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Irina Novikova The Provisional Government and Finland: Russian Democracy and Finnish Nationalism in Search of Peaceful Coexistence
Irina Novikova
The Provisional Government and Finland: Russian Democracy and Finnish Nationalism in Search of Peaceful Coexistence
The period between the February and October revolutions of 1917 was one of the most tense and dramatic times in the history of Russian-Finnish relations. During these few months the Provisional Government, a new political entity that had appeared on the ruins of the autocracy, undertook series of desperate attempts to preserve the unity of the Russian empire. In this chapter, I analyze relations between the Russian Provisional Government and Finnish political parties; my goal is to clarify why Russian liberals and democrats in 1917 were unsuccessful in "domesticating" Finnish nationalism.
Finland was joined to the Russian empire as a result of the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-1809. By the peace treaty signed in 1809 in the Finnish city of Fredrikshamn (Hamina), Sweden gave up the Grand Duchy of Finland to Russia.1 Finland subsequently developed as an autonomous state with its own system of national administrative self-governance. Although a part of the Russian empire, it was nonetheless governed by the rules of Swedish administration, and over the course of the nineteenth century the parameters of the Duchy's autonomy tended to expand persistently. The Duchy received its own legislative organ, the Sejm, whose approval was required for the introduction of new laws and taxes. Finland likewise had its own legislative organ, the Senate, independent from St. Petersburg with regard to the Duchy's internal matters. Finland's autonomous status was also manifest in its own system of government, with an exclusively Finnish bureaucratic apparatus. Nor did Russian military structures extend to the Duchy, which was freed from providing recruits for military service and, beginning in 1878, was also permitted to have its own modestly sized army. This army became a symbol of Finland's special status within the empire.2 The Duchy also enjoyed a national postal service with its own stamps; a rail system with a gauge different from that in the rest of the empire; and distinct systems of customs, finance, and credit. The only thing common to Finland and the empire proper were the head of state (the Russian Emperor was simultaneously the Grand Duke of Finland), foreign relations, and the matter of the Duchy's strategic defense.3 On the whole, the Grand Duchy of Finland enjoyed more rights and powers within the Russian empire than any constituent part of the Russian Federation today.
However, the atmosphere of mutual understanding and cooperation between local and imperial elites that characterized Russo-Finnish relations throughout the nineteenth century was irretrievably lost toward its end. The rise of separatist orientations in the Duchy has correctly been linked to the so-called "policy of oppression," or Russification, whose causes historians have analyzed in detail.4 On the whole, the active separatism of Finland's residents was the consequence of the Russian center's departure from its traditional principles of administration in its western territories. As Andreas Kappeler has shown, in Finland the Russian government had employed three methods of governance with great consistency: the maintenance of the administrative and political status quo, cooperation with local elites, and religious tolerance.5 In the Duchy, the revision of Russia's Finnish policy under Nicholas II was regarded as a violation of the promises made by preceding Russian monarchs. Nicholas himself, who had promised upon his ascension not to violate the rights and privileges of the Duchy, earned among Finns the ignoble distinction of being a perjurer.
Moreover, at the turn of the century the Finnish national movement itself ceased to he modest and restrained. Finnish nationalists, due either to political inexperience or to a desire to obtain quick popularity in the eyes of their countrymen, underscored their national exclusivity importunately and unceremoniously, and began to promote an extreme vision of isolationism. The absence of moderation in the proclamations of the leaders of the Finnish national movement gave Russian officials reason to interpret the natural aspiration of a small people to a certain degree of insularity and the preservation of its privileges, language, and culture as a criminal form of separatism. By the beginning of the twentieth century the interests of Finland's national development were starkly juxtaposed to the imperatives of Russia's imperial development.
World War I subjected the Russian empire to a colossal test. In 1915-1916—although many Russian officials and military figures could not bring themselves to believe it—a number of Finnish volunteers joined the German army as the 27th Royal Prussian Jäger Battalion (Kuninkaalinen Preussin Jääkäripataljoona 27).6 Attempts to play down this unpleasant fact could not change its essence: a number of recently loyal Finns, who in the previous century had been considered among the non-Russians most devoted to the Russian crown, were now on the other side of the front, rendering aid to Russia's military enemy.
