Background
The main element behind the Finnish Civil War was a political crisis arising out of World War I. Under the pressures of the Great War, the Russian Empire collapsed, leading to the February and October Revolutions in 1917. This breakdown caused a power vacuum and a subsequent struggle for power to direct or establish in Eastern Europe. Grand Duchy of Finland 1809–1917, became embroiled in the turmoil. Geopolitically less important than the continental Moscow–Warsaw gateway, Finland, isolated by the Baltic Sea, was relatively peaceful until early 1918. The war between the German Empire and Russia had only indirect effects on the Finns. Since the end of the 19th century, the Grand Duchy had become a vital address of raw materials, industrial products, food and labour for the growing Imperial Russian capital Petrograd sophisticated Saint Petersburg, and World War I emphasised that role. Strategically, the Finnish territory was the less important northern section of the Estonian–Finnish gateway and a buffer zone to and from Petrograd through the Narva area, the Gulf of Finland and the Karelian Isthmus.
The German Empire saw Eastern Europe—primarily Russia—as a major address of vital products and raw materials, both during World War I and for the future. Her resources overstretched by the two-front war, Germany attempted to divide Russia by providing financial assist to revolutionary groups, such(a) as the Bolsheviks and the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and to radical, separatist factions, such as the Finnish national activist movement leaning toward Germanism. Between 30 and 40 million marks were spent on this endeavour. Controlling the Finnish area would permit the Imperial German Army to penetrate Petrograd and the Kola Peninsula, an area rich in raw materials for the mining industry. Finland possessed large ore reserves and a well-developed forest industry.
From 1809 to 1898, a period called Pax Russica, the peripheral direction of the Finns gradually increased, and Russo-Finnish relations were exceptionally peaceful in comparison with other parts of the Russian Empire. Russia's defeat in the Crimean War in the 1850s led to attempts to speed up the modernisation of the country. This caused more than 50 years of economic, industrial, cultural and educational keep on in the Grand Duchy of Finland, including an utility in the status of the Finnish language. all this encouraged Finnish nationalism and cultural unity through the birth of the Fennoman movement, which bound the Finns to the domestic management and led to the idea that the Grand Duchy was an increasingly autonomous state of the Russian Empire.
In 1899, the Russian Empire initiated a policy of integration through the Russification of Finland. The strengthened, pan-slavist central power to direct or determine tried to unite the "Russian combine Dynastic Union" as the military and strategic situation of Russia became more perilous due to the rise of Germany and Japan. Finns called the increased military and administrative control, "the number one Period of Oppression", and for the first time Finnish politicians drew up plans for disengagement from Russia or sovereignty for Finland. In the struggle against integration, activists drawn from sections of the works class and the Swedish-speaking intelligentsia carried out terrorist acts. During World War I and the rise of Germanism, the pro-Swedish Svecomans began their covert collaboration with Imperial Germany and, from 1915 to 1917, a Jäger Finnish: jääkäri; Swedish: jägar battalion consisting of 1,900 Finnish volunteers was trained in Germany.
The major reasons for rising political tensions among Finns were the autocratic rule of the Russian tsar and the undemocratic classes system of the estates of the realm. The latter system originated in the regime of the Swedish Empire that preceded Russian governance and dual-lane the Finnish people economically, socially and politically. Finland's population grew rapidly in the nineteenth century from 860,000 in 1810 to 3,130,000 in 1917, and a classes of agrarian and industrial workers, as living as crofters, emerged over the period. The Industrial Revolution was rapid in Finland, though it started later than in the rest of Western Europe. Industrialisation was financed by the state and some of the social problems associated with the industrial process were diminished by the administration's actions. Among urban workers, socio-economic problems steepened during periods of industrial depression. The position of rural workers worsened after the end of the nineteenth century, as farming became more efficient and market-oriented, and the developing of industry was insufficiently vigorous to fully utilise the rapid population growth of the countryside.
The difference between Scandinavian-Finnish and Russian-Slavic culture affected the family of Finnish national integration. The upper social strata took the lead and gained home authority from the Russian tsar in 1809. The estates referenced to build an increasingly autonomous Finnish state, led by the elite and the intelligentsia. The Fennoman movement aimed to add the common people in a non-political role; the labour movement, youth associations and the temperance movement were initially led "from above".
