On January 4, 1918, Finland’s independence was recognized by Soviet Russia (officially: Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), Sweden, Germany, and France, the first countries to do so. Finland had declared independence from Russia on December 6, 1919.
(Taken from Finnish Civil War – Wars of the 20th Century – Volume 4)
Background With no fighting taking placing place on its soil, the Grand Duchy of Finland largely was spared the ravages brought about during the 1914-1917 period of World War I. By 1917, because of the February Revolution and imminent Russian defeat in World War I, Finland experienced deterioration in its security climate, foremost because the Russian Army in Finland had broken down in discipline and morale, and verged on mutiny, with soldiers refusing to obey and even attacking their superiors. Police forces also largely had disintegrated.
In July 1917, the Social Democratic Party, which held a majority in the Finnish Parliament, proposed a bill to add more power to Parliament, increase Finland’s autonomy, and restrict Russia’s authority on Finland to defense and foreign affairs. The proposal resulted from the end of the Russian monarchy, and thus the Russian tsar’s personal union with the Grand Duchy of Finland, as well as the Russian provisional government’s acceding to the restoration of Finland’s autonomy. The bill, which came into law as the “Power Act”, was passed with the support of the Social Democratic Party, Agrarian League, and others, but was opposed by conservatives and non-socialist parties. The Russian government, however, made a turn around and rejected Finland’s “Power Act”, intervened militarily and dissolved the Finnish Parliament, and called for new legislative elections.
In parliamentary elections held in October 1917 which were bitterly contested and where violence broke out between socialist and non-socialist supporters, the Social Democratic Party lost its majority in Parliament (although it still held more seats among individual parties); parliament came under the control of the conservative and non-socialist bloc. These events were bitterly felt by the political left, which began to believe that its plans for labor and civil reforms could not be achieved through democratic means. These feelings further were aggravated when the conservatives formed a government under Pehr Evind Svinhufvud that consisted solely of conservatives (whereas previous governments were all-inclusive and had members from socialist and non-socialist parties).
On November 1, 1917, the Social Democrats launched the “We Demand” initiative, which called for the implementation of a wide range of reforms. But when parliament rejected these demands, on November 14, the labor movement carried out strike actions that disrupted the industrial sector and within two days had brought Finland to an economic standstill. The strike threatened to escalate into a full-blown uprising, as desired by radical labor elements, but by November 20, it came to an end by the efforts of the Social Democrats, who as yet spurned violent methods to achieve their aims.
Meanwhile in Russia, the second revolution of 1917 occurred on November 7 (October 25 in the Julian calendar, thus the popular name “October Revolution” denoting this event), where the communist Bolshevik Party came to power by overthrowing the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd, Russia’s capital. The two 1917 revolutions, as well as ongoing events in World War I, catalyzed ethnic minorities across the Russian Empire, resulting in the various regional nationalist movements pushing forward their objectives of seceding from Russia and forming new nation-states. In the western and northern regions of the empire, the territories of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland moved toward self-determination.
Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party, on coming to power through the October Revolution, issued the “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia” (on November 15, 1917), which granted all non-Russian peoples of the former Russian Empire the right to secede from Russia and establish their own separate states. Eventually, the Bolsheviks would renege on this edict and suppress secession from the Russian state (now known as Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, or RSFSR). The Bolsheviks, whose revolution had succeeded partly on their promises to a war-weary Russian citizenry to withdraw from World War I, declared its pacifist intentions to the Central Powers. A ceasefire agreement was signed on December 15, 1917 and peace talks began a few days later in Brest-Litovsk (present-day Brest, in Belarus).
Meanwhile in Finland, the emergence of the Bolshevik regime in Russia (as well as the impending tumult that soon would be generated by counter-revolutionary, i.e. anti-Bolshevik, White forces) led to the Finnish parliament working for full separation from Russia, not least because of the incompatibility between the socialist Russian and democratic Finnish political ideologies. On December 6, 1917, Svinhufvud’s government declared the independence of Finland. The Finnish Social Democrats opposed this declaration and instead carried out its own proclamation of independence which it then presented to the Bolshevik Russian government for approval. Similarly, the Svinhufvud government sought Soviet Russia’s recognition of Finland’s independence.
