Sini Sylvelin, Spring 2004 (UK)
A FAST-FIN-1 Finnish Institutions Student Paper
FAST Area Studies Program
Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere
The Finnish Civil War divided the country in two immediately after it had gained independence in 1917. Finland had been under Russian rule for more than a century, and the transition to independence was not easy. Brother fought against brother in a war that was almost inevitable because of the class tensions in Finnish society. People's bitter memories of the cruel war affected Finnish politics for decades, and the subject remained a kind of taboo until recent years.However, a research project initiated in 1988 by the Finnish Government provided new information about the victims of the war and "removed the last big blank spot in Finnish 20th century history" (Suomen sotasurmat). This paper concentrates on the victims of both Red and White terror during the Civil War, as well as the conditions in prison camps during and after the war.
Class Tensions And a Fight Over Power
After more than a hundred years under Russian rule, Finland got its chance for independence at the end of 1917. The Bolsheviks had taken over power in Russia, which meant that the Czarist era was over and national minorities under Russian rule would be allowed to become independent. Non-socialists in Finland did not consider the new Bolshevik government to be legal; thus they thought Finland should separate from Russia as soon as possible. The Social Democratic Party, however, was confident that independence could be achieved in co-operation with the Bolshevik government. Eventually, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud formed a new, non-socialist government whose main task was to separate Finland from Russia and get international recognition for the independence. On December 6, 1917, a declaration of independence was approved by the Finnish Parliament (Huovila).
On December 31 the Soviet Government, led by Lenin, recognised the independence. But Lenin had high hopes that there would be a revolution in Finland, too, and the Bolsheviks encouraged Finnish workers to rise against their new government. Some 40,000 Russian soldiers still remained in Finland due to World War I.1 If necessary, they could assist in an uprising.
Lenin had reasons to support his belief, for there had long been a wide social gap between the propertied and the non-propertied classes in Finland. The idea of a revolution had been arising within the working population for several years; there was unemployment, a lack of food stuffs, and a general feeling of inequality and unsteadiness. The relationships between the workers and the employers had been heating up since the March revolution in Russia; over 140,000 workers had taken part in different kinds of strikes owing to their poor conditions and low wages.
Finnish workers had seen how successful the revolution had been in Russia, and that emboldened them to start a general strike in November 1917. But the Finnish government, led by Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, stated that no concessions would be made to the socialists. However, the workers felt that they had a lot to gain and little to lose if the revolution were to begin (Hannula 51, Kuoppamäki, Ylikangas 16, Sininen).
The imperial autocracy had kept up a certain kind of power structure in Finland, but when the czar was turned out of power in March 1917, the position of the police and government officers also broke down. In consequence, voluntary, armed groups were formed in towns and communities to maintain order. These groups were to be the two sides of the resulting war; depending on whether they were right- or left-wing orientated, the groups became either the Civil Guards (later called the White Guards or Whites) or the socialist Red Guards (Ylikangas 15-16, Huovila).
The war started on January 9, 1918 after the Finnish government had authorized the White Guard to act as a state security force and to establish law and order in Finland. The leadership of this force was given to Carl Gustav Mannerheim, a Lieutenant General of the Imperial Russian Army and the future president of Finland. Before the war broke out, the government managed to flee from Helsinki to Vaasa, where the Civil Guard organisation was the most popular.
In Red Finland power was held by "The People's Commission". On the night of January 27, 1918, the Red revolution started in Helsinki; when the sun rose in the morning, the whole city had been occupied by the Reds without any bloodshed. At the same time the Whites disarmed the Russian troops in Ostrobothnia.
The Whites, whose troops were mostly farmers, controlled the northern part of the country, while the Reds controlled the southern part, for their supporters were mainly urban working class people.
The strength of the Red Guard was about 100,000 men, which included several thousand Russian soldiers who still remained in Finland. The maximum complement of the White army was some 70,000, but owing to its better organisation, trained officers and soldiers, and the help from Jaegers2 who had come back from Germany at the end of February, it proved to be superior to the Reds. Tampere, the main base of the Reds, became the battlefield of the crucial clash; after fierce battles the Whites captured the town in the beginning of April and took nearly 11,000 prisoners. The last strongholds of the Reds were cleared out in early May, and on May 16, Mannerheim marched victoriously to Helsinki. This marked the end of the four-month war in favour of the legal government (The Finnish Civil War, Kuoppamäki, Brother).
