Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/63

 liberated. One of them was, however, wounded with a knife as he went away. It is a characteristic fact that as the besiegers, consisting of all sorts of vagabonds, formerly labourers at the fortification works, had not carried out their action with the permission of the Red Guard, the latter determined at a meeting to take the city council under its protection in its character of maintainer of order. After a short debate, the Guard is quite clear as to what shape the "protection" should take. The Red Guard undertakes to liberate the prisoners if they will consent to the conditions of the working-men. But if they do not, the Red Guard will consider their function as members of the city council as suspended, and they will not be allowed to hold any meetings unless the Red Guard gives its consent. At the same meeting the militia (police) corps of the city declares that it wishes to co-operate with the Guard in all respects, and that it will discard all "untrustworthy" elements from its midst. The working-men at Tammerfors demanded full pay later on for the two days they had kept the city council locked up.

Next came the turn of the city council at Viborg. They were locked up for one night. Then the city fathers of Kotka. Against these latter proceedings were carried on in another way. A crowd of working-men sought them out in their homes, and forcibly conveyed them to a meeting in the city hall. Here they were to grant the Red Guard 150,000 marks at once. This took place on the nth December. Already on the 9th the militia corps had declared a strike, so that the city had no police force. Until the evening of the 12th the prisoners received no food. All factories in the town had stopped, and all Government offices suspended their activities as a counter-move. Red Guards and Russian soldiers were on guard, searched houses and made arrests.