Lenin, facing immense political and military pressures internally and externally, was in no position to take a hard-line stance, and was prepared to give up western territories of the former Russian Empire in order to consolidate power at the core of the Russian heartland. Furthermore, he had unsuccessfully pressed the Finnish Social Democrats to launch a “proletariat revolution”, knowing that a pro-Russian socialist Finland would be geopolitically and strategically beneficial, even necessary, for the defense of Petrograd, Russia’s capital, and the whole northwest region. However, a great majority of the Finnish socialists only held moderate views, and an armed revolution called for by radical socialists on November 16, 1917 was cancelled due to lack of popular support. Thus, on December 31, 1917, Lenin recognized Finland’s independence.
Russia’s recognition of sovereign Finland also gave legitimacy to Svinhufvud’s conservative government which on January 9, 1918 authorized the various conservative-organized armed groups around the country to carry out police and security duties. As in the 1905 Russian Revolution, the breakdown of government security infrastructures led to the rise all across Finland of numerous security groups, innocuously called “fire brigades”, organized by various sectors, e.g. politicians, industrialists, landowners, labor and farmers’ associations, etc. These security groups soon became polarized and aligned along two ideological/political camps: non-socialists (conservatives, parliamentarians, liberals, etc.) and socialists. Security groups associated with the socialists/labor movement were known as “Red Guards” and “Workers’ Security Guards”, while those of non-socialists were called “Civil Guards” or “White Guards”. In 1917, as in 1906, these groups soon turned into armed militias and engaged each other in gunfights and terror actions, e.g. assassinations, against their political and ideological enemies. The growing militarization of these groups became evident during the general labor strike of November 1917 when the Red Guards executed many conservative supporters, and street battles broke out between rival militias. The strike brought about an irreparable split between conservatives and socialists, and each side now was determined to subdue the other, using force if necessary. By December 1917, Finland appeared ready to break out into open warfare, not unlike the revolutionary “class struggle” that had taken place recently in Russia during the October Revolution.
By early January 1918, conservatives and revolutionary socialists were radicalized into opposite, hostile, and increasingly armed camps. On January 12, 1918, the Finnish government declared its intention to enforce the rule of law; two weeks later (on January 25), it appointed General Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a Finnish former officer of the defunct Russian Imperial Army, as commander-in-chief of all military forces and to organize the country’s armed forces, initially using the White Guards to carry out security functions. As a result of mandatory conscription of all adult males, General Mannerheim organized a fledging army and was helped in large part by the arrival of the first batch of Finnish Jäger soldiers (of the elite Prussian 27th Jäger Battalion, a German Army-trained unit made up of Finnish volunteers that had fought for Germany in the Eastern Front), as well as Swedish Army officers (Sweden became involved because of its determination to stop Bolshevik revolutionary ideas from entering its territory).
During the last week of January 1918, events rapidly unfolded that led to the outbreak of war. On January 25, 1918, the Finnish government issued orders to White forces to end the activities of hostile armed groups. Two days earlier and continuing thereafter, Finnish forces, with the collaboration of anti-Bolshevik Russian Army officers, disarmed Russian garrisons in Ostrobothnia and other locations, and seized large quantities of weapons and ammunitions to arm and supply the as yet poorly equipped Finnish Army. On January 26, 1918, the Red Guards declared the start of the revolution by lighting the tower of the Helsinki Worker’s House. On January 26, the Red Guards, after winning over support of the Social Democratic Party, mobilized for war; four hours later, on January 28, the Finnish government announced its own mobilization. Shortly thereafter, all socialist and workers’ militias organized into a single unified Red Guards. The Red Guards’ uprising in Helsinki seized control of the capital, forcing the conservative government, first to go into hiding in the city and then transferring the seat of government to Vaasa on the country’s west coast (Figure 25).
On January 29, 1918, the Social Democrats and Red Guards declared the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Republic, with Helsinki as its capital, and headed by a government called the Finnish People’s Delegation. The Finnish socialist government did not emulate the Russian Bolsheviks’ soviet (council) model and instead envisioned a universal-suffrage, democratic, multi-party elective parliamentary system with constitutional guarantees of civil rights, including the freedom of speech, assembly, press, and religion. However, all lands would be nationalized and private ownership would be subject to state laws.
Thus by late January 1918, Finland had two rival governments, each claiming sovereignty over the country, and differentiated as the conservative, anti-socialist “White Finland” with its forces consisting of the Finnish Army, White Guards, and their allies; and socialist “Red Finland, with its forces consisting of the Red Guards and their allies.