Rumours and Realities of Red Terror
Since the spring of 1917, the Social Democratic Party and its Guard had repeatedly been accused of violent acts by the conservatives. The image that the Party accepted violence and stood behind the riots was very problematic. Even though, according to their ideology, violence was needed in the revolution, neither the Social Democratic Party nor the Red Guard wanted to be characterized as irresponsible murderers (Uola 231).
Right at the beginning of the rebellion several cases were reported of the Reds murdering people who had been trying to flee to the north, to the Whites' side. One of these cases is "The Suinula Massacre". In this massacre seventeen unarmed men, who had already surrendered, were killed on January 31 in Suinula, near Kangasala. News about such kinds of incidents quickly spread around the country. The People's Commission declared that such acts were against the principles of the revolutionary workers and were harmful to the revolutionary movement.
The Red leaders did their best to control their men; several appeals were made to prevent civilians from being killed. The supreme commander of the Red Guard, Eero Haapalainen, gave an order on February 21 that only court martials, not individuals, could sentence prisoners of war. But the Red Guard leaders of the Helsinki area had given contradictory advice that the Civil Guardists should be killed, and there was a great temptation among the soldiers to follow that advice (Uola 232-34).
In general, the Red troops were badly organised, untrained and had a very emotional attitude to the rebellion. Therefore, directions and orders from their leaders remained often fairly ineffective.
One cannot underestimate the Russian influence on the violent actions, either. Already since 1917 Russians had encouraged workers to "be merciless towards the White exploiters" and to "exact a cruel revenge on the enemies of the revolution" (Uola 234).
There were not necessarily good reasons for the violent acts. Many Red leaders were known to be radical and uncompromising, and the laws of war, if even known, were not respected when fighting against the enemy. A reason for execution could be simply membership in the Civil Guard, and if the person concerned could be classified as an enemy due to his or her occupation, there was even a better reason for a sentence. Former policemen, for example, had to suffer. In addition to political reasons, personal vengefulness was often a motive for violence; the rebellion offered a chance to avenge old disagreements in the name of the revolution (Uola 235-37).
Even though the Red Guard tried to keep its image as clean as possible and, in principle, to punish those Reds who committed crimes, this was virtually impossible to enforce. In Sahalahti, for example, Red Guardists killed four people and stole property. They were summoned to answer for it in a Red court martial, but no sentences were passed because of pressure from other Guardists (Uola 239).
In March a law was enacted by the Red leaders according to which the death penalty was abolished. However, the law did not improve the situation. In the end of March, when the Whites started to approach Tampere, Red terrorism flared up again. There was a desire for revenge because of the news of inhuman deeds on the White side that the Red press published throughout the war (Paavolainen 250).
One of the central motives of Red terror was the defeatism that spread among the Reds in the beginning of April. Despite the Red press' optimistic view, there was no longer any chance of winning the war, and the desperation and fear of punishment led to an increase in brutal violence. Cases of arson and orders to kill all the prisoners were soon reported by the White press, and these reports were often coloured with horrifying details (Uola 240).
This example of personal vengeance and arbitrary violence is from April 20, described by Paavolainen (88).
Students of the Mustiala farm school were arrested and taken to Riihimäki by train. There were about a dozen men to escort them, most of them some 20-year-olds. On the way to Riihimäki, the guards started to pick a quarrel with the prisoners. There was a 17-year-old boy, known as "Chaplin", who knew one of the prisoners: the son of a factory owner in Helsinki, called Arne Sohlberg. After telling that he had been treated badly when working in Sohlberg's factory, "Chaplin" finally shot Arne Sohlberg, took away his clothes and valuables, and threw the body to the embankment. A shooting started in the carriage. Some of the prisoners died immediately, some were wounded and later finished off with bayonets, some managed to jump from the carriage. All in all 23 young men died, 11 were left alive. One of them told: "They decided to let us live at least for the time being, saying that the Whites let every fifth man live in Tampere, too."
The biggest mass murder of the war happened in the Viborg prison in the end of April. The victims were "political prisoners". A group of Reds, whose job had originally been to move the prisoners to Viborg castle and execute only a few leaders, started drinking, drank all night long and ended up killing 30 men with rifles and hand grenades (Paavolainen 91).
White Terror: Justified or Disproportionate?
The Whites, also, did not accept terror as a part of their ideology. However, the same lack of strength when it came to punishing one's own followers appeared in the White side, too. Purely human emotions, such as hatred, vindictiveness, bitterness and brutalisation, affected people's behaviour on both sides.
