reverse order of inquiry are presented in Pertti Haapala, Tehtaan valossa. Teollistuminen ja työväestön muodostuminen Tampereella 1820–1920 (Tampere: Vastapaino, 1986) and Pertti Haapala, Kun yhteiskunta hajosi. Suomi 1914–1920 (Helsinki: Painatuskeskus 1995). Cf. Alapuro's afterword to his 1988 study Risto Alapuro Valtio ja vallankuous Suomessa (Tampere Vastapaino, 2018), pp. 313–334.

  87. 87.

    Cf. Theda Skocpol’s (States and Revolutions. A Comparative Study of France, Russia and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979) analysis and Sewell’s reading of it, William H. Jr. Sewell, The Logics of History. Social Theory and Social Transformation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005), pp. 91–123.

  88. 88.

    This complicated history of ‘seeing’ the world and the future by the workers is analyzed in detail in Risto Turunen., Shades of Red. Evolution of the Political Language of Finnish Socialism from the 19th Century until the Civil War of 1918. (Tampere: The Finnish Society for Labour History, 2021).

  89. 89.

    O. W. Kuusinen, The Finnish Revolution. A Self-Criticism (London: The Workers’ Socialist Federation 1919). In a letter to Lenin 3.9.1918 Kuusinen apologized that the ‘advanced Social Democracy’ had made the party ‘half blind and half lame’. The final reason for failure was, however, the German invasion, he wrote. O. W. Kuusinen, ‘Suomen kommunistisen puolueen perustavan kokouksen avoin kirje Toveri Leninille’, in O.W. Kuusinen, Valitut teokset (Moskova: Edistys 1968), pp. 12–21, here pp. 16–17.

  90. 90.

    Risto Alapuro, State and Revolution in Finland (Berkeley: University of California Press 1988), pp. 221–259; Robert Gerwarth and John Horne (eds.), War and Peace. Paramilitary Violence in Europe After the Great War (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2012). On the immediate and diverse impacts of the Russian revolution see A. Marshall, J. Steinberg, and S. Sabol (eds.), The Global Impacts of Russia’s Great War and Revolution. Book 1 (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2019), and Chio Chatterjee, Steven G Marks, Mary Neuburger, and Steven Sabol (eds.), The global impacts of Russia’s Great War and revolution (Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2019).

  91. 91.

    On latest trends in the study, see a special issue of Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 2 (2018), and Jan Plamper, Sounds of February, Smells of October: The Russian Revolution as Sensory Experience. The American Historical Review 126/1 (March 2021), pp. 140–165.

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    Pertti Haapala

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Haapala, P. (2023). For People’s Power: The Known and Unknown Revolutions in Finland (1899–1932). In: Berger, S., Weinhauer, K. (eds) Rethinking Revolutions from 1905 to 1934. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04465-6_9

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