The fall of the monarchy in the February Revolution opened the way for Russia's transformation from a coercive empire to a voluntary union of equal peoples. The fate of the revolution's democratic gains depended on the success of this transformation.7 The national question turned on: to be no less urgent than issues of power, land, and peace. And a fundamental component of that question was the problem of the Grand Duchy's future status.
The February Revolution did not signify any essential change in the country's foreign policy. The Provisional Government continued the war and in this context maintaining control over the strategically important Finland retained great significance.8 Members of the Provisional Government were informed that ideas about the Duchy's secession from Russia were beginning to appear in radical circles in Finnish society—with either open or indirect support from Germany. In part, these ideas were being promoted by the extreme nationalist "activist" movement, whose leaders lived abroad in Berlin and Stockholm. It was they who had organize the recruitment of Finns for the Finnish Jäger Battalion formed on German territory with the support of Berlin. They hoped that in opportune circumstances—for example, in the case of a German naval landing—thus subunit could serve as the kernel of a Finnish army of national liberation.9 No less than before February, the possibility of a German landing in tine Duchy and a Finnish mutiny represented a substantial threat to Petrograd.
At the same time, the Provisional Government was well aware of the autocracy's earlier attempts at the forceful unification of Finland with Russia. It had been precisely the liberals and socialists now so prominent in the new government who had sharply condemned those actions earlier. The promises made by the Constitutional Democrats (Kadets) and the socialists during their opposition to the autocracy now awaited their fulfillment. In this regard, the Provisional Government's policy on Finland had to secure the loyalty of the Duchy's population to Russia's new democracy, bring them into active cooperation with central authorities in Petrograd, and compel them to reject secret relations with Germany. The Provisional Government's first steps with regard to the "Finnish question" were geared toward these tasks.
On March 16 (3) the commander of the Baltic Fleet, Admiral Andrian Nepenin, invited representatives of the leading Finnish political parties aboard the flagship Krechet and informed them of the revolution in Russia, the establishment of the Provisional Government, and the arrest of the most odious figures personifying the autocracy's policy of Russification—Finland's governor-general Franz A. Seyn and vice-chairman of the Finnish government Mikhail Borovitinov.10 After this meeting, a delegation of the Duchy's leading political figures departed for the Russian capital to conduct negotiations with the Provisional Government. The Finns requested that Petrograd establish a parliament (sejm), appoint a new governor-general, and grant the Duchy its previous privileges of autonomy. At the same time, as delegation member Karl Gustav Idman recalls in his memoirs, the Finns expressed neither the hope nor the demand that Petrograd recognize Finland's full independence.
The new Russian government actively responded to the wishes of the Finnish delegation, and on March 20 (7) published the Act of Confirmation of the Constitution of the Grand Duchy of Finland and Its Full Implementation. This document resurrected the Duchy's previous rights of autonomy that had been revoked by the autocracy's centralizing policy. Mikhail A. Stakhovich, a former member of the State Council well known for his defense of the Duchy's autonomy, now became the governor-general. In place of the reactionary Vladimir A. Markov, Karl Enckell, a native of Finland who was fluent in Russian, became the minister state secretary. All those who had fought against the autocracy's measures of centralization, as well as those who had participated in the Finnish Jäger Battalion in Germany, were amnestied.
The first task of the Provisional Government in Finland was to appoint a new government, or Senate. Now Finns themselves gained the right to elect its members, although this fact hardly made matters easier to resolve. In the 1916 elections the Social Democrats had gained an absolute majority in the Parliament—103 of 200 seats—but at that time it was still the Senate, with Russian members, that governed the country. The SDs did not discuss the possibility of taking on the responsibilities of governing.11
After the Revolution, Finnish Social Democrats could have tried to form a government consisting only of their own members. The SDs would have secured tremendous power for themselves in light of their absolute majority in parliament, but they were also frightened by this power. They turned out to be unprepared to take upon themselves such a heavy responsibility. They had much experience in forming an opposition, but no experience in governing. Consequently, negotiations between the bourgeois parties and the SDs produced a coalition government. The SD's Oskar Tokoi was selected chairman of the Senate, while five other SDs and an representatives of bourgeois parties entered the government as well. As before, the chairman of the Senate remained the governor-general. On March 26, 1917, the Provisional Government confirmed the Finnish Senate.12 Finland now had a government whose members were not Russians but Finnish citizens, representing all the political groups of the country.
