Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/70

 control of the party leaders. These latter, after the November strike, made many attempts to purge the ranks of the army at least to some slight extent, and particularly to render it an obedient instrument in the hands of the party. But the Red Guard approached nearer and nearer to the age of majority. It was now very well armed and its relations with the Russians were so intimate that it knew exceedingly well the meaning of "an independent fighting organisation" after the Russian pattern. It strove to emancipate itself from the party. But such an emancipation would really mean that the Red Guard took over the leadership in the party, for who would dare to oppose its unscrupulous armed force?

The meeting of the Red Guard on the 6th January, which was the introduction to the palace revolution, took a characteristic course. Some Russian "comrades" from St. Petersburg appeared before a crowded hall, explaining the course of the revolution in Russia, and at the same time expressing their surprise at the tame revolutionary movement in Finland which was specially doubtful and faltering during the November strike. The Russians gave it as their opinion that the party leaders at Helsingfors were not truly revolutionary. These utterances were received with a storm of applause. A proposal for new statutes was now submitted and was carried immediately.

A comparison between the old and the new statutes shows what the purpose was, viz.: to place the leadership of the "continuing revolution" in the hands of the Red Guard. This would afford security against the contingency that some poor cowards among the party leaders would prevent extreme measures against the citizens which it would perhaps be "forced" to adopt. Whereas the first paragraph of the old statutes quite innocently stated that "it is the business of the Guard to protect