Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/145

 of the opponents, yet they were unarmed when they were captured and shot.

The number of murdered working-men is comparatively large. They were such as would not on any conditions join the Red movement, and were therefore regarded as traitors. There are also many murders of clergymen. These murders—and in several cases they were combined with torture and the violation and pillage of the church—are the result of the campaign of the Labour Press against the Church and its men. The murders of police officers again prove how large a part the old police customers and jail-birds played in the Red Guard. They now revenged themselves for the months and years they had been imprisoned.

In a number of cases the motives for the murders may thus be inferred. But in most cases we have only to reckon with the generally accepted opinion that all opponents—all that did not agree with the Red—were to be murdered. The best idea of the causes of the murders, and the manner in which they were committed, we shall get by choosing some examples. Among the papers of the Red a number of documents concerning the murders are found, and they often throw a clear light on the views of the Red. For it sometimes happened that some murder occasioned a "Red" investigation.

This first occurred when the arrested member of the Lantdag, A. Mikkola, a barrister, the author of the petition concerning the re-establishment of the army, and the young physician, G. Schybergson, were murdered. Schybergson was arrested on the 2nd February at the hospital where he was doing service, was taken to a park and shot. Finland's Association of Physicians, as well as the Swedish Ambassador at Helsingfors entered a protest against the murder of Schybergson. The Red were obliged to make investigations. "If needful, the