Having reestablished Finland's previous autonomy, the Provisional Government expected reciprocity from the Finnish population. The Finnish politician and Helsinki University professor Edvard Hjelt recalls in his memoirs a curious conversation with the new commander of the Baltic fleet, Admiral A. S. Maksimov. In the course of their discussion, Maksimov unambiguously noted that as a sign of thanks for the freedoms it had been granted, Finland should demonstrate its solidarity with Russia by offering volunteers for the army. In the admiral's opinion, “a sense of duty should have obligated the Duchy to enter the war more ardently on the Russian side”.13
The effective restoration of the Grand Duchy's autonomy initiated after the February Revolution in fact had generated a surge of sympathy for the new Russia among the majority of Finnish citizens and politicians.14 Finnish society simultaneously hoped that it could make use of the transfer of power in Russia for the benefit of its own country, and ascribed particular significance to the establishment of strong, civilized contacts with Russian authorities. The popular Finnish poet and activist Eino Leino wrote on this subject in the journal Sunnuntai [Sunday]. In a speech in March 1917 J. R. Danielson-Kalmari, the spiritual leader of the bourgeois-conservative party (the "old Finns" [starofinny]), compared the February Revolution to the French Revolution of 1789. He noted that the Eastern powers had now entered an important historical period through which the Western powers had passed after the French Revolution.15 The Finnish politician Juho Kusti Paasikivi meanwhile called upon Finns to maintain a line of cooperation with the empire, a strategy he referred to as a "policy of conciliation" (myöntymyyksen politiikka). He argued that no large changes should occur in the Duchy's political development, and he called upon Finns not to risk the opportunities that had already been attained, especially since Russian military regiments were located in the country.16 On the whole, most representatives of the bourgeois parties considered it essential to conduct a policy of cooperation with the Provisional Government. The further broadening of the Duchy's autonomy in the framework of the Russian state appeared to be attainable by constitutional means, through a dialogue with the Provisional Government.
Representatives of the separatist activist movement took a rather different position, however. At the outset of the war they had declared the principal goal of their movement to be the attainment of Finland's complete political independence.17 But in a practical sense the leaders of the movement viewed the idea of "independence" less in terms of the country's acquisition of state sovereignty than in terms of its secession from Russia. Many of them did not exclude the possibility of Finland becoming a German protectorate.18 The revolution in Petrograd generated confusion for the activists; the murky, unexpected, and awkward situation required a reevaluation of the existing political line. But they were not prepared for this reevaluation and were unwilling to abandon the proposition, which was convenient from a propagandistic standpoint, that Russians were "hereditary enemies."19 Germanophiles by conviction, they bowed before the might of the German empire; their faith in German arms was total. Therefore, individual concessions could not change their attitude toward Russia, which they still regarded as the oppressor of the Finnish people. Not without reason, Edward Hjelt, one of the activists already mentioned, wrote in his diary after his trip to Petrograd: "It seems to me that we have been striving for a different 'freedom' than the one that the Russian 'freedom' can give us. It must be created on reliable German soil, without remaining dependent on Slavic emotions."20 The leader of the émigré "activist" committee in Stockholm, Alexis Bonsdorf, was reported by German authorities to have dismissed the Provisional Government's manifesto of March 20 as "mere peanuts" (Linsengericht), for which one must not give up the aspiration for complete independence.21 From his perspective there were now greater possibilities to realize secession from Russia than at anytime previously.