In addition, from the White perspective, the revolution was a rebellion by the Red forces against the legal government of Finland, and, therefore the Whites had both the responsibility and the entitlement to punish the rebels. Still, it is impossible to draw the line between punishment and terror (Paavolainen 113).
Almost immediately when the first reports of Red terror came to the Whites' knowledge, the demand for revenge arose spontaneously. Not only men, but women, too, adopted the idea of revenge (Uola 248-9).
Thanks to a good communication system, the Whites always heard very soon about the other side's cruelties. That is why no mercy or pity was felt for the enemy. The bloody acts of the Reds were avenged many times. The atmosphere did not condemn revenge, and even disproportionate revenge was not considered excessive (Uola 250).
All in all, the punishment element was central in White terror. Chronologically, White terror started later than that of the Reds, and can be thought of as resulting from Red acts (Uola 251).
The "Suinula massacre" resulted in Mannerheim attempting to intimidate the Reds into putting an end to their terror: "If they continue with their brutal acts, they will face the most severe punishment." A day later he informed Oulu that murderers and arsonists caught during war operations were to be killed. It was also thought that the Reds had no respect for the rules of the war. This caused dozens of Reds to be executed in Varkaus (see photo below), after the town had been conquered on February 21.
In describing the events in Varkaus, a Civil Guardist wrote the following in his diary (in Uola 252):
Suddenly we saw that the Reds raised a white flag, and we started walking towards the factory building. That's when the Reds opened fire; at least 58 Whites fell to the ground. That's why we took few prisoners after the conquest; nearly everyone was shot.Varkaus had been the last Red stronghold in the Whites' rear. It is estimated that the Whites executed over 200 prisoners, or some 10.2% of the city's male population, in only a few weeks (Hannula 56).
Many Whites had the idea of collective revenge as a means of scaring their enemies. Already at the beginning of February, after the Suinula incident, a suggestion was made to Mannerheim that it should be publicly declared that five Reds would be executed for each White who was killed. The White press demanded even more severe punishment, claiming that at least a ten-fold revenge would be needed (Uola 255).
On February 25, Mannerheim forbade the passing of death penalties, while still emphasizing that enemies behind the front who tried to disturb operations had to be eliminated, as well as assassins and arsonists. He was an experienced soldier, and thought that the punishment practice had become too severe. In March he had leaflets distributed to regular Red Guardists. It said in the leaflets that not all Red Guardists were guilty and that if they left the Guard they would not be punished by the Whites (Uola 263-4).
The destruction the Reds often left behind as the White forces advanced and the Reds pulled out only added to the anger of the revengeful Whites. Even when no lives had been taken, horses, cash and foodstuffs were gone. The Reds had often set houses on fire before fleeing. However, there was often evidence of even worse: in Suodenniemi, for example, in addition to the vicar's murder, his altarcloths and cassocks had been torn and made into skirts for the women of the Guard. Several men had been tortured or castrated before being killed. These kinds of single acts were taken by the Whites as concrete examples of Red crimes generally. The number of murders and other crimes that had been committed was not as important as the fact that they had been committed to begin with (Uola 276-7).
Whites executing members of the Red Guard in Varkaus in February 1918 (photo source: Hannula 56).
Few prisoners were taken after the Whites captured Varkaus; nearly everyone was shot (Uola 252).
Government troops had to establish prison camps during and immediately after the war to keep Red prisoners in custody until the situation calmed down and enough investigations were made to sentence the rebels. The number of Red prisoners was at least 4,000 before March 15. This number was to greatly expand, for the number captured in Tampere on April 5 alone was some 11,000. The largest number of prisoners reported by the P.O.W. (prisoners-of-war) institution was 74,280, of whom 4,700 were women. The conditions in the prison camps were "hellish"; diseases such as relapsing fever, pneumonia, dysentery and smallpox spread rapidly. However, it was not only disease that killed the 12,000 people in the camps; the main cause of death was weakness due to hunger. The grain situation had been difficult in Finland since the previous year, so there was a lack of grain in general. In addition, producers were not necessarily willing to sell grain to feed "the rebels"; they felt they needed to keep much of their grain as seed to prepare for the following winter (Paavolainen 254-6).
On February 18, an order was given by Mannerheim to give working prisoners roughly the same amount of food as was supplied to soldiers at the front (Paavolainen 183). However, already on March 22 the prisoners' grain allowance was reduced to half. In the camps, food preparation was of very low quality, which was one reason for the intestinal and alimentary trouble the prisoners suffered from. Fish, for example, was often not cooked properly, with the result that spoiled fish was given to the prisoners (Paavolainen 192).
