home Sample documents Modern Varangian. Guards missile cruiser "Varyag"

Modern Varangian. Guards missile cruiser "Varyag"

The attitude of the Finns towards Russia could never be called friendly. In a country that was the scene of wars between Sweden and Russia for several centuries, the latter was consistently perceived as a “threat from the East.”

The Finnish attitude towards the Russians somewhat normalized after the annexation of Finland to Russia in 1809. By giving Finland a very privileged place within the Empire, St. Petersburg managed to win the favor of the Finns. However, as Senator Brunner noted in his report to Alexander II in 1861, “one should not conclude that the love and devotion [of the Finns] to the monarch extends also to the Russian people, for whom there was hitherto no sympathy for many reasons, which are the essence: the difference religions, character, morals and customs, etc.” Finnish historians hold a similar opinion about the nature of the Finns’ attitude towards Russia. But even such a picture seems idyllic in the light of the changes that followed it.

Beginning with late XIX c., the attitude of the Finns towards Russia is again changing for the worse, which is associated with the so-called “Russification policy” that the tsarist authorities tried to carry out in relation to Finland. In the Grand Duchy, which had previously been one of the most loyal parts of the Russian Empire to the emperor, unrest began, sabotage of the tsar's decrees began, and separatism and nationalism began to develop. Many Russian revolutionary organizations find refuge and support there, Finnish “activists” (as supporters of the fight against Russia were called in Finland) prepare underground armed groups and make attempts on Russian officials.

During the Russo-Japanese War, the leaders of the Finnish separatists tried to establish contacts with Japan, and during the First World War - with Germany, on whose side even a Jaeger battalion recruited from among Finnish volunteers fought. And although some underground organizations specifically emphasized that their goal was to incite hatred among the Finns not towards the Russian people, but towards the Russian authorities, for many activists these concepts merged together.

Thus, the confrontation between the Finns and the tsarist government had a very serious impact on the attitude of the Finns towards the Russians even after Finland gained independence. It was from this moment (or rather, from the beginning of the Finnish Civil War in January 1918) that Russophobia in Finland (more precisely in its White part) took its most radical forms.

The reason for this state of affairs was very clearly formulated by the Finnish historian O. Karemaa: “During the civil war in Finland, the fueled Russophobia, it seems, was the desire of the whites to make Russians scapegoats for all cruelties and thereby justify own ideas“,” “for psychological reasons, they tried to disguise the cruel truth about the fratricidal war with an allegedly ideological struggle in defense of Western culture from the Russians, declared sworn enemies... without an external enemy it would have been difficult to raise the masses to war.”

In other words, whites in Finland needed some kind of external threat to distract their own population from those deep political and socio-economic problems that led Finnish society to division and war. And Soviet Russia and, in particular, Russian troops, who had not yet been withdrawn from the territory of Finland after its independence, were declared such a threat, and the mythology of the “liberation war” against Russia began to actively take root in the public consciousness of the Finns, which was supposed to replace the real civil war, although in reality Russian troops did not pose any threat to Finnish independence, and all assistance from the RSFSR to the Red Finns was reduced to secret supplies of weapons and ideological support. As a result, hatred of Russians during this period resulted in open ethnic cleansing in Finland.

Russians were exterminated regardless of whether they served as volunteers in the Red Guard or were white-sympathizing civilians. In Tammerfors, after its capture by the Whites on April 6, 1918, about 200 Russians were killed, including White officers; the number of Russians executed in Vyborg on April 26-27 is estimated at 1,000 people. (the vast majority of whom did not take any part in the civil war), including women and children.

Thus, the far from complete list, containing only 178 names, of Russians killed in Vyborg, stored in LOGAV, contains information about Alexander Smirnov (9 years old), Kasmen Svadersky (12 years old), Andrei Chubrikov (13 years old), Nikolai and Alexander Naumov (15 years old), etc. Some Poles also fell under the hot hand of the White Finns, who were shot, probably confused with Russians (and similar “mistakes” happened in other places: for example, one Pole mistaken for a Russian was killed in Uusi Kaarlepuy ).

One of the Russian emigrants who lived near Vyborg at that time described what was happening in the city: “Absolutely everyone, from high school students to officials, who came into view of the winners in Russian uniform was shot on the spot; not far from the Pimenovs’ house, two realists were killed who ran out in their uniforms to greet the whites; 3 cadets were killed in the city; the Reds who surrendered were cordoned off by the Whites and driven into the fortress ditch; At the same time, they captured part of the crowd that was on the streets, and indiscriminately and indiscriminately finished them off in the ditch and in other places. Who was shot and why, all this was unknown to the heroes of the knife!

They were shot in front of the crowd; before the execution, they tore off watches and rings from people, took away wallets, pulled off boots, clothes, etc. They especially hunted for Russian officers; An innumerable number of them died, including their commandant, the quartermaster, who had previously handed over his warehouse to the whites, and the gendarmerie officer; many were called from their apartments, supposedly to view documents, and they never returned home, and their relatives later found them in the heaps of bodies in the ditch: even their underwear turned out to be taken from them.”

The events in Vyborg caused a wide resonance in Russia. On May 13, the Soviet government turned to the German Ambassador W. Mirbach with a request to create a joint commission to investigate the murders of Russian residents of Finland. At the same time, what happened in the city was described as follows:

“Here mass executions of innocent residents of Russian origin took place, monstrous atrocities were committed against the civilian Russian population, even 12-year-old children were shot. In one barn in Vyborg, as the witness reported, the latter saw 200 corpses, including Russian officers and students. The wife of the murdered Lieutenant Colonel Vysokikh told the witness that she saw how the destroyed Russians were lined up in one line and shot from machine guns. According to witnesses, the total number of people killed in two days reaches 600 people.

After the occupation of Vyborg by the White Guards, a group of arrested Russian citizens, numbering about 400 people, among whom were women and children, elders and students, were brought to the station; After consulting with each other for about 10 minutes, the officers announced to them that they were sentenced to death, after which the arrested were sent to the Friedrichsgam Gate on the “ramps”, where they were shot with machine guns; the wounded were finished off with rifle butts and bayonets, a real extermination of the Russian population took place without any distinction, old people, women and children, officers, students and generally all Russians were exterminated.”

The facts described above caused a lot of indignation in the ranks of the Russian White movement, as a result of which many of its leaders later spoke out against the discussed projects for a joint campaign with the Finns on Petrograd by Yudenich’s army.

Naval Minister of the North-West Government, Rear Admiral V.K. Pilkin wrote in 1919 to his colleague in the Kolchak government, Rear Admiral M.I. Smirnov: “If the Finns go [to Petrograd] alone, or at least with us, but in the proportion of 30 thousand against the three or four who are here in Finland, then with their well-known hatred of the Russians, their character of butchers ... they will destroy, shoot and they will slaughter all our officers, right and wrong, intelligentsia, youth, high school students, cadets - everyone they can, as they did when they took Vyborg from the Reds.”

One of the leaders of the anti-Bolshevik Petrograd underground, V.N., shared the same opinion. Tagantsev: “None of us wanted the Finns to march on Petrograd. We remembered the reprisal against Russian officers together with the Red rebels.” Moreover, according to the historian T. Vihavainen, such views on the fate of Petrograd in the event of its capture by the Finns “have a basis both in the sense of the experience of 1918 and in the plans that were hatched in extremist circles of “activists.” Finnish women who had connections with the Russians were also persecuted: their hair was cut off, their clothes were torn, and in some places they even discussed the possibility of branding them with a hot iron. In the town of Korsnyas a similar execution was carried out in last moment prevented by the local priest.