In a report to German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German ambassador in Sweden, Helmuth Lucius von Stödten, reported on a meeting of the Finnish separatists in Stockholm devoted to developing a strategy for the movement after the February Revolution. The participants called upon Finns not to trust Petrograd's promises. Without denying the importance of the March Manifesto, they nonetheless did not consider it a decisive resolution of Russo-Finnish relations. The leitmotif of those who spoke was the idea that the Finnish question could not be resolved by the directive of the Provisional Government.22
In April 1917 Herman Gummerus, one of the "activist" leaders, sent a memorandum to the German foreign minister in which he proposed two solutions to the "Finland problem." The first involved the advance of German regiments on the Russian capital; the second foresaw the possibility of a peace agreement between Germany and Russia that would guarantee Finland's independence. In the latter case Finland would become an ally of Germany.23 In the memorandum, which was written in German, Gummerus used the German concept Unabhängigkeit (independence). Previously he had preferred to express the final goal of the activist movement as Selbständigkeit, whose Finnish equivalent (itsenäisyys) signified merely autonomy within the empire, or self-governance. This was perhaps the first time since the beginning of the war that a member of the activist movement used the term Unabhängigkeit in the sense of full state sovereignty (though without rejecting close ties with Germany). Thus, partially under the influence of the February Revolution, previously diffuse understandings of Finland's future were becoming clarified and more concrete in the minds of the separatists.
As regards the labor movement, the revolution in Petrograd took Finnish workers almost entirely unawares.24 It was viewed initially as a return to the situation of 1905-1907, with the only difference being that the fall of the autocracy had made deeper changes possible. Finnish SDs at first did not demand the termination of relations with the Provisional Government.25 At the same time, like the bourgeois parties, they strove to limit the power of the Provisional Government in the territory of the Duchy.26 To be sure, the goals of these actions on the part of the bourgeois parties and SDs were different. The former regarded the broadening of the Duchy's autonomy as indispensable to restraining the revolutionary abarchy spreading from Petrograd. The latter viewed this demand as an essential precondition for the introduction of social reforms that had until then been blocked by both the imperial center and the conservative elements in Finnish society.
In the spring of 1917 at party meetings and in the Finnish press two questions were discussed in detail: the future status of the Duchy and the mechanisms of relations with central authorities in Petrograd. Above all it had to be determined to whom supreme power over the Duchy had passed after the abdication of the Russian monarch. According to the March Manifesto the Provisional Government considered itself to be the heir of the supreme rights over Finland that had previously belonged to the Russian emperor—at least until the Russian Constituent Assembly, yet to be convened, could resolve the issue conclusively. But many Finnish legal specialists contested this proposition. Two points of view were advanced on the question of supreme power in the Duchy. The first, put forward by P. A. Vrede and Robert Hermanson, representatives of the Old Finnish Party, held that Finland continued to constitute an indivisible part of the Russian empire. Accordingly, relations between the empire and its "national borderlands" should be rooted in the recognition that the bearer of supreme power in Russia was simultaneously the bearer of supreme power in Finland. From this position, the Provisional Government temporarily possessed the right of supreme power in Finland. The second view was presented by the lawyer and activist Rafael Erich, a professor of law at Helsinki University. Erich, residing abroad at the time, tried to demonstrate to his fellow countrymen that with the fall of the autocracy, the union between Russia and Finland, personified in the person of the Grand Duke (the Russian emperor) was now dissolved. Therefore, no Russian government had the right to rule the Duchy. The Provisional Government thus did not represent the bearer of supreme power in Finland, nor could that power be transferred to the Constituent Assembly.27
