Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/23

 lecturers, stump orators and editors were almost without exception persons of weak character and many high-flown words with the ambitions of strugglers. Its representatives in the Lantdag were precisely these lecturers and editors, besides a number of well-trained voting automatons. The sole object of the party was to gain power; therefore it could never attract men of broader views or nobler sentiments, although the wave of social radicalism that swept over the country after 1905 might have produced many eminent and convinced leaders of a real Social-Democratic Party.

In ordinary circumstances a seditious agitation like that of the Labour Party would have called forth strong opposition and energetic measures of repression. But now the Russian policy of oppression loomed as a continual threat in the background, holding, without a doubt, a still greater danger in store for the country. Therefore, first and foremost, it was necessary to face the latter. Besides, the violent attacks, accusations and threats of the faction leaders were found to be so exaggerated that it was believed they would gradually cease to influence even the working-men. This, however, proved a mistake. The great masses of labourers, recently arrived in the cities and manufacturing centres, with Finnish doggedness and fanaticism had espoused that mixture of extreme Socialistic and Russian revolutionary doctrines which had so long been preached to them. The work of agitation against the "upper class" had left a sediment of dark hatred in their hearts against all other classes, while these latter, without seeing the division with- in the people itself—or at least without perceiving its extent and the danger it carried with it—continued their silent war of defence against the Russian tyrannous policy.

Such was the state of Finland when the world-war broke out.