Problems of the purity of the nation in general, apparently, were of great concern to Finnish society: when participants in the Kronstadt uprising were evacuated to Finland in 1921, the Finnish press sharply opposed the placement of refugees in rural areas, fearing that the Russians would mix with the local Finnish population. As a result, the Kronstadters were placed in several camps with very strict conditions of detention: it was forbidden to leave the border of the camp under threat of execution, communication with local residents was also strictly prohibited.

With the end of the civil war, the physical extermination of Russians in Finland stopped, but the desire of the Finnish government to get rid of the Russian population and refugees did not disappear. Back in April 1918, the Finnish Senate decided to expel all former Russian subjects from the country, and during the spring and summer, about 20,000 Russians were expelled from the country.

However, the Finns soon abandoned this practice and provided Russian refugees with the opportunity to enter the country. This was justified by considerations of creating a favorable international image of Finland. O. Stenruut, who headed the Finnish Foreign Ministry at that time, believed that Finland’s tolerant policy towards refugees would strengthen its independent status and free it from German dependence. Border Commandant Rantakari shared the same opinion, believing that refusal to accept refugees would bring Finland “the hatred of the entire civilized world.”

However, in parallel with such decisions, interethnic tensions were heightened in the country. The main promoters of Russophobia in Finnish society were the former huntsmen, the Agrarian Union, which received 42 seats in parliament in 1919 and became the second largest party, Schutskor and the Academic Karelian Society (AKS) created in 1922. Moreover, the hatred incited by these organizations was, from the point of view of its members, of a creative nature, being an integral element in the construction of Finnish national identity. In their opinion, the unity of the Finnish nation could only be achieved through inciting hatred of everything Russian.

“If we succeed,” believed AKC Chairman Elmo Kayla, “then the time will not be far off when our nation will be guided by one thought, strong, all-conquering, when the saying of the Härmä men, “You can only talk about Russia by gnashing your teeth,” will come true " Then Finland will be free."

A very symbolic medal in this sense for members of the AKC was developed by one of its ideologists, priest Elias Semojoki: one side of it personified love for Finland, the other - hatred of Russia. As a result, Finland pursued a systematic policy of inciting national hatred against the Russians.

Back in 1920, the above-mentioned E. Kayla compiled “instructions and a program for the dissemination of “Russaphobia” (from the word “Russia” - a contemptuous name for Russians), which were sent out to district commanders of the Shchutskor, “activists” and huntsman officers. The recipients should have organized the spread of Russophobia in their teams and appointed persons responsible for this. In the villages, local heads of shutskor and teachers should have been involved in this work.

A massive anti-Russian campaign was carried out in the Finnish press, where there were often even calls for the destruction of Russians. In March 1923, the newspaper “Julioppilaslehti” published an article “Ryssaphobia”, which stated that “if we love our country, we need to learn to hate its enemies... Therefore, in the name of our honor and freedom, let our motto sound: Hate and love! Death to the Russes, be they red or white.”

In the same year, AKC, with a circulation of 10 thousand copies, published the brochure “Wake up, Suomi!”, which contained similar ideas: “What good has ever come to us from Russia? Nothing! Death and destruction, plague and the Russian stench emanated from there... Russia has always been and will forever remain an enemy of humanity and humane development. Was there ever any benefit to humanity from the existence of the Russian people? No! And his disappearance from the face of the earth would be a great happiness for humanity.”

The Schutskor newspaper “Suojeluskuntalaisen” was no less radical, which in 1921 held a competition among its readers for the best proverb about Russians, the winner of which was the reader who proposed the following option: “Which animal is most like a person? This is "ryussa". Due to the great popularity of the competition, a second round was held, in which the best proverb was: “Beat on the back and you will get rid of the cough; kill and you will get rid of the “ryussa.” However, such newspaper attacks will not look too blatant, considering that during this period even Finnish officials made comparisons of Russians with animals in official reports. At the same time, it was censored school program, from which references to Russians in a positive way were removed.

Purges also took place in the Finnish army, which the nationalists sought to rid of any traces of “Russianness.” First of all, of course, Russian officers left the army. For example, in September 1919, all Russian pilots who trained pilots for the Finnish Air Force were hastily retired. Following them came the turn of the Finnish officers who served in the tsarist army. In 1920, the leader of the Agrarian Union, S. Alkio, demanded their dismissal from the pages of the Ilkka newspaper.

The ranger officers were no less active against the Finns who served in Russia. In 1924, they even threatened collective resignation if former tsarist officers were not dismissed from the army. As a result, the number of Russian-trained officers in the Finnish army constantly decreased throughout the 20s and 30s, and all key positions were occupied by Finns who served in the German army.

Was subjected to certain harassment in Finland and Orthodox Church, in relation to which the government pursued a policy of Finnization. On March 3, 1923, the State Council issued a decree on the translation of services in Orthodox churches during the year into Finnish or Swedish. The number of parishes under the influence of the Finnish authorities also gradually decreased: some churches were demolished (such as the church in Hämeenlinna in 1924), some were turned into Lutheran churches (Alexander Nevsky Church in Suomenlinna), some were transferred to municipal institutions(Church of the Apostles Peter and Paul in Tornio). Finnish nationalists also fought Orthodoxy in their own way: after 1918, Russian churches and cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated.

In addition to the “ideological” Russophobia brought down from above, there was also everyday Russophobia in Finland. In the conditions of the very difficult post-war situation in the country and difficulties with food and housing, the Finns were very concerned about refugees, who, in their opinion, only aggravated the already difficult economic situation in Finland.

The Finns also feared for their jobs, and it should be noted that this was not always without reason: in the 1920s and 30s, refugees (though mostly Ingrians) were repeatedly recruited by the strikebreaking organization Vientirauch Association to fill the jobs of striking workers. And although the share of such workers in the total mass of refugees was very small, the Finns’ hatred of them was transferred to all immigrants from Russia as a whole. As a result, according to Karemaa, “by the 20s. XX century Almost all Finns were prone to the perception of “Russaphobia”.

As we can see, in the 1920s in Finland there really was quite a serious problem ethnic intolerance towards Russians, which not only broke the fates of hundreds of former Russian citizens who ended up in Finland, but also created tension in Soviet-Finnish relations during this period.

As noted in 1923 by the USSR Plenipotentiary Representative to Finland A.S. Chernykh, “the Russophobia of the Finnish bourgeoisie can only be compared with their no less blatant anti-Semitism. In our current work, we feel this blank wall of nationalistic, zoological hatred every day.

The class hatred of the Finnish bourgeoisie for the Republic of Soviets, combined with frantic Russophobia, determines the continuous and, at first glance, incomprehensible fluctuations in Finnish politics.

Objectively, there are no serious reasons for conflicts between us and Finland; on the contrary, everything seems to be conducive to business rapprochement; in fact, our patient, compliant, benevolent political line does not meet with a response here. Here the very idea, the thought of the possibility of loyal, calm relations with Russia evokes strong opposition.”

This state of affairs certainly had a negative impact on the development of Soviet-Finnish relations and ultimately became another factor that led the two states to the Winter War.

Centenary of the October Revolution in modern Russia were not noted in any way, except by showing several rather primitive pseudo-historical films. But in fairness, it should be noted that in other countries in which their own revolutionary events took place, they try not to remember them.

The events of October 1917 in Petrograd caused not only a civil war in Russia, but an attempted Red Revolution in Finland, which led to a short but very brutal civil war between Reds and Whites, ending in a White victory. In Finland itself, the authorities still cannot give a neutral name to the events of 1918. Previously, the civil war was called the “War of Independence,” referring to the participation of some Russian military units in the battles on the side of the Reds. Sometimes the bloody year of 1918 was called the time of the “Red Rebellion.” Only recently has the neutral term “civil war” been adopted. But what kind of war was this, which still remains an unhealed wound in Finland?

