Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/161

 When the Central Council of the Working-men and the Commissioners of the People by the will of the People took over the affairs of the country, they were perfectly rotten. We have been obliged to work day and night in order to remedy these scandalous, perverse conditions, while at the same time our comrades have fought against the brutish foe, who by falsehood and violence has gathered his forces from all the four corners of the world. In the bloodthirsty ranks of the White army it can be proved that, besides these enemies of the people, who call themselves Finns, there are also, amongst others, the first executioners of Nicholas the Bloody, there are officers of Korniloff's, there are riflemen who have gone through a school of murder in Germany during the world war, there are morally corrupt ruffians who have been bought with much money and big promises of good offices in Germany and Sweden. Even some Chinamen have been found in their ranks, people whom the bourgeoisie have hitherto profoundly despised. Ex-senators and other Mannerheimers have bargained about the independence of our country, both with Sweden and Germany. None of these countries have openly ventured to declare war against the People of Finland, but still each of them has unofficially helped the butchers. In doing this they have, in fact, joined Finland's capitalists in their war against Finland's Labour population. All the time the Red army of the working-men has been obliged to fight against a guard superior in numbers. As yet our opponent has not succeeded in crushing our revolutionary army, which insists on its right, with his foreign handy-men trained in the school of murder; he has spread about all sorts of provocative tales, inter alia about large German forces having landed either upon Åland, or Åbo Skerry, or—as now lately—at Hangø. When the actual course of events has been cleared up,