Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/47

 middle of the day a gentleman, who has drawn a considerable sum of money in a bank, is assaulted by three Russian marine soldiers in the heart of Helsingfors. They drag the man into a gateway, strike him till he loses consciousness, and rob him.—A woman of the streets has been arrested for theft. Russian soldiers demand her release or threaten to release her by force.—The Government, who had made energetic attempts to re-establish the highly necessary permanent police, is informed by a deputation of Russian soldiers that the military garrisoned at Helsingfors intends to prevent any such attempt by force of arms.—From an account published in a Russian paper of a soldiers' meeting it appears that the soldiers had made journeys to Russia to procure arms for the Finnish labourers.

The situation was not agreeable. Behind the searches and arrests of the Russian soldiers stood the Labour Party, which was not ready itself to come into the foreground, and, for the time being, contented itself with keeping the hated "citizens" in continual terror through all these military assaults. This was not, however, understood by the bourgeoisie as yet. They thought that the proceedings of the Russians were caused by an exaggerated and mad fear of "German agents"; that the soldiers feared a German advance against St. Petersburg, "the heart of the revolution," and therefore ravaged the land as they did. Too great a faith in their own people prevented the Finns from seeing facts as they were, the largest political party in the country joining the demoralised bands of Russian soldiers for purposes of treason.

A speaking proof of this good faith on the one hand, and the treachery of the Labour Party on the other hand, is found in the before-mentioned journal containing reports of the meetings of the Red Guard staff at Tammerfors. On the 6th November the municipal council