Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/135

 not carried out, as the rule of the Red Guard came to an end shortly after.

There were, however, a great number of workmen in the service of the State—above all, on the railways—who saw no possibility of striking, both for economical reasons, and because they were personally known to many former fellow-workmen among the Red, and so had only slight prospect of keeping themselves successfully concealed. They remained at their work, but beyond this, they offered no helping hand to the Red. This was not as it ought to be, thought the men in power, and they began to demand a written obligation from these workmen to acknowledge the new Government. On account of the strong opposition this measure excited and as the train service—which was already beforehand very disorderly—looked as if it would quite stop, the carrying through of this claim was postponed time after time. But when the railway workmen at Helsingfors came to draw their pay on the 1st April, their pay was refused to them unless they signed the obligation. Those who gave up their pay rather than signing were not, however, allowed to go. They were arrested, and, when Helsingfors was relieved on the 12th April, 160 railway workers were found locked up in a Russian barrack. Similar methods were employed against other groups of working-men and in other parts of the realm of the Red.

The command of the Red Guard never felt satisfied with the measures taken against the citizens. At a meeting on the 10th February they resolved that all "butcher guardsmen"—and by these were meant all men who had not joined the Red—were to do compulsory work, "particularly those who belong to the so-called educated classes." At a meeting on the 26th March there is again great indignation because all men of the