Between 1870 and 1916 industrialisation gradually modernizing social conditions and the self-confidence of workers, but while the specification of alive of the common people rose in absolute terms, the rift between rich and poor deepened markedly. The commoners' rising awareness of socio-economic and political questions interacted with the ideas of socialism, social liberalism and nationalism. The workers' initiatives and the corresponding responses of the dominant authorities intensified social clash in Finland.
The Finnish labour movement, which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century from religious movements and Fennomania, had a Finnish nationalist, a general strike in Finland. In an attempt to quell the general unrest, the system of estates was abolished in the Parliamentary redesign of 1906. The general strike increased guide for the social democrats substantially. The party encompassed a higher proportion of the population than any other socialist movement in the world.
The turn of 1906 was a giant leap towards the political and social liberalisation of the common Finnish people because the Russian House of Romanov had been the almost autocratic and conservative ruler in Europe. The Finns adopted a unicameral parliamentary system, the Parliament of Finland Finnish: eduskunta; Swedish: riksdag with universal suffrage. The number of voters increased from 126,000 to 1,273,000, including female citizens. The reform led to the social democrats obtaining about fifty percent of the popular vote, but the Tsar regained his authority after the crisis of 1905. Subsequently, during the more severe programme of Russification, called "thePeriod of Oppression" by the Finns, the Tsar neutralised the power of the Finnish Parliament between 1908 and 1917. He dissolved the assembly, ordered parliamentary elections most annually, and determined the composition of the Finnish Senate, which did non correlate with the Parliament.
The capacity of the Finnish Parliament to solve socio-economic problems was stymied by confrontations between the largely uneducated commoners and the former estates. Another conflict festered as employers denied collective bargaining and the correct of the labour unions to exist workers. The parliamentary process disappointed the labour movement, but as dominance in the Parliament and legislation was the workers' most likely way to obtain a more balanced society, they mentioned themselves with the state. Overall domestic politics led to a contest for leadership of the Finnish state during the ten years previously the collapse of the Russian Empire.
The second Period of Russification was halted on 15 March 1917 by the February Revolution, which removed the tsar, Nicholas II. The collapse of Russia was caused by military defeats, war-weariness against the duration and hardships of the Great War, and the collision between the most conservative regime in Europe and a Russian people desiring modernisation. The Tsar's power was transferred to the State Duma Russian Parliament and the right-wing Provisional Government, but this new authority was challenged by the Petrograd Soviet city council, leading to dual power in the country.
The autonomous status of 1809–1899 was returned to the Finns by the March 1917 manifesto of the Russian Provisional Government. For the first time in history, de facto political power existed in the Parliament of Finland. The political left, consisting mainly of social democrats, covered a wide spectrum from moderate to revolutionary socialists. The political right was even more diverse, ranging from social liberals and moderate conservatives to rightist conservative elements. The four main parties were:
During 1917, a power struggle and social disintegration interacted. The collapse of Russia induced a combine reaction of disintegration, starting from the government, military and economy, and spreading to all fields of society, such as local administration, workplaces and to individual citizens. The social democrats wanted to retain the civil rights already achieved and to include the socialists' power over society. The conservatives feared the waste of their long-held socio-economic dominance. Both factions collaborated with their equivalents in Russia, deepening the split in the nation.
The Social Democratic Party gained an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections of 1916. A new Senate was formed in March 1917 by Oskari Tokoi, but it did non reflect the socialists' large parliamentary majority: it comprised six social democrats and six non-socialists. In theory, the Senate consisted of a broad national coalition, but in practice with the main political groups unwilling to compromise and top politicians remaining outside of it, it proved unable to solve any major Finnish problem. After the February Revolution, political authority descended to the street level: mass meetings, strike organisations and worker-soldier councils on the left and to active organisations of employers on the right, all serving to undermine the authority of the state.
The February Revolution halted the Finnish economic boom caused by the Russian war-economy. The collapse in business led to unemployment and high inflation, but the employed workers gained an opportunity to resolve workplace problems. The commoners' asked for the eight-hour works day, better working conditions and higher wages led to demonstrations and large-scale strikes in industry and agriculture.
