Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/18

 Helsingfors; and the Finnish community put forward its claims. They were, of course, to the effect that the downtrodden rights should be restored. But the Labour Party had not been taken into account. In the course of the week that the strike lasted, this party showed how strong it had grown, and its claims were now others than those of the hated "Bourgeois." It demanded a Constituent National Assembly, by which the country's future was to be shaped.

Finland's representative assembly was constituted on antiquated lines, and within its four estates the working-man had not been able to gain a hearing. It was, therefore, a surprise to everybody when they now acted suddenly with such vigour. This was chiefly felt through the forces for the maintenance of order which they instituted. As already mentioned, the police had joined the strike. Protective corps of volunteers for the maintenance of order were then formed, consisting chiefly of students and other young men who wore a white band round the left arm for a badge. The leaders of the Labour Party stood doubtful with regard to these bourgeois organisations; at first they co-operated with them, but later on they changed tactics. They established their own Protective Corps with a red band round the arm—the first germ of the Red Guard. It now became the object of the latter to arrogate to itself as much of the power as possible. So some of the towns of Finland, amongst others the capital, were "occupied" almost entirely by the Red. Conflicts between the Red and the White could not be wholly avoided, for, in the knowledge of their power, the Labour Party tried to carry through their claim of a Constituent National Assembly. There was a moment when revolvers flashed in the hands of a troop of Red and a troop of White as they met, and another when the working-men already elected their own