A little break from Star Wars prequals and instead I am going to talk about the Finnish Civil War, what its called and how these names implicitly interprete the events of this war.
As the saying goes "a beloved child has many names". This war according to the Finnish wikipedia has been called by the following names (English Translation will be parenthesis) vapaussota(War for Freedom), luokkasota(The Class War), punakapina(The Red Rebellion), torpparikapina(The Share Cropper Rebellion), kansalaissota(Civil War), vallankumous(the revolution), kapina(The Rebellion) ja veljessota(The War of Brothers). All of these intreprete events of from a certain perspective, but there is one that really, really pisses me of, because the interpretations that it implies to are so far from what the war was about, what happened during and after, that anyone who uses it or believes in those intepretations is either ignorant or deluding themselves. This name is Vapaussota or The War for Freedom as I will refere to it from now on. To explain why I think that this term is so wrong, we will have to explore the reasons behind the war and the events that followed it. But before we go into that I should probably explain what the implied interpretations are as I see them.
The War for Freedom implies that the war was about liberating Finland from the tyranny of something. In its most extreme form this idea generates images of the war being a prequal to the Winter War, which was a struggle for freedom and survival, where the Brave and Patriotic White's drove away the Evil Hordes of Russian Commies and their treasonous Red Finnish allies back to the oppressive godless communist hell-hole known as Russia. The underlying theme her is that the White's were liberating Finland either from the tyranny of the Russian's or some form off tyranny by the Red's. Now to why this is complete bullshit.
First of all the causes of this war had nothing to do with liberating Finland from the tyranny of anything. It was basically about how Finns should solve the many economic and social problems caused by the First World War and the revolutions in Russia and in a larger sense how and by whom Finland should be governed in future.
The Reds were predominantly for increasing democracy and the common people's chances to have a say in the governance of the country, how this was to be achieved depended on the political view of the particular Red, they had moderate Social Democrats who wanted to implement some for of Parlamentarianism to hard line bolsheviks who wanted a revolution like in Russia. A large part of the Red's agenda had to do with worker's rights and social justice.
The Whites on the other hand were divided between the hard line conservatives, who didn't really like the 1905 constitution that gave everyone the right to vote and who wanted to go back to the way things were before the new constitution, to the moderate non-socialist liberals, who shared some of the viewes that the social democrats had. Their agenda's was overall about the typical right wing stuff, entrepreneurship, employer's rights etc.
While at the beginning of the war Finland had a parliament it was unable to solve the socio-economic problems, like food shortages and unemployment. The combination of these meant that people were loosing confidence in politics as means to solve problems and that people were beginning to divide into the two camps mentioned above. The greatest example of how great this division was, is the Finnish Declaration of Independence, which we had to vote on. The Social Democrats voted against, not because they didn't like the idea, but because it was the "Right Wingers" declaration, they published their own which was by and large the same as the one they voted against in the parliament.
The war itself began after Finland's declaration was accepted by Lenin and Soviet Russia and this why the whole idea of the war being about liberating Finland from Russia is complete non-sense. By and large at start of the war, Finland needed to be recognized by a few big countries like USA, UK and France to be a fully independent and sovreign nation.
I won't go into to too much detail about the events of the war except to say that the both sides commited acts of terror, used child soldiers and had prison camps where people died. The Reds received some weapons and support from the Bolsheviks in Russia, but not enough, largely because Lenin and buddies had bigger problems to worry about, like their own civil war. The White's however received a crap ton of support from Germany, who wanted to use Finland as base for their future wars with Russia. This support included weapons and the 27th Royal Jäger Battallion, which the germans had trained from Finnish volunteers who wanted to fight against the Russians, they also conviniently kept back the volunteers with Red sympathies. This aid culminated when the 10 000 men strong Baltic sea division landed in Southern Finland. Needless to say the Red's lost.
The greatest kick in the balls for the war being about freedom is what the White's did after the war. At the start of the war Finland was on the brink of becoming an indepdent and sovreign nation, with one of the most progressive constitutions on the planet. The first thing that the White's do is elect a King for Finland. A King. They wanted to turn Finland into a constitutional monarchy, with a strong King and limited democracy. This could have been more excusable if the guy elected as the King had been someone from Finland like Mannerheim, but when they elect a member of the German Imperial Family, all pretense of supporting Finnish independece sort of flies out of the window. The election of the German guy as the King semented a bunch of treaties that the White's signed with Germany, that in effect made Finland Germany's protectorate. This was so obvious at the time to everyone that USA, UK and France refused to recognize Finland's independence until the whole king idea was scrapped in 1919. So how in the hell the guys who turned an almost free and independent state into a protectorate of another Empire with limited democracy were fighting for the independence and freedom of the Finnish people?
And this is why I dislike the term Vapaussota so much and why I think people who use either don't know what they are talking about or are just deluding themselves.
The last argument for the whole freedom thing is that if the Reds had won Finland would have become a part of Soviet Union and again I think that this is bullshit. While Lenin certainly hoped that the Red Finland would join the Soviet Union(This was the whole reason for granting the independence in the first place), it wasn't really what most of the Finnish Reds wanted. It is often forgotten that at the time nationalism was one of the driving forces behind the Finnish Labour Movement and by extention SDP and the Reds. At the time nationalism and patriotism were almost a religion to all Finns not just the Whites. The Reds sincecerly believed that the ideas they were fighting for in the war were making Finland a better place for Finns, like the Whites did. The greatest proof of this is what happened some 20-years latter, when the former Reds were entised by Soviet propaganda during the Winter War. The response to the Soviet call for another Red revolution was universally FUCK YOU!!!!
The roots for the Finnish unity during the Winter War can be traced to the end of the Civil War. The idea of the Kingdom of FInland died with the German Empire at the end of First World War. What followed is in my opinion one the most amazing events in Finnish history. The moderates from both sides of the war came to gather and realized that for Finland to survive, they had to build Finland that was acceptable to all parties. White or Red Finland wouldn't survive, but a Finland of Finns would. They drafted a compromise constitution that was based on parlamentarian democracy with strong civil liberties, but had a strong democratically president to replace the King. On top of this alot of the reforms that the Reds were after were implemented, like the end of the sharecropping institution and issues related to worker's rights. Nor was SDP banned. This consensus policy was possible because people started looking at what was common between the two parties, namely nationalism. Everyone was very proud of being a Finn and Finnish culture and ultimately that was more important than the petty political struggles.
The farsighted men and women(well mostly men) behind this policy of reconsiliation were the true heroes of war. It is thanks to their efforts that Finland is what it is today. Without them there would have been no Spirit of the Winter War, that saved the country during the Second World War and laid the foundation for the modern Finland, that we know and love today. There are no patriots in civil wars, in fact patriotism is the first casualty of any civil war.