After the next Russian-Swedish war of 1808-09. Finland was annexed to Russia. But the idealistic Tsar Alexander I, instead of making a couple of new Russian provinces out of the annexed territories, decided to play with constitutionality and created an autonomous state under his leadership - the Grand Duchy of Finland. Status of Finland 1809-1917 is still not clear to historians. The Finns themselves for the most part consider their Grand Duchy to be an independent state, connected with Russia only by a dynastic union and in contractual relations with the Russian Empire (although the autocracy, by definition, cannot have contractual relations with anyone). By the way, the Finnish constitution granted by Alexander I was in force until 2000. However, when in Finland there is a need to fan Russophobic sentiments, the times of the Grand Duchy are considered to be the Russian government that “oppressed” the Finns. But be that as it may, the Grand Duchy had its own parliament (the Russians called it the Sejm), a government (Senate), a monetary unit - the Finnish mark, and also, for some time, its own small army. Under the scepter of the Romanovs, the principality flourished, the Finns did not pay imperial taxes, did not bear conscription duties (instead they paid a cash contribution of 1 ruble 35 kopecks per inhabitant per year). Over a century of existence in hothouse conditions, Finland became very rich, its population grew from 860 thousand inhabitants in 1809 to 3.1 million in 1914, despite the emigration of 300 thousand Finns to the USA and Canada.

Finland tried to show its “independence” in any way possible. Already in 1915, at the height of the First World War, Finland declared its neutrality. However, approximately 500 Finns joined the Russian army, and approximately 2 thousand other Finns, mostly of Swedish origin, went to Germany, where they joined the so-called units. "Finnish huntsmen" who fought on the side of the Germans. The first three years of the First World War were a period of prosperity for Finland. Like other neutrals, Finland made very good money from someone else's war. For 1914-16 Several dozen millionaires appeared in the country. The Finnish village especially flourished. There was never serfdom in Finland, there was generally enough arable land, there was a problem of economic development of unused lands in the north of the country, agricultural technology was very advanced. high level. Food products, especially livestock products from Finland, generously paid for in Russian gold, were distributed throughout the Russian Empire, since most adult men and horses were mobilized from the Russian village and it was difficult to take anything from there without surplus appropriation. The Finns also traded with Germany through neighboring Sweden. True, the golden rain that fell on Finland only exacerbated many social problems, because those who are called the working masses did not benefit at all from the prosperity of the war years, since the growth of workers' wages was neutralized by inflation. Speculation on the black market caused the high cost of food, and official statistics showed facts of starvation among the urban unemployed. We had to introduce a card system for the distribution of essential goods. It is not surprising that left-wing ideas became popular in Finland, the Social Democratic Party (close in program to the Russian Mensheviks, however, the party also included a militant wing of the radical left) became mass. Basically, the party had supporters among urban workers, part of the urban middle classes and only a small part of the torpars - rural tenants.

Meanwhile, in February 1917, the Russian monarchy collapsed, which was also the Finnish monarchy, because the autocratic Emperor of All Russia was also the constitutional Grand Duke of Finland. The Finns are a thorough but slow people; they thought for a long time about what to do now. While they were thinking, another revolution took place in Russia, and the Bolsheviks took power. Seeing that Russia was sliding into chaos, on December 6, 1917, the Finnish Diet declared the independence of Finland. However, in order to gain recognition of independence in the world, Finland had to be recognized by Soviet Russia. And then the Finnish government delegation went to pay tribute to Lenin in Petrograd. The leader of the world proletariat graciously received the leaders of the Finnish bourgeoisie and granted freedom to the Finns. On the evening of December 31, 1917, a few hours before the new year 1918, the Council of People's Commissars officially recognized the independence of Finland. In Finland, independence was celebrated vigorously for several days, and then the Finns began shooting at each other.

Like any civil war, in Finland, long before the outbreak of hostilities, there was psychological readiness to war. As early as the summer of 1917, Red Guard units began to spontaneously appear, oriented towards the Social Democratic Party. Bolshevik units of the Russian army stationed in Finland provided some assistance to the Finnish Reds. But, in contrast to Russia, at the same time paramilitary units of supporters of bourgeois parties began to emerge. They went down in history under the name šützkor (Swedish abbreviated as “security corps”). Unlike the Red Guards, among whom there was no unified command and had very few weapons, the Shutskorites were well organized and armed. The Shutskor received weapons from Sweden, as well as from the arsenals of the Russian army in Finland, which were quickly captured by the beginning of the autumn of 1917. Already on January 16, Lieutenant General of the Russian Army, a Swede by birth, who only became a Finn at the age of 50, but until the end of his long life never learned the Finnish language well, Baron Mannerheim, was appointed commander-in-chief of the white units being formed for the future civil war.

The whole of 1917 in Finland was spent in strikes, street rallies, and sometimes skirmishes between the Red Guards and Shyutskorists. It became clear that the country was heading towards a general civil war. And the war began.

At the same time, the Finns themselves have not fought for more than a century. Actually, the Finns were not previously a people of warriors. The Swedish kings recruited from their Finnish possessions, but in general quite few natives of Finland became officers and generals. In the Grand Duchy of Finland, representatives of the Swedish nobility made a career in the ranks of the Russian imperial army and navy, but, as was said, for almost the entire history of being part of the Russian Empire, Finns were not subject to conscription into the Russian army. There were very few Finnish residents who served in the army, and even more so, took part in hostilities. It is precisely the absence of military traditions that, paradoxically, explains the ease with which both the red and white Finns rushed into battle against each other with some kind of calf delight. Among the paradoxes of the Finnish civil war was also the fact that the Finns, who as a nation possessed many advantages, never gravitated toward radical, much less revolutionary, changes. In the history of Finland before 1918 there were no popular uprisings and, of course, no revolutions. There was not even an image of a noble robber in Finnish folklore. The Finns have always respected private property, and tried to resolve all possible conflicts by compromise. But in 1918, the Finns unexpectedly decided on a social revolution and civil war.

Finnish bourgeois parties, having government power, quickly realized that the Reds would have to be suppressed military force, and therefore, arming and training the army troops, they negotiated with the Germans about the return of the “Finnish rangers”, who had extensive military experience, to Finland. The Reds, in turn, decided to take the lead and decided on the evening of January 27 to start an armed uprising, which would be the beginning of the revolution.

Late in the evening, at 23:00 on January 27, 1918, an uprising of detachments of Finnish Red Army soldiers broke out in Helsingfors (Helsinki). The same date is also considered the date of the beginning of the Finnish Civil War. On the same day, the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Suomen sosialistinen työväentasavalta) was proclaimed. The coup was supported by 89 out of 92 Sejm deputies elected from the SDPF list. Soon the Reds occupied most of the cities. The country was divided into the south, where most of the industrial cities (and, accordingly, a significant part of the working class) were located, which came under the control of the reds, and the north, agrarian and conservative, which became a stronghold of the whites. Since the time of Swedish rule, western Finland has had a very prosperous Swedish minority. Although a number of Red commanders came from among the Finnish Swedes, the Swedish regions of the country still generally supported the Whites. There, in the Swedish region of Österbothnia, in the coastal city of Vasa, the white political headquarters was located.

To a large extent, this war was fought unprofessionally, most of the fighters on both sides were amateurs in military affairs, and the Reds had no military discipline. Therefore, clear front lines arose only near large settlements of strategic importance, as well as near railway junctions and large roads.