Immediately after the war ended, relatives started to bring and send food to the prisoners, even in large amounts. Strong opposition was expressed to this practice by the camp leaders and guards; it had happened that even guns had been brought to the prisoners hidden in the food packets. On May 21, it was decided that the receiving of food packets would not be allowed in any of the camps, even though it was already generally known how difficult it was to feed the prisoners properly. The order not to bring or send packets was announced in newspapers, but not everyone got the information. Therefore huge numbers of food packets lay in the train stations and post offices, with the result that much food went bad during a time of depression (Paavolainen 200).
The prohibition of food deliveries remained in force for one and a half months. It was reversed in the beginning of July. However, some camp leaders insisted that their prisoners were getting enough food and did not let them receive food packets until August or September. After the aid was allowed again, the number of packets was enormous and food was even left over. That could not, however, stop the increasing death rate, which was at its highest in the latter half of July (Paavolainen 255).
Nor was it clear that all the food in the packets reached the intended prisoners. It has been reported in several diaries that lots of packets "disappeared" on their way to the camps. The morals of the prison camp staff were low for many reasons; their food supply was not sufficient, either, and all the packets had to be opened and checked before giving them to the prisoners. At that time food was of high monetary value and the temptation to steal the food must have been great (Paavolainen 202).
The conditions in prison camps have been widely reported in post-war literature. A prisoner called Viljo Sohkanen, who was held in Suomenlinna prison camp, reports the following (in Paavolainen 205):
In May, prisoners got half a plate of soup; muddy water with a shred of cabbage and some fat during the days and a small piece of bread and a stinky, brown herring during the evenings. A bit later the bread was left out. Soon the prisoners ate every plant they could find from the yard and the roots, too. Some found angleworms. Then the food changed into "gruel", made of water and black oats with husks. One could not eat it.In Tampere a half-rotten horse found from near the camp was eaten in the raw already in the spring. A prisoner from Hämeenlinna remembers when he had got two pounds of sausage in a packet from home. He ate it all, but then threw it up in big pieces. Others immediately started eating the thrown-up pieces.
The total number of people who died in prison camps was over 12,000, of whom some 600 people died after being released because of careless eating (Paavolainen 207). 3
The Reds' experiences in the White "prison camp hells" created great bitterness. Their memories had a strong impact on Finnish politics. For several generations thereafter, a great number of people voted communist in order to express their discontent with the system (Paavolainen 255, Finnish Civil War).
Open discussion of the Civil War has remained almost taboo still up to the present. Therefore, a research project on war victims in Finland between 1914 and 1922 which was initiated by the Finnish Government in 1988 was exceptional and of great importance. The research results provide these statistics on Civil War victims.
The following chart from the project's website presents figures outlining the causes of war death in 1918 according to the political affiliation of the victims. As of 8 January 2002, the figures were as follows:
| Cause of death | Reds | Whites | Others | Total |
| Killed in action | 5,324 | 3,279 | 484 | 9,087 |
| Executed, shot, murdered | 7,207 | 1,321 | 392 | 8,920 |
| Died in prison camps | 11,785 | 6 | 500 | 12,291 |
| Died after being released | 597 | - | 2 | 599 |
| Missing | 1,818 | 42 | 116 | 1,976 |
| Other causes of death | 695 | 173 | 536 | 1,404 |
| Total | 27,426 | 4,821 | 2,030 | 34,277 |
These figures show that the total number of Reds who were killed is nearly six times larger than that of the Whites. Almost as many Reds died in prison camps as in action and executions combined. There are still nearly two thousand people whose lot is not known, so the research is not final yet.
In total, almost one per cent of the Finnish population was killed, even though the war only lasted four and a half months. In comparison, in the bloodiest war in the history of the United States, the Civil War, 2 per cent of the population was killed, but in over four years of warfare. Thus, the Civil War was a catastrophe for Finland.
The war had its impact on politics, but most of all on people's minds. As it was not rare that brothers or best friends were on different sides in the war because of their occupation or ideology, it is obvious that nothing was the same in Finnish society when the war ended. Almost every working-class family had an experience of suffering because of the Whites, and perhaps as much as 40 per cent of the population was therefore alienated from the system (The Finnish Civil War).
Finns did not wholly unite until some twenty years later when Finnish independence was threatened again in the Winter War.
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Last Updated 15 December 2005