Finland is in a process to choose a new president for itself. The contenders are Alexander Stubb (National Coalition Party) and Pekka Haavisto (Greens).
Therefore, I thought of writing about the general competence of the political left, using the example of the Red Vihti in 1918. As a source for my writing, I will be referring to Seppo Myllyniemi's work "Vihdin historia 1800-1918," which is available for potential fact-checkers from various antiquarian bookstores.
* * *
Vihti is a medium-sized municipality located in Uusimaa, where, before the Red Rebellion, around 10,000 people lived, of whom over three-quarters supported the Social Democratic Party of Finland. This refers to the overall entity that initiated the rebellion, whose descendants include today's Social Democratic Party and the Left Alliance, as well as the Greens to the extent that the party was founded in the 1970s by former communists.
In fact, the Greens have also shifted increasingly to the left over the years, becoming more and more a typical socialist party, aiming to strengthen central authority at the expense of the ordinary person's economic and ideological freedom. Therefore, it is clear that in the ongoing election, Pekka Haavisto can be considered a political heir of Vihti's Red Guards.
* * *
Vihti's Red Guards took control of the municipality's administration on January 28, 1918, by intervening in a meeting of the investigative committee handling tax complaints. They instructed the committee to recalculate the tax decisions based on the red municipal tax law published in the People's Delegation's newspaper. However, the outcome did not satisfy the workers because the calculation method used would have resulted in an increase in their taxes.
To rectify the situation, workers were then granted a substantial one-third deduction from their incomes, and new taxes were calculated. However, this revised outcome was not acceptable to dwellers of rented farms, as their taxes would have increased in relation to bourgeois Finnish tax laws.
Afterward, there was one more attempt to find a model that would be acceptable to everyone, but such a model couldn't be constructed. Consequently, the new leadership of Red Vihti eventually decided it was best to revert to the old model, namely the taxation system of White Finland, which was then implemented.
* * *
Red Guard of Vihti varied in size during the rebellion, ranging between four and six hundred men. Thus, it was relatively strong compared to its surroundings.
This strength provided the Red residents of Vihti with the opportunity to conduct raids into neighboring municipalities. They did not pass up this opportunity; the Red Guards not only operated in their own municipality but also imposed levies on the inhabitants of outlying areas in neighboring municipalities. They showed little concern for whether the seized food would be of use to the local revolutionaries.
The military strength of Vihti's Red Guards was well-known in neighboring municipalities, preventing similar raids from being carried out in their direction. Thus, the socialist principle of might makes right was realized even in Red Finland.
* * *
Actual terrorism can, of course, be discussed in connection with the bloodshed committed against known right-wing individuals in the territory of the Reds. Already at the end of January, a steward was shot in Olkkala Manor, and a person with a master´s degree in Kourla Manor. Additionally, over a dozen young men heading north were killed because they were suspected of joining the White forces.
Prisoners were also taken and subjected to abuse. When the "Flying Squad" of the Red Guard arrived from Hyvinkää, prisoners were shot, including a local police. In total, eighteen civilians were killed in a short period in Vihti.
However, the acts of bloodshed did not end there. In February, one farmer and one technician were murdered. After a brief pause in the killings, more murders occurred in April, as the looming defeat approached. The victims included the son of the parish priest, a railway clerk, the chairman of the food board, and a farmer.
Interestingly, in addition to their raids, the Reds of Vihti extended their acts of violence beyond their own municipality, also committing murders. They went as far as taking the lives of some residents of their own municipality who lived elsewhere.
* * *
The above has revealed that the Vihti Red Guard was not only a terrorist organization but also a significant power factor in its own territory. One might imagine that it would have posed a formidable challenge to the White Guard led by Jägers (Finnish soldiers trained in Germany).
The Guard, a battalion consisting of four companies, was sent for this purpose via Tampere to Kuhmalahti - approximately 160 km towards north - where it fought for a couple of weeks and eventually came close to being encircled. As a result, the Guard withdrew to Hämeenlinna, from where it was ordered to return to the front.
However, this did not happen. Instead, the group devised a creative solution and hijacked a train, speeding back to their home region. This, of course, did not sit well with the Red Headquarters, which ordered the Vihti Red Guard to send its forces back.
The order was immediately attempted to be carried out, but it became apparent that hardly any of the former Red warriors were willing to fight anymore. Thus, the Vihti rebel leaders had no other option but to gather a new guard. Once ready, they sent it to the front in Vesilahti - also around 150 km towards north - where fighting resumed for a few weeks.
However, the fighting ceased when the Vihti rebels learned that the Germans were advancing from Hanko towards their home municipality. At that point, despite orders, the guardsmen set out for home once again.
There, they had to defend themselves against the Germans in well-prepared positions built in southern part of the municipality and succeeded in achieving victory. Or at least, after a brief battle, the Germans decided to bypass the entirety of Vihti, instead capturing Helsinki and advancing through there towards Hyvinkää, intending to challenge the main forces of the Reds from there.
At that point, the Red Guard was once again ordered to the front outside its home municipality, specifically to Riihimäki, just 50 km away. The group was mobilized, but after advancing only about ten kilometers in the neighboring municipality of Pusula, they decided to return home and lay down their arms.
This did not spare the Vihti residents from the white terror that followed the war. Over two hundred Reds from the area were unlawfully executed in field courts-martial, placing Vihti among the ten largest execution sites in the entire country.
Moreover, the lives of nearly fifty Vihti residents, one of whom was a woman, were lost in legal internment camps. Consequently, the rebels of the municipality ultimately paid an exceptionally high price for their revolutionary attempt.
* * *
The small piece of local history above, in my opinion, is a highly interesting and instructive tale. The fervor for the Red ideology led people to seize power, but the new socialist authority immediately proved incapable of planning rational governance. It swiftly became corrupted, transforming from a herald of egalitarian humanity into an unscrupulous band of robbers that looted from its own ideological comrades and killed the innocent. In the end, it didn't even want to defend its "achievements."
All of this aligns perfectly with everything we have seen worldwide in states where Red power has gained a dominant position. Examples are easy to list, from the Soviet Union to Nicaragua, Cambodia to Venezuela.
Therefore, this story was worth publishing now as we Finns prepare to choose a new leader for our country and the top decision-maker in foreign policy for the next six years. The options, as I mentioned at the beginning, include a successor of the Vihti Red Guards and another candidate.
This blogpost is a slightly modified version of an earlier thought in Finnish:
Presidentinvaalit ja punainen hallinto
Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Is the Finnish left-wing radicalizing?
Finnish women have enjoyed a privileged position since medieval times
History of Finland XII: Bloody civil war