Fighting continued for several months, bringing no advantage to either side. At the beginning of the war there were about 30 thousand Red Guards, by the summer their number exceeded 70 thousand. About 10 thousand Russian soldiers and sailors from among the Russian garrisons, supporters of the Bolsheviks, also fought on their side. At the beginning of February, there were still 75 thousand Russian soldiers in the country. However, they had no particular desire to take up arms. Russian troops were eager to return home, and the Finnish civil war was a foreign war for them. The situation worsened further after the conclusion of the Russian-German peace on March 3, 1918 in Brest-Litovsk: under the terms of the agreement, the Bolsheviks undertook to withdraw Russian soldiers from Finland, which was done. A number of Russians continued to fight on the side of the Reds after the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. However, there were also Russians who fought on the side of the whites. In a three-volume study by Finnish historians about the human losses of Finland in 1918, the killed Shyutskorites Bogdanoff Nikolai are mentioned; Feobanov Vasilii, Miinin Nikolai, Terehoff Nikolai, etc.

But if the Russian troops left, then other foreign soldiers came. From the very beginning of the war, volunteers from Sweden fought on the side of the whites. At the end of February 1918, the huntsmen who had been educated there returned from Germany and immediately took charge of several formations. The number of whites was almost equal to the number of reds, reaching 70 thousand fighters. But still, the turning point in the war came only when the German intervention began. On March 7, the White Finns concluded a peace treaty with Germany, an agreement on trade and navigation, as well as a secret military agreement that actually established a German protectorate over Finland. On April 3, a German division under the command of Rüdiger von der Goltz landed at Cape Gangut in the southwestern part of the country. From the sea, the German division was supported by a detachment of German ships of Admiral Moyer. Russian sailors blew up 4 submarines and 1 mother ship on the Hanko roadstead so that they would not fall to the Germans. 12 thousand battle-hardened soldiers of von der Goltz quickly swept away the scattered detachments of the Reds. Eleven days later, the division paraded through the central streets of Helsingfors. Russian ships of the Baltic Fleet left Helsingfors for Kronstadt. On April 6, in Loviza, east of Helsingfors, in the rear of the Reds, a three-thousand-strong German detachment under the command of General Brandenstein landed. At the same time, Mannerheim’s white units also went on the offensive. The agony of Red Finland began. The remnants of the Red Guard retreated towards Vyborg, and their wives and children with household belongings went along with the fighters. On April 29, Vyborg was captured by the White Finns. On May 5, the Whites reached the border with Russia. Actually, individual Red detachments still continued to resist, but, having no hope of success, they broke through into Soviet Russia. The last clash occurred on May 15. The civil war, which lasted 108 days, ended in victory for the whites.

The end of the war was only the beginning of mass terror. Even during the period of hostilities, both the Reds and the Whites carried out massacres. But these were excesses born of the chaos of war. But the systematic mass extermination of their political opponents, including ordinary Red Guards and members of their families, began after the victory of the Whites. Along with mass extrajudicial executions, Red prisoners were driven into concentration camps, where about 70 thousand people were held.

But along with the Red Finns, repression fell on the Russian population of Finland. The result of the war was the ethnic cleansing of Finland from the Slavic population. The capture of Vyborg, in which the Russian population exceeded 10% of the city's total population of 50 thousand, was accompanied by the mass extermination of Russians. Finnish historian Lars Westerlund, editor of the three-volume publication “Venäläissurmat Suomessa 1914─22”, that when the city was captured by the Whites, over 3 thousand Russians were killed, that is, more than half of the Russian Vyborg residents. In general, the Russians who lived permanently in Finland were mostly businessmen, engineers, representatives of liberal professions, as well as retired officers and officials. Almost all of them were wealthy people who did not support the Reds. But the triumphant Finnish “freedom” led to the expropriation of Russian property in Finland, and the expulsion, and sometimes simply destruction, of the majority of Russians. The result was a sharp reduction in the size of the Russian (and, more broadly, the entire non-Finnish) population of the country. It is significant that most of the Russian white emigrants, once in Finland, did not stay there, leaving for other countries that were more friendly to Russians. After the Finnish Civil War of 1918, Russophobia did not disappear in Finland. The Russians who remained in Finland were given unbearable living conditions, which forced many of them to emigrate.

In total, according to the modern Finnish historian H. Meinander, nearly 11 thousand soldiers died in this war (5,300 Reds, 3,400 Whites, 600 Russians, 300 Germans). Taking into account all those executed, as well as victims of terror and disease, the total number of human losses reached 38,500 people. More than a quarter of them (13,500) died from epidemics and exhaustion in the camps where Red prisoners of war were kept. For a country with a population of 3 million people, these were terrible numbers. This is approximately the same as in the USA in 2018, 3 million 800 thousand Americans would have died in six months. Another 30 thousand Red Finns (1% of the population) went to Soviet Russia.

Actually, the war continued, but on the adjacent territory of Soviet Russia. At the height of the civil war, when its outcome was not yet clear, on February 23, 1918, Mannerheim declared that “he would not sheathe his sword until Eastern Karelia was liberated from the Bolsheviks.” Two weeks later, the future president issued an order to occupy the territory along the line Kola Peninsula - White Sea - Lake Onega - Svir River - Lake Ladoga. By January 1919, they occupied the Porosozersk and Rebolsk volosts, and by the end of April they reached the immediate approaches to Petrozavodsk. On May 15, 1918, the Finnish government officially declared war on Soviet Russia. The counteroffensive of the Red Army that began ended with the defeat of the Finns at Vidlitsa and Tuloksa, but the defeat did not cool their warlike ardor. The Finns took part in the defeat of the Reds in Estonia and continued to make incursions into Russian Karelia. It is characteristic that the Red Finns, who found themselves in exile in Soviet Russia, continued to fight against the White Finns. Thus, at the beginning of 1922, a detachment of Red Finns under the command of Toivo Antikainen inflicted a number of defeats on the White Finns. These were the last battles of the Finnish Civil War.

However, historically the winner of the war was the Finnish working class. The bourgeoisie of Finland, who no longer wanted to experience the fear of 1918, preferred to buy off their proletarians, creating a state with strong social protection as a whole. Thus, the proletarian revolution won with its military defeat.

June 4th, 2018

The first Soviet-Finnish war - fighting between White Finnish troops and units of the Red Army on the territory of Soviet Russia from March 1918 to October 1920.

At first it was conducted unofficially. Already in March 1918, during the Civil War in Finland, White Finnish troops, pursuing the enemy (Finnish “Reds”), crossed the Russian-Finnish border and in a number of places entered Eastern Karelia.

At the same time, the combat operations carried out were not always of a partisan nature. Officially, war with the RSFSR was declared by the democratic government of Finland on May 15, 1918 after the defeat of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic.

The First Soviet-Finnish War was part of the Russian Civil War and Foreign Military Intervention in northern Russia.

It ended on October 14, 1920 with the signing of the Tartu Peace Treaty between the RSFSR and Finland, which recorded a number of territorial concessions from Soviet Russia.

Background

The October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd marked the beginning of the Bolshevik seizure of power in all major cities of Russia. At the same time, centers of unification of anti-Bolshevik forces emerged throughout the country. A civil war began in Russia.

The fall of the Russian autocracy and the October Revolution of 1917 allowed the Finnish Senate to declare independence on December 6, 1917. On December 18 (31), 1917, the independence of the Republic of Finland was recognized by the Council of People's Commissars. Finland, in turn, recognized the Bolshevik government. At the same time, unrest intensified in the country and the struggle between “reds” and “whites” intensified, which by January 1918 escalated into a civil war. White Finnish detachments controlled the northern and central parts of the country, while the southern part with most of the large cities, where the de-Bolshevik units of the former Russian Imperial Army were concentrated, was occupied by detachments of the Finnish Red Guard.

By the spring of 1919, the Bolshevik government found itself in a difficult situation. The Supreme Ruler of Russia, Admiral Kolchak and General Denikin, were approaching Moscow from the northeast and south. In the Northern region and Estonia, Russian military volunteer units were completing their formation, the goal of which was red Petrograd.

Causes

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, when huge territories were torn away from Russia, showed the weakness of Soviet power and caused discontent on the part of various social groups.

