Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/75

 party and form their own organisation. It will then know its own extent and strength, and may decide when the moment has come for it to proceed to action.

"3. No action should be taken which completely isolates the proletariat in such an undertaking. By this 1 mean that the lower middle class and the small farmers or, on the whole, people in humbler circumstances should not be irritated so that they go against us."

The writer concludes: "Above all we need courage. The undersigned is not one of the bravest of men, but every one must now add his stone to the building, for the state of affairs is serious."

No, Mr. Sirola was not one of the bravest of men. He wanted to warn, but dared not. He wanted to turn the Red Guard out of the party so that it should not have the worst of it in the event of a defeat, but he dared not do so openly. He speaks of coming to "a clear understanding of the situation," but by this he means that an estimate is to be made of the strength of both sides.

The psychological moment for a powerful opposition to the revolutionary tendencies within the party should now have come. But nothing was seen but Mr. Sirola's irresolute and pitiable article. And already on the 15th January the party leaders have retired altogether behind the ranks of the Red Guard Corps. On that day the latter issues an appeal under the following headlines:—

Select pieces of the appeal run as follows:—

"The bourgeois majority of the Lantdag has given its Senate unrestricted authority to exercise a dictatorship of violence." "The dissatisfied proletariat is threatened with swords and lead, whereas it ought to have