Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/16

 Finland. The national defence was organised with one single end in view—the firm adherence to the laws of  the country, the refusal to submit to the Russian decrees. It was the method of passive resistance, a loyal, quick and "Western" method. But the severer Russian pressure became, and the more the bitterness and hatred against Russian officialdom grew, the more easily could a more active, a more violent policy of opposition gain partisans in Finland. Russian autocracy was the enemy not only of Finland, but of the Russian people as well. And the methods employed from olden times by the Russian revolutionaries were anything but passive. Then, was it not necessary to join forces against the common foe? Should not the Russian militant methods be employed in Finland too? The answer was both yes and no. The enemy was common to both, and from this it followed that the Russian revolutionaries were regarded with sympathy in Finland and aided when in distress. But the end aimed at in the struggle was another in Finland than in Russia. We wished only to regain the rights we had been robbed of, and after that to work out our internal development according to our own lights and to the best of our ability. They laboured for the revolution, for a general upheaval, for a political and social liberation of the people, which was to transform Russia completely. We had laws, we had a sense of justice, a law-directed Western liberty; this the Russian rulers had sought to crush, and this we wanted back again. The Russians knew only decrees and commands, police regulations and reports of gendarmes; they thought to remodel their country by fresh decrees and regulations of another description. They were absorbed in dreams and Utopias, and yearned for an ideal society in which there was political liberty, and where all social injustice was set right.