Uprisings broke out, such as the Yaroslavl, Izhevsk-Votkinsk, Tambov uprisings, even independent territories were proclaimed. In the case of Ingria, the North Karelian state, Rebolskaya volost, Porayarvi, the rebels hoped for help from neighboring Finland, with which they had a common language and historical ties. On the wave of success in Finland, White hoped for more. Soviet Russia was surrounded by white armies and could not resist Germany. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia were also examples of a successful fight against Bolshevism relying on foreign support. The idea of Greater Finland became widespread. According to the Finnish researcher Toivo Nigård, General Mannerheim had the opportunity to go down in history as a liberator from the Bolsheviks, if not all of Russia, then certainly Petrograd. Therefore, events can be divided into two stages. First: an international struggle against the Bolsheviks, everywhere, in the hope of victory for the white movement in Russia as a whole. And the second stage, when it became clear that Soviet authority will survive, and one can only hope for tactical successes on the ground, relying on the national movement and foreign assistance. The concepts of occupation and liberation during this historical period are extremely relative and vague. In Soviet historiography, it was customary to consider only the territorial and military aspects of the war. But at the same time, 30,000 migrants who went to Finland show the attitude of the population towards Sovietization.

On February 23, 1918, while at Antrea station (now Kamennogorsk), addressing the troops, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Army, General Carl Gustav Mannerheim, delivered his speech, the “oath of the sword,” in which he stated that “he will not sheathe the sword,... before the last warrior and hooligan of Lenin is expelled from both Finland and East Karelia.” However, there was no official declaration of war from Finland. General Manerheim’s desire to become the savior of “old Russia” was viewed negatively in Finland. At a minimum they needed support Western countries and guarantees that white Russia would recognize Finnish independence., the white movement was unable to create a united front, which sharply reduced the chances of success. Other leaders of the white movement refused to recognize Finnish independence. And for more active actions, without risk to their country, they needed allies.

On February 27, the Finnish government sent a petition to Germany so that, as a country fighting against Russia, considering Finland as an ally of Germany, it would demand that Russia make peace with Finland on the basis of the annexation of Eastern Karelia to Finland. The future border with Russia proposed by the Finns was supposed to run along the line Eastern coast of Lake Ladoga - Lake Onega - White Sea.

By the beginning of March, a plan for organizing “national uprisings in Eastern Karelia” was developed at Mannerheim’s headquarters and special Finnish instructors were allocated—career military personnel—to create hotbeds of uprising.

On March 3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed between Soviet Russia and the countries of the Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria). Russian garrisons were withdrawn from Finland. The Red Finns were defeated and fled to Karelia.

On March 6, the commander of the Northern Military District (Finnish: Pohjolan sotilaspiiri), senior lieutenant of the rangers Kurt Wallenius, suggested that Mannerheim launch an offensive in Eastern Karelia.

On March 6-7, an official statement by the head of the Finnish state, regent Per Evind Svinhufvud, appeared that Finland was ready to make peace with Soviet Russia on “moderate Brest conditions,” that is, if Eastern Karelia and part of the Murmansk railway went to Finland and the entire Kola Peninsula.

On March 7-8, German Emperor Wilhelm II responded to an appeal from the Finnish government that Germany would not wage war for Finnish interests with the Soviet government, which signed the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, and would not support Finland’s military actions if it moved them beyond its borders.

On March 7, the Finnish Prime Minister declares claims to Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula, and on March 15, Finnish General Mannerheim approves the “Wallenius Plan”, which provides for the seizure of part of the former territory of the Russian Empire to the line Petsamo (Pechenga) - Kola Peninsula - White Sea - Lake Onega - Svir River - Lake Ladoga.

By mid-May 1918, the White Finns controlled the entire territory of the former Grand Duchy of Finland and began military operations to conquer Eastern Karelia and the Kola Peninsula.

The landing of German troops in Finland and their occupation of Helsingfors caused serious concern among the Entente countries that were at war with Germany. Beginning in March 1918, in agreement with the Bolshevik government, Entente troops landed in Murmansk to protect Murmansk and the railway from a possible offensive by German-Finnish troops. From the Red Finns who retreated to the east, the British formed the Murmansk Legion, led by Oskari Tokoi, to act against the White Finns associated with the Germans.

In November 1918, Germany capitulated and began withdrawing its troops from the territories of the former Russian Empire that fell under German occupation as a result of the fighting of the First World War and the conditions of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, including from the territories of the Baltic countries. On December 30, 1918, Finnish troops under the command of General Wetzer landed in Estonia, where they assisted the Estonian government in the fight against the Bolshevik troops.

In January 1919, the Finns occupied the Porosozernaya volost of the Povenets district.

On April 21-22, the Olonets Volunteer Army from the territory of Finland launched a massive offensive in Eastern Karelia in the Olonets direction.

On April 21, volunteers occupied Vidlitsa, on April 23 - Tuloksa, in the evening of the same day - the city of Olonets, on April 24 they occupied Veshkelitsa, on April 25 they approached Pryazha, reached the Sulazhgory area and began to threaten Petrozavodsk directly. At the same time, Petrozavodsk was threatened from the north by British, Canadian and White Guard troops. At the end of April, the Red Army managed to hold back the advance of volunteers towards Petrozavodsk.

In May, White Guard troops in Estonia began military operations, threatening Petrograd.

In May and June, on the eastern and northern shores of Lake Ladoga, Red Army detachments held back the advance of Finnish volunteers. In May-June 1919, Finnish volunteers advanced on the Lodeynoye Pole area and crossed the Svir.

At the end of June 1919, the Red Army began a counteroffensive in the Vidlitsa direction and on July 8, 1919 in the Olonets sector of the Karelian front. Finnish volunteers were driven back beyond the border line.

On May 18, 1920, units of the Red Army liquidated the North Karelian state with its capital in the village of Ukhta (Arkhangelsk province), which received financial and military assistance from the Finnish government. Only in July 1920 were the Finns able to be driven out of most of eastern Karelia. Finnish troops remained only in the Rebolsk and Porosozersk volosts of Eastern Karelia.

In 1920, according to the Tartu Peace Treaty, Soviet Russia made significant territorial concessions - independent Finland received Western Karelia up to the Sestra River, the Pechenga region in the Arctic, the western part of the Rybachy Peninsula and most Middle Peninsula.

Prerequisites

For several centuries, until the beginning of the 19th century, Finland was part of Sweden. As a result of the Swedish-Russian war, according to the Friedrichsham Peace Treaty of 1809, Finland ceded to Russia and became a Grand Duchy within the empire. The Russian Emperor added to his titles the title of Grand Duke of Finland. In essence, Finland became an autonomous state within the Russian Empire, which was governed by a Russian governor-general appointed by the Tsar.

However, this situation did not last long, and Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, announced a course for the Russification of Finland. The Manifesto of 1899 effectively reduced the country's state independence to zero, and the army was disbanded.

The Industrial Revolution of the 19th century changed the structure of society. A new social class has emerged - the proletariat, trying to defend its rights from the bourgeoisie that exploits it. Class inequality led to increased social tension in all European countries.

The workers' rights movement did not arise overnight in Finland. Rapid industrial growth and, accordingly, an increase in the share of the proletariat in the total population led to the development of the labor movement, which was led by the Finnish Social Democrats. Back in 1905, the workers of Helsingfors declared a general strike in support of the general political protest strike in Russia. Among other things, demands for national liberation were put forward. Under pressure from the proletariat, Nicholas II signed a manifesto in October 1905 that restored the constitution in Finland.

However, already in 1910, the State Duma adopted a law according to which all important issues were approved by the tsarist government, and the Finnish Sejm had only a legislative function. By decree of 1912, Finns were treated as citizens of the Russian Empire. Forced Russification caused increasing, although for the time being, passive resistance of the Finnish population.