In one of his articles Erich wrote, "For the inclusion of Finland in a Russian federal state there are neither historical, nor ethnographic, nor national-psychological conditions. All the Russo-Finnish institutions that were introduced or established by Russia became baneful for state life in Finland.... Even the position of a qualified state within a Russian federal union cannot satisfy Finland's rightful pretensions."28 What did Erich propose as a solution? Even though he belonged to the cohort of activist leaders, in spring of 1917 Erich nonetheless did not yet speak categorically in favor of Finland's complete state sovereignty. As an expert on the Duchy's fundamental law, he proposed to solve the problem of Russo-Finnish relations by granting Finland the special status of a state-appendage (gosudarstvo-pridatok). In this case Finland would remain in union with the Russian state, but would preserve the broadest possible rights of self-governance. The most important thing, in Erich's opinion, was to prohibit Russian interference in the definition of Finland's state status without the latter's consent. He proposed that Russian authorities agree to a referendum in the Duchy on the question of its future state status, even if this might lead to the severance of Finland's union with Russia. Erich thus considered the establishment of normal relations of trust between the two countries to be more important than the imperial ambitions of the central authorities.29
On March 31 the Finnish Senate established a Constitutional Committee, with Finland's subsequent first president, Karl Stolberg, at its head. Among its tasks was the preparation of a new treaty on Finland's status with respect to Russia. Stolberg was a realist who understood that the authority of the Russian tsar in Finland had been transferred to the Provisional Government: it was thus impossible to change this situation without either an agreement or a revolt.30 The Constitutional Committee worked out a draft treaty, according to which a substantial portion of the prerogatives previously belonging to the Russian emperor—such as the power to convene and disband the Sejm, and the approval of Finnish laws—were transferred to the Finnish Senate. The Senate would become the focus or real power in the Duchy. The Provisional Government would retain the prerogative of appointing the highest officials in Finland, as well as deciding issues of defense and foreign policy. On April 7 this proposal was sent to Petrograd, where, in the course of the negotiations with the Provisional Government, it was rejected. As K. G. Idman, the secretary of the Constitutional Committee, remarked in response, dialogue with the Provisional Government "demonstrated the impossibility of establishing a common denominator."31 In general, the Provisional Government did not permit even an element of doubt concerning its competence to serve as Finland's temporary curator. It regarded as its duty to keep the state whole until the Constituent Assembly could be convened. Its determination to continue the war with new energy similarly required that it oppose everything that could weaken "unified and indivisible Russia."32
Meanwhile the Finnish Senate sought to appropriate the basic prerogatives of the monarch in the Duchy. This desire was motivated, in part, by the aspiration of bourgeois members of the government to counteract the Finnish parliament, where the majority of the votes belonged to the SDs. Furthermore, members of the Constitutional Committee were surprised by the Provisional Government's different attitudes toward the Finnish and Polish questions. News of Petrograd's recognition of Poland's independence, should such a decision be approved by the upcoming Constituent Assembly, quickly made its way into the pages of the Finnish press. In response to demands that the Duchy's autonomy be broadened, the Provisional Government declared that "recognizing Poland's independence is the same as giving a promise to the moon, since the territory of that country is occupied by the German military."33 Still unoccupied by the Germans, Finland was clearly in a different situation. In general, increasing disappointment with the Provisional Government led to greater support in the Duchy for refusing to recognize the Provisional Government's supreme rights in Finland.
The April Crisis in Russia led to the dismissal of a number of more conservative ministers and to the first coalition Provisional Government. Finnish SDs succumbed to the temptation of using the changes in the Provisional Government to demand further concessions from Russia.34 Also in April the Finnish parliament began its work. Due to the preponderance of SDs, this parliament has gone down in history as the "Red Sejm." The left-SD Kullervo Manner was selected as its chairman. For the delegates, the speech of the Senate's vice-chairman O. Tokoi on April 20 was a sensation. Tokoi declared the necessity of attaining full political independence:
With time the Finnish people has developed and become sufficiently mature to be a sovereign people, independent in everything that concerns its rights, problems, and plans. In terms of its history and its economic and social development, Finland differs sharply from Russia. There can be no talk of their rapprochement. The neighbor of a new and free Russia must also be an independent people.
Although Tokoi's speech made no mention of the specific way in which independence was to be realized, his speech was consistent with the political line of those who refused to recognize the Provisional Government as the legal successor to the Grand Duke with supreme power in Finland.
