Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/141

 specially tried. Only one point will be more closely examined: that of the comparative innocence of the Red with regard to the crimes committed.

We must, then, first note the agitation-work against the "bourgeois" carried on by the Red Press. There was not exactly any fear of blood-dripping words. Here is an example: "The bloodhounds of the White Guard lick their chaps when they smell the warm blood of the working-men wherewith they quench their burning blood-thirst."

One or two extracts from a lengthy article with the superscription, "Barbarians!:—

"We know that a thinker has said: 'No wild beast is so cruel as the bourgeois if you touch his purse.' The recent events show that this is really so. Already before this state of affairs (thus it was preferred to designate the insurrection!) took its beginning, it was clearly seen that the citizens feared for their cheque-books, and puzzled out the most shameful expedients for preventing the People's hand from getting at them. It was already a bold enough thing to push on the development of things as they did in order to evoke civil war. But this was not enough for them. Even a civil war seemed too humane to the citizens when it was not accompanied by the most atrociously vindictive murders and the most brutal outrages."

The article goes on to state all sorts of fabricated cruelties by the White, and continues:—

"It need not be pointed out whither that sort of cruelties will lead. Hitherto the Red Guardsmen have not offered violence to unarmed citizens, and much less to their women and children! But what will be the consequence of the continuance of such atrocities on the part of the opponents? No example is more infectious than that of the vendetta."