The outbreak of the First World War sowed hope in the circles of the Finnish bourgeoisie and nationalists for the future independence of the country. Both within the country and abroad, a movement for liberation begins to grow, intensively fueled by German agents. The Germans, waging hostilities against Russia, were directly interested in creating a source of tension on its periphery. Acts of sabotage and open disobedience to the Russian military authorities forced the latter to station combat units withdrawn from the Eastern Front on the territory of the principality.

February Revolution

Meanwhile, the February Revolution takes place in Russia, which resulted in the overthrow of the monarchical regime. Since the Russian emperor bore the title of Prince of Finland, the abolition of the institution of monarchy, in the opinion of some Finnish radicals, was a compelling reason for declaring independence.

The provisional government that came to power in Russia was in no hurry to withdraw the army from Finnish soil. The role of Russian troops in Finland after the February Revolution was very significant, since this territory was of great strategic importance. Sweden, having crossed the land border, could occupy the territory of Finland and make it its base in a further attack on Petrograd.

Germany, with the help of its fleet, could carry out a landing on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland, and, having developed an offensive into the country, seize the Torneo-Petrograd railway. Interrupted communication along this road would isolate Russia from relations with the Western powers, and German troops would pose a threat to Petrograd from Finland.

If before the February Revolution and immediately after it these considerations had a legal basis, then with the proclamation of independence by Finland they lost all legal basis. The Finns understood very well that the Provisional Government was unlikely to easily reconcile with Finland gaining complete independence for the reasons stated above. The Sejm begins active campaigning for the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the territory of the country and the formation of its own national troops by declaring conscription.

Escalation of confrontation

The Social Democrats begin to secretly arm and train the loyal population in military affairs. Their opponents are doing the same - they are intensively forming both the “white” and “red” guards. Each side understood the inevitability of a clash in the future and prepared. If the Social Democratic Party formed its future detachments in the majority of workers, then the bourgeois parties mainly relied on peasants and mainly the Swedish intelligentsia.

With the outbreak of World War I, Finnish youth began to move en masse to Germany, where they acquired combat skills at special pathfinder courses. From those who completed the courses, the 27th Jaeger Battalion is formed, participating in the battles on the Riga Front on the side of Germany.

After the February Revolution, in connection with the dissolution of the police, self-defense units began to be created in Finland, called “Schutzkor”. These so-called “voluntary shooting societies for maintaining order” arose mainly in the north of the country, which supported the bourgeoisie and nationalists.

The October Revolution of 1917 further aggravated the confrontation in society. On November 27, new style, a general strike broke out in Finland. The Finnish "Reds", relying on the help of Russian soldiers, took possession of the telegraph and all government institutions. The movement of all trains except military ones was stopped, and newspapers stopped publishing. In some cities, clashes occurred between the “reds” and detachments of mounted and foot militia.

Declaration of Independence

In October 1917, elections to the Sejm were held, where the bourgeoisie and nationalist parties received a majority of votes, unlike the previous composition, in which the Social Democrats had a majority. On November 26, the Sejm formed and approved a new government, headed by Per Evind Svinhufvud, and on December 6, it unilaterally declared independence.

The government of the Russian Soviet Republic, headed by V.I., was the first to recognize the independence of Finland. Lenin. This happened on the last day of 1917 according to the new style. In the first two weeks of the new year 1918, the following were added to the list of those who recognized the independence of the former Grand Duchy of Finland:

France, Sweden and Germany - January 4;
Greece – January 5;
Norway and Denmark – January 10;
Switzerland – January 11;
Austria-Hungary - January 13.

Recognition of Finnish independence by other countries lasted for several years.

On January 12, parliament authorized the Senate to restore order in the country. Permission is given to use harsh measures if necessary. The government entrusts this task to the baron, who recently left service in Russian army and returned home to Finland. A few days later, Mannerheim becomes commander-in-chief of the as yet non-existent army.

On the 20th of January, the Council of the Social Democratic Party of Finland created the Executive Committee of Finnish Workers, which began preparations for a military coup. Lenin's government had previously promised the Social Democrats all possible support and military assistance. According to some sources, during the fighting, in total, the “Reds” received from the Russians about 50 thousand rifles, two hundred machine guns, about 50 guns and several aircraft.

The uprising began in Helsingfors (Helsinki) and quickly spread throughout the south of the country. On January 29, the Council of People's Representatives of Finland proclaims itself the government of the country.

In the north, in Vaasa and other cities, on the night of January 28, the armed forces of the “Whites” under the leadership of Mannerheim disarmed several Russian garrisons, which did not offer much resistance. Not only was war fatigue taking its toll, but also an unspoken order not to interfere in the internal conflict.

These two events, which occurred almost simultaneously, became the beginning of a civil confrontation.

Civil War

On February 18, Baron Mannerheim introduced universal conscription, and on February 25, the 27th Jaeger Battalion returned from the Baltic States, and the White Guard received well-trained, and most importantly, commanders and instructors with real combat experience. Swedish volunteer officers provided significant assistance to the White Finns in planning military operations. Despite the fact that the Swedish king, citing neutrality, refused the Finnish delegation that visited him at the end of February, Stockholm unofficially sent several hundred professional military personnel to Finland. It was they who occupied key command posts in the emerging Finnish army, since Finland did not yet have its own professional military personnel.

Nevertheless, by the beginning of spring, Mannerheim managed to create a combat-ready army of 70 thousand people. At the beginning of March, the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty was signed, with which the Soviet government tied its hands, depriving itself of the opportunity to openly fight with Germany anywhere. The decision taken to withdraw Russian troops from the territory of Finland entailed an outflow of volunteers among the command and rank and file. On March 15, the Military Department of the Regional Committee issued order No. 40, which liquidated the old army in Finland. Many took advantage of the opportunity to demobilize, and by the beginning of March the number of Russian volunteers in the troops of “red” Finland was no more than 1000 people. During March, everyone who wanted to stay left the Russian troops and entered service in the Finnish “Red” Guard.

German landings and the end of hostilities

By the beginning of April, the evacuation of Russian ground forces and the main forces of the fleet was completed. The Svinhufvud government, seeing the impossibility of suppressing the “Red” uprising on its own, turned to the German government. It is worth noting that Mannerheim was against German intervention. By order of Kaiser Wilhelm, a 20,000-strong expeditionary force was sent to Finland, landing in early April.

The “Reds,” practically deprived of the help and support of Soviet Russia, could not resist the regular military units of the Germans and were defeated on all fronts. On April 6, after many days of fierce fighting, Mannerheim took Tammerfors, the second most important city after Helsingfors. After that, in a couple of days the Germans took Helsingfors and handed the city over to the Senate of Svinhufvud. On April 29, the “Whites” took Vyborg, and on May 15, the last stronghold of the “Reds” - Fort Ino on the Karelian Isthmus - fell. A day later, a victory parade was held in Helsingfors, symbolizing the end of the civil war.

"Red" and "White" Terror

Both opposing sides resorted to violence and executions in the controlled territories. According to some sources, the “Reds” killed about one and a half thousand people. These were mainly Shchutskor activists, wealthy peasants, business owners, officials and intellectuals.

The scale of the “white” terror turned out to be much greater - more than 7,000 people were executed, 11,000-14,000 died in camps and went missing.

One of the most difficult and darkest episodes of the civil war was the so-called “Vyborg massacre”. After the capture of the city, mass arrests and executions were carried out not only of the “Reds” and their sympathizers, but also of the neutral civilian population. A fairly significant portion of those executed were Russians. The exact number of deaths in Vyborg in those days is unknown; figures range from 3,000 to 5,000 people.

After the end of the war, many Red Army soldiers were imprisoned in camps, since the law on treason adopted by parliament required the study of each case separately. Tens of thousands of people remained in camps awaiting trial.

