Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/34

 themselves, and the possibility of an independent Finland came nearer and nearer. It was, of course, difficult to maintain a uniform and firm line of policy in this question, so vague was the perspective, so varying the Russian drama. But the trend of things was given; the object must be to get as far as possible from the Russian muddle.

Only the Labour Party vacillated. It was fascinated by the great revolution and drawn towards it as the moth towards the flame. "I believe I am expressing correctly the inmost thought of the whole Finnish proletariat,"wrote one of the leaders of the Party on the 4th May, "when I say that the Finnish democracy wishes to fight side by side with the Russian democracy for the most exalted ideals of humanity, and when I say that its will is that Finland may for ever constitute an internally autonomic part of the great free Russia's democracy."

But such declarations were as yet out of place. At a party congress in June the Labour Party, without such far-reaching suggestions, resolved that "Finland's people shall be emancipated from State dependency and tutelage."

For as yet the "bourgeoisie" were in power in Russia. On the 3rd July a representative of the Finnish Labour Party expressly declares that this is the meaning of the efforts for independence made by the Finnish proletariat. He says, in a memorial to the great Working-men's and Soldiers' Council at St. Petersburg: "Hitherto we have been obliged to fight on two fronts—against our own bourgeoisie, and against the Russian Government. If our class war is to be successful, if we are to be able to gather all our strength on one front, against our own bourgeoisie, we need Independence, for which Finland is already ripe."

There was yet another reason why the Labour Party entered the independence of Finland as an item in its programme. The hatred against Russia was so vivid in all sections of the population that overt friendship with