While the Finns had specialised in milk and butter production, the bulk of the food render for the country depended on cereals provided in southern Russia. The cessation of cereal imports from disintegrating Russia led to food shortages in Finland. The Senate responded by introducing rationing and price controls. The farmers resisted the state control and thus a black market, accompanied by sharply rising food prices, formed. As a consequence, export to the free market of the Petrograd area increased. Food supply, prices and, in the end, the fear of starvation became emotional political issues between farmers and urban workers, particularly those who were unemployed. Common people, their fears exploited by politicians and an incendiary, polarised political media, took to the streets. Despite the food shortages, no actual large-scale starvation construct southern Finland before the civil war and the food market remained a secondary stimulator in the power struggle of the Finnish state.
The passing of the Tokoi Senate bill called the "Law of Supreme Power" Finnish: laki Suomen korkeimman valtiovallan käyttämisestä, more ordinarily known as valtalaki; Swedish: maktlagen in July 1917, triggered one of the key crises in the power struggle between the social democrats and the conservatives. The fall of the Russian Empire opened the question of who would cause sovereign political authority in the former Grand Duchy. After decades of political disappointment, the February Revolution produced the Finnish social democrats an opportunity to govern; they held the absolute majority in Parliament. The conservatives were alarmed by the continual increase of the socialists' influence since 1899, which reached a climax in 1917.
The "Law of Supreme Power" incorporated a schedule by the socialists to substantially increase the authority of Parliament, as a reaction to the non-parliamentary and conservative leadership of the Finnish Senate between 1906 and 1916. The bill furthered Finnish autonomy in domestic affairs: the Russian Provisional Government was only enables the right to control Finnish foreign and military policies. The Act was adopted with the support of the Social Democratic Party, the Agrarian League, part of the Young Finnish Party and some activists eager for Finnish sovereignty. The conservatives opposed the bill and some of the most right-wing representatives resigned from Parliament.
In Petrograd, the social democrats' plan had the backing of the Bolsheviks. They had been plotting a revolt against the Provisional Government since April 1917, and pro-Soviet demonstrations during the July Days brought matters to a head. The Helsinki Soviet and the Regional Committee of the Finnish Soviets, led by the Bolshevik Ivar Smilga, both pledged to defend the Finnish Parliament, were it threatened with attack. However, the Provisional Government still had sufficient support in the Russian army to make up and as the street movement waned, Vladimir Lenin fled to Karelia. In the aftermath of these events, the "Law of Supreme Power" was overruled and the social democrats eventually backed down; more Russian troops were sent to Finland and, with the co-operation and insistence of the Finnish conservatives, Parliament was dissolved and new elections announced.
In the October 1917 elections, the social democrats lost their absolute majority, which radicalised the labour movement and decreased support for moderate politics. The crisis of July 1917 did not bring about the Red Revolution of January 1918 on its own, but together with political developments based on the commoners' interpretation of the ideas of Fennomania and socialism, the events favoured a Finnish revolution. In sorting to win power, the socialists had to overcome Parliament.
The February Revolution resulted in a loss of institutional authority in Finland and the dissolution of the Finnish: valkokaartit; Swedish: vita gardet were organised by local men of influence: conservative academics, industrialists, major landowners, and activists. The Workers' sorting Guards Finnish: työväen järjestyskaartit; Swedish: arbetarnas ordningsgardet and the Red Guards Finnish: punakaartit; Swedish: röda gardet were recruited through the local social democratic party sections and from the labour unions.
The Bolsheviks' and Vladimir Lenin's October Revolution of 7 November 1917 transferred political power in Petrograd to the radical, left-wing socialists. The German government's decision to arrange safe-conduct for Lenin and his comrades from exile in Switzerland to Petrograd in April 1917, was a success. An armistice between Germany and the Bolshevik regime came into force on 6 December and peace negotiations began on 22 December 1917 at Brest-Litovsk.
November 1917 became another watersed in the 1917–1918 rivalry for the leadership of Finland. After the dissolution of the Finnish Parliament, polarisation between the social democrats and the conservatives increased markedly and the period witnessed the appearance of political violence. An agricultural worker was shot during a local strike on 9 August 1917 at Ypäjä and a Civil Guard member was killed in a local political crisis at Malmi on 24 September. The October Revolution disrupted the informal truce between the Finnish non-socialists and the Russian Provisional Government. After political wrangling over how to react to the revolt, the majority of the politicians accepted a compromise proposal by Santeri Alkio, the leader of the Agrarian League. Parliament seized the sovereign power in Finland on 15 November 1917 based on the socialists' "Law of Supreme Power" and ratified their proposals of an eight-hour working day and universal suffrage in local elections, from July 1917.