For example, in the largest prisoner of war camp in Hennale, according to some sources, the number of prisoners was 13 thousand people. Among them were women and even children. According to researcher Marjo Liukkonen, the number of female prisoners in the camp was more than two thousand. These were the wives, sisters and daughters of the Red Guards, as well as women who served the “Reds” in auxiliary positions. Some were with children, including infants. According to Liukkonen, in this camp in 1918, 218 women were shot without trial or investigation, the youngest of whom were under 15 years old.

Hunger, overcrowding and the resulting epidemics among prisoners led to their mass death in most camps.

Before the start of the civil war, the population of Finland was about 3 million people. According to official sources, more than 36 thousand people died on both sides during the fighting, as a result of executions, as well as in the camps, that is, more than 1%. In fact, in just a few months of 1918, every hundredth resident died - the civil war became one of the bloodiest pages in the history of the country.

April 7th, 2016

“In the city of Tammerfors, which became the vanguard of the workers’ struggle against the White Guards, almost from the very first days of the (February) revolution, the general leadership of the training of workers was taken into the hands of the local Committee of the Social Democratic Party. This Committee set itself the task of forming, with the assistance of Russian troops, a casual core Finnish Red Guard.
For this purpose, I, as the head of the 106th Infantry Division, together with the Division Committee, gave the party 300 spare rifles (that is, in excess of the available number of soldiers). All precautions were taken to hide this transfer from the Finnish bourgeoisie and their own ordinary soldiers.
These rifles from the barracks were transported to the headquarters of the lO6th Infantry Division, which was located next to the workhouse, where these rifles, sealed in boxes, were transferred.
Military training began for members of the Social Democratic Party, which was carried out in the workers' house and in its courtyard at night. I personally took an active part in this training along with some Russian instructors.

Despite all the measures taken, the bourgeoisie still found out about the transfer of weapons and preparations for the Social Democratic Party, and, on occasion, Colonel Kremmer, assistant to the governor, informally let me know that they knew about the connection and assistance from our side to the Finnish Red Guard and advised us not to interfere in these local affairs.
Second Lieutenant Mukhanov, who was appointed by me as commandant of the city of Tammerfors (later shot by the Whites), took an active part together with the police (exclusively working ones) in the work of discovering White Guard organizations, weapons depots in the city and surrounding areas and liquidating them.
True, there were cases when the White Guards offered desperate resistance and Russian troops had to be called in to help the police.

By these measures, the Tammerfors area was largely cleared of White Guards, which was especially useful to us at the outbreak of the civil war in January, when the Whites were still too weak to attack our garrison and the Finnish Red Guard. Of course, secret footage of white formations, as the future showed, still remained.
The main areas of the Red Guard formations were large working centers, which were also occupied by Russian troops, while the White Guard, pursued by the Reds, was grouped mainly in the north, west, in the area of Vaza, Nikolaishtadt, as well as in the east, in Karelia .
The sources of the Red formations were workers, the Whites - the peasant population and the intelligentsia, mainly Swedish. There is no doubt that the Finnish bourgeoisie, in its plans to rely on armed force, had in mind, in addition to part of the Finnish population, the help of the Germans and Swedes.

In the first moments, the Svinhufvud government in the Nikolaistadt area had no more than two thousand White Guards at its disposal, trained even before the break with the left. But their contingent was quite good, consisting of young people, quite brave and disciplined. Subsequently, Shyutskor formations joined there.
The core of the formations was the 27th Jaeger Battalion, which was quickly transferred to Germany in anticipation of the civil war. There were many officers in the battalion. The soldiers received excellent military training during World War II while on the Northern Front against Russian troops.
The Finnish riflemen, still under the impression of their service in Germany, were hostile to the Russian troops, which, in connection with the agitation of the Whites, who blamed all the blame for the outbreak of the civil war on the Russian Bolsheviks, created favorable conditions for inspiring the Finnish White troops.

Finally, Swedish volunteers began to arrive to help the White Guard - partly from Sweden, partly from the local Swedish population, with an anti-Russian and Germanophile orientation. From these volunteers a Swedish volunteer brigade was formed, which significantly strengthened the White Guard army.
The White Guard government transported some of the weapons in advance secretly from Helsingfors to Nikolaishtadt; then it turned to Sweden for help and, although it was officially refused assistance with weapons and supplies, it received this assistance unofficially throughout the civil war.
But the specified weapons were not enough, especially artillery. Therefore, the White Guards matured a plan for a surprise attack on Russian troops located in Finland, and they managed to carry this out, mainly in relation to units located in the area of Nikolaystadt, Jakobstadt, Torneo and Seinajoki.
This attack was carried out by border guard units of the 1st Finnish Border Regiment, the 1st Petrograd Cavalry Border Division, the 2nd Separate Baltic Cavalry Brigade, subordinate to the command of the 42nd Army Corps, and the 423rd Luga Infantry Regiment with one light battery, subordinate to the command of the 106th Infantry Division.

This attack on the Russian units scattered in different places, which was carried out only with the assistance of some of our dissatisfied command staff, gave the whites approximately two thousand rifles, twenty machine guns and one light six-gun battery with an available set of ammunition.
The command staff of the Finnish White Guard was predominantly Swedes, some who arrived with Finnish rangers, some who joined voluntarily. Then, some Russians, after their capture, were invited to join the ranks of the White Guard. I don’t know who exactly got there personally.
Here I will focus on the characteristics of the 423rd Luga Infantry Regiment, which was subordinate to me, as the elected head of the division, but which was actually subordinate to no one.
This regiment (423rd Luga), having previously been quite disciplined, by the time of the fight with the Finnish White Guard showed signs of complete decay, and even the elected commander of the regiment, Ensign Yushkevich (Bolshevik), was powerless to force this regiment to obey himself.

It seemed that the White Guard, which simultaneously attacked the Russian troops and the Finnish Red units, was supposed to rouse Soviet Russia against itself, but, apparently, the international situation did not allow this, and the Soviet Government left the issue of further struggle in Finland to the mercy of fate and refused to interfere with the initiative of political bodies and the military command of the Russian troops in Finland.
As for the state of the Russian troops in Finland, as stated above, the military units were close to complete disintegration and did not have any particular inclination to fight the White Guard. These reasons subsequently played an important role in the final failure of the struggle of the Finnish proletariat with its bourgeoisie and in the triumph of the latter.

Thus, the Finnish White Guards, taking advantage of the low vigilance of the Russian troops, launched a surprise attack on them. The units of the border guard and the 423rd Luga Infantry Regiment, located in the Nikolaishtadt-Uleaborg area, were initially destroyed.
They then quickly continued their operations and by 15/28 January occupied the Kaske-Kristinenstadt-Seinäjoki area, capturing the rest of the 423rd Regiment, one light battery of the 106th Infantry Division, a position battery (6-in. guns) and elements of the border guards .
The soldiers were arrested in their barracks, the Bolsheviks were shot, and the unarmed officers were released. Among those executed was the commander of the 423rd Luga Infantry Regiment, warrant officer Yushkevich.
According to the White plan, they intended to attack Russian troops and the Finnish Red Guard throughout Finland, but this was not successful in other places.

Having captured, by means of a surprise attack on the Russian troops, weapons, uniforms and all kinds of valuable property of the troops, in which the White Guard felt a special need, General Mannerheim brought the White Guard units into order, bringing the forces to approximately two infantry regiments with two batteries and a cavalry regiment, total number up to ten thousand people.
General Mannerheim promised the White Guard government of Svinhufvud to put an end to the Red uprising within two weeks and on January 15, 1918, he moved to the city of Tammerfors, with the immediate goal of capturing the headquarters of the 106th Infantry Division and the working center of Finland.
There were absolutely no indications from Petrograd and Helsingfors as to exactly what course of action to take in relation to the outbreak of civil war between the White and Red Finns.
The mood of the garrison, it should be noted, has dropped significantly these days. There were already voices saying that there was no need to interfere in the civil war. The majority of the Tammerfors garrison adhered to this mood.