Many of the SDs' declarations about the Provisional Government were imprinted with populism. In actual practice, in the spring of 1917 the leaders of that party, as before, did not rule out the possibility of a constructive dialogue with the Petrograd leadership. In an unofficial appeal to Aleksandr Kerenskii, the head of the Provisional Government, the prominent SDs Edvard Güllig, Otto Kuusinen, and Karl Wiik formulated the basic principles of a social-democratic variant of a state treaty between Finland and Russia. In its capacity as an "independent state" Finland was to form an "indissoluble union" with Russia. Questions of foreign policy would be decided by Russia, but elements of even that policy directly concerning Finland would go into effect only after their approval by its parliament. Further, Finland would receive complete independence in internal affairs and an organ of supreme power independent of the empire. Defense would likewise be Finland's internal affair; in times of peace Russia would not have the right to station troops there. Finally, Russian citizens in Finland would enjoy equal rights and freedoms with the residents of Finland.36
The appeal was secret and was designed to test the waters for a possible agreement with the Provisional Government. Moreover, its authors were open to the possibility of reconsidering certain of the draft's points. Anticipating the central authorities' likely objection that signing such an agreement would result in Finland's practical independence, the SDs noted "Finland is too small to scorn the interests and wishes of Russian state power." They were furthermore prepared to acknowledge that the Duchy’s position in union with Russia was more advantageous for Finland than its status as an independent country, whose inviolability was not guaranteed by anyone.37 Thus the Finnish SDs had in mind the application or principles of independence and sovereignty primarily in regard to internal affairs, with the goal of securing a maximum degree of autonomy whose maintaining some form of union with Russia. In all likelihood, if the Provisional Government had reacted to the SDs' proposal more attentively an: had not rejected a dialogue with them, an acceptable compromise would have been found, which in turn would have prevented the SDs from adopting a policy of open struggle with the central Russian authorities.
In its most direct form, a demand for the Duchy's state sovereignty in the spring of 1917 was advanced only by the student movement, whose leaders held activist views. On May 12 a joint meeting of the students of Helsinki University and the Higher Technical School adopted the following appeal: "Finland has now matured to the point that it may occupy a place among sovereign peoples. We are convinced that the hour will soon come when our country acquires full state sovereignty. In order to attain this goal, we wish to employ all our energy and means."38 The leaders of the student movement considered it their most immediate task to influence public opinion in the Duchy in order to prove the incompatibility of Finland's interests with its attachment to the Russian state. Students made similar declarations during Kerenskii's visit to the Duchy in the spring of 1917.
The war minister clearly voiced the position of the Provisional Goverment on the question of Finnish sovereignty when he stated, "As an independent state Finland would represent a constant danger to Petrograd, and the satisfaction of Finnish demands can be realized only on an equal basis with the demands of other non-Russian nationalities populating the Russian empire.39 As Kerenskii and other members of the Provisional Government contended, "Today Finland will secede, tomorrow Siberia and Ukraine. Thus, of Great Russia only Moscow will remain."40
In the spring and summer of 1917 the Finnish activists undertook an attempt to draw the Duchy's largest party—the SDs—into cooperation. On June 4 in Stockholm representatives of Finnish activism and the SDs conducted a joint meeting, during which the question of preparation for an armed uprising in the Duchy with the goal of secession from the Russian state was raised. The SDs insisted that in the current conditions it was possible to achieve independence by peaceful means. The activists gave preference to armed forms of struggle.41 The two sides could not find a common ground; nonetheless, in the spring and summer of 1917 some ties between the two were established in the form of personal contacts of the parties' leaders and the creation of "guard detachments" (the so-called Schutzkorp), which were officially called upon to maintain internal order in the Duchy. The Activist Committee began forming these guards in the spring and summer of 1917.42 Almost simultaneously "guards of order" appeared from among workers. Initially there were no sharp conflicts between the two armed organizations. It was not rare for them to conduct exercises together. Workers sometimes joined the Schutzkorp, an action that did not meet with protests from the SDs.43 The Activist Committee sought to strengthen these cooperative relations. Instructions for the organizers of the Schutzkorp spoke of unrestricted admission of workers, so that the "guard detachments" would not obtain a "class character" in the eyes of the population.44 Russian counterintelligence at the initial stage of the creation of the Schutzkorp and the workers' guards of order did not see a fundamental distinction between the two.45
Gradually, however, differences became more apparent. The primary goal of the Schutzkorp was the preparation of armed cadres for a national revolt in the case of a German invasion of the Duchy. The Finnish Jägers arriving from Germany took active part in the organization of the Schutzkorp.46 The workers' guards, on the other hand, did not plan any actions against Russia. Russian military leaders rightly regarded the formation of the Schutzkorp with greater anxiety.47
Indeed, the rapprochement between the activists and the SDs in the spring and early summer of 1917 lacked a solid foundation not only because of the different social constituency of the two movements, but also because of differences in their understandings of "independent Finland." The SDs regarded Finland's sovereignty as a necessary precondition for  |