Taking into account all the circumstances - on the one hand, the need to prevent the troops of the Tammerfor garrison from suffering a fate similar to other garrisons in northern Finland, and on the other, the need for a common front with the Finnish workers to fight the White Guards - so as not to undermine the authority of the Russian army Among the population of Finland, I quite independently, without hesitation, decided to march with the troops of not only the Tammerfors garrison, but the entire division to defend the working class of Finland.
Having made such a decision, I immediately sent forward detachments of mixed composition, i.e. partly from Russian soldiers, partly from Finnish Red Guards, to occupy the stations of Oriessi and Nocchia and, in addition, entrusted the Finnish Red Guard with the task of eliminating small white gangs scattered in the Tammerfors area.
At the same time, I began to concentrate units of the division along the Tammerfors - Rihimäki railway line. Before the start of the fight, I called the machine gun team of the 421st Tsarskoye Selo Infantry Regiment from Raumo, and the regiment itself was supposed to concentrate in Abo. The damage to the railways, however, delayed the implementation of my plan for a long time.

From the volunteers of the 422nd Kolpino Infantry Regiment, together with the Finnish Red Guard, the number of which increased every day, a detachment of approximately two infantry battalions, two guns and ten machine guns was formed. About five hundred Finnish Red Guards were included in this detachment.
The units were loaded onto the train and reached the station. Korkiakoski, which was occupied by our advance detachment, moving from Orivessi along the railway.
In the area of Julyu station, which is 30-35 km. northeast of Tammerfors, the first clash took place with the advanced units of the White Guard, which were defeated, thrown back to the north and then strengthened in the Vilnul area, occupying the railway bridge, station buildings and the isthmus between the lakes.

This clash can be considered the first serious battle between Reds and Whites during the outbreak of the Finnish Civil War.
It was of enormous importance in that regard. what happened between the Russian revolutionary troops and the Finnish White Guard, and then made it possible for the Whites to feel that in order to defeat the Reds, more serious preparation and a longer period of time were needed, and not at all the two weeks during which General Meinerheim was going to put an end to the Red uprising.

From January 18 (31) to maintain the garrison of the mountains. The following units arrived from Tammerfors: a reconnaissance detachment of the 421st Tsarskoye Selo Regiment (volunteers) with ten machine guns; about two hundred and fifty volunteers of the 114th Infantry.
An armored train, built at its own expense by the Finnish Red Guard in the mountains. Helsingfors and consisted of several carriages, protected by thin armor from rifle and machine-gun fire and armed with machine guns and several detachments of the Finnish Red Guard of varying numbers.
Finally, the Baltic Fleet sent a detachment of anarchist sailors of two hundred and fifty people, who, appearing in the mountains. Tammerforse with black banners made a depressing impression on the Finnish bourgeoisie and raised the spirits of the Red Guard and Russian volunteers. The sailors turned to me with a request to send them to the most dangerous place, which soon became possible.

On January 23, our detachment, consisting of two companies of Russians with a small part of the Red Guards and two machine guns, sent even earlier to occupy the Nokkia station, upon reaching Lavia attacked the whites, who, numbering about five hundred people, scattered at the first shots.
On January 24, a detachment of Red Guards, consisting of two hundred people, with two machine guns, under the command of sailors, attacked and scattered a detachment of whites in the Lautakil area, south of the railway.
From this moment on, the position is railway Bjorneborg-Tammerfors was restored, and the latter was at our complete disposal.
On January 19, in the city of Björneborg itself, fighting began between the White Guard, formed in its area with a force of up to the Revolution and thousands of people, and the Red garrison, who were assisted by Russian troops consisting of border guards, sailors and artillerymen of the 2nd group of positional batteries.
Particularly serious battles took place on January 21, after which the Whites retreated to the north. By January 24, a Red detachment of three hundred people, moving north with the help of Russian troops, captured the estate, in which, after a shootout, eleven Whites and carts with rifles were captured.

In the Abo area, the troops were commanded first by Colonel of the 421st Tsarskoye Selo Infantry Regiment Bulatzel, and then by Captain 1st Rank Vonlyarevsky. The fight was carried out by sailors and had as its object the Ilane region, 25 kilometers northeast of Abo, where they were seen large formations White Guard detachments. These detachments were scattered.
Taking advantage of the detachment's distraction to the northeast, the Whites attacked the battery on Lipperto Island on January 26 (February 8) at 15:00. In 24 hours the whites took this post and fortified themselves on the island.
A gunboat with a detachment of one hundred and fifty men was sent against them, as a result of which the whites in the Abo area were eliminated.
On January 28, information was received that in the Alberg area, 10 kilometers west of Helsingfors, White Guards were discovered, and a detachment of volunteers from the 34th squad and Finnish Red Guards was sent to eliminate them.
As they approached Alberg, the Whites, with a force of about four hundred to five hundred people, fortified themselves in stone buildings, opened rifle fire. To achieve success, the Red detachment, which had only rifles and machine guns, called in artillery from Helsingfors. As a result of the battle, our losses were two killed sailors, three wounded soldiers and twenty Red Guards.

At the end of February, the position of the Russian troops, in terms of their combat effectiveness and suitability for combat operations in aid of the Finnish Red Guard, changed significantly and for the worse. There were enough reasons for this.
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, according to which the Soviet government decided to withdraw Russian troops, and the possible intervention of Germany immediately entailed an outflow of volunteers, both command and soldiers.

Finally, on March 2/15, an order was issued by the Military Department of the Regional Committee for the Ka 40, which stated:
1) from March 15, the old army should be considered liquidated in Finland. 2) everyone who wants to defend the revolution and the interests of the working class and does not put their personal interests above the interests of the revolution and socialism must prepare themselves to join the Red Soviet troops in order to give a decisive rebuff to the White Guard, as well as the Germans and the usurpers of the bourgeoisie.
This order finally gave impetus to the evacuation of even volunteers from Finland, since many were connected with service, and now there was an opportunity to go home. For many, even those devoted to the revolution, the desire for home took precedence over their international tendencies.
In general, we can say that by the beginning of March there were no more than one thousand volunteers in the troops of western Finland. With the beginning of demobilization and evacuation of Russian troops from Finland, the first period of the civil war ends."

Lieutenant Colonel M. S. Sveshnikov.

These are the memoirs of M. S. Svechnikov, lieutenant colonel of the Russian Imperial Army. From the nobles of the Don Army, participant in the campaign against China 1900-1901 and the Russian-Japanese War 1904-1905, in World War I participant in the defense of the Osovets fortress.
Awards:
St. George's weapon (VP 09/26/1916)
Order of St. George, 4th class. (VP 09.26.1916; for distinction, acting chief of staff of the Osovets Fortress).
Order of St. Anne 4th class. (1904);
Order of St. Stanislaus, 3rd class. with swords and bow (1904);
Order of St. Anne 3rd class. with swords and bow (1904);
Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd class. (1905).

Military theorist and, in fact, one of the authors of the ideology and concept of creating special forces (special forces), brigade commander (1935).
He took an active part in the storming of the Winter Palace on October 25 (November 7), 1917. After the defenders repulsed the first three attacks, Svechnikov led a detachment of grenadiers (440-450 soldiers of the 106th Infantry Division, who arrived with him from Finland) on the fourth assault. The attack took place from the Neva embankment and was successful.
08/26/1938 sentenced by the Military Collegium Supreme Court(VKVS) of the USSR on charges of participation in a military-fascist conspiracy to capital punishment.