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One question that I, as a non-Finn who has had more than a passing interest in Finnish history, have never seen a compelling answer to is how reconciliation was

One question that I, as a non-Finn who has had more than a passing interest in Finnish history, have never seen a compelling answer to is how reconciliation was ultimately achieved after the civil war. The accounts I've read refer in very general terms to both sides making compromises after having been simply exhausted by it all. Can any of you provide some details? Multiple viewpoints if possible?

Jensson 5y ago
All the red supporters were dead, in prison or fled to Soviet, they just lost. Reconciliation is very easy then, the whites just did what they wanted to do. Or do you wonder why there was no more resistance afterwards? I think that the people were happy that they weren't under foreign rule for once, they didn't rebel against Russia so why rebel against a Finn ruler now? They were used to living under much worse conditions without complaining.
- toiletfuneral 5y ago
  Cool story bootlicker
aqsalose 5y ago
It is difficult to give a comprehensive answer in a fly-by HN comment. Very brief answer: It was complicated. It is complicated. Slightly less brief answer: Define reconciliation. I doubt any kind of perfect, ideal reconciliation was ever reached. It is not like there were two sides who agreed to something: there were many political actors, with different opinions. It was a mess, and it still is a mess. Many people who had first-hand experience of the war or the terror or its consequences remained bitter. The distinction between the Red and the White social sphere continued for a long time (Anecdote: there were Red and White country-wide sports unions SVUL and TUL until 1993.) Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter and legacy of Mannerheim and which was worse, the White terror or the hypothetical Red terror if the Reds had won. Another anecdote. A couple of years ago a student chapter at one university put a portrait of Mannerheim on the wall of their club room. One professor made a very angry public complaint. I don't know what happened afterwards, but there were lots opinions in newspapers and social media, for a moment. If we define "reconciliation" as "why there was no further violence, at least not much", one reason was that some of the political leaders on White pushed through torpparilaki (a land reform). SDP could participate in the elections, and due to efforts of some centrist politicians on White side, could once enter a government. Economy was good, the Great Depression wasn't as bad as in many other places. When Winter War happened, many regular people on the Red side felt their lives were improving and were distrustful of Stalin's clumsy propaganda moves (it helped that many Reds who "escaped" to the USSR during 1920s-1930s were shot or imprisoned with other ethnic Karelians and Finns in Stalin's purges; the word eventually got back that the USSR was not a paradise). The Reds were divided: non-communist socialists like SDP leader Väinö Tanner enjoyed electoral support among the working class, but were also quite hated by the pro-Soviet left. Maybe the White-aligned political police simply was very efficient at suppressing the would-be revolutionary left (some true believers on the Red side attempted to continue underground pro-Soviet / revolutionary efforts, not very successfully.) Other part of the answer is that there was a lot of ...not-exactly-reconciliation for several decades. Remember, some on the Red side continued with not necessarily reconciliatory political efforts? Some on the White side were actively not pleased about this at all, and some objected to any leftists being allowed to participate in politics at all. Feeling the legacy of their Independence War Victory was being squandered. In the 1920s/30s, for several years, some white extremists burned leftists printing presses, kidnapped and roughhoused lots of perceived communists, killed some, and the state apparatus turned a blind eye. Eventually they proceeded to kidnap bourgeois politicians not deemed anti-communist enough, including the ex-president Ståhlberg. At some point the danger of a genuine coup / intra-white civil war was real. (Google for Mäntsälän kapina.) In the end, after the parties and politics to the left of SDP were effectively banned, the extreme right lost its steam. After the WW2, many outright communists and other on the Red side of left who had spent 1920s-1930s out of politics or in prison were able to enter the politics (thanks Finland mostly losing the WW2 to the Soviets) in force. In some respects, they got some amounts of revenge, when the most bourgeois party, Kokoomus, could not enter the government for decades because of Soviet objections. Google for Kekkonen and Finlandization.
- doikor 5y ago
  > one reason was that some of the political leaders on White pushed through torpparilaki (a land reform) This is a often overlooked but very important part of making the post civil war much more peaceful. A large portion of the reds were tenant farmers (torppari) and giving them their own land basically made them "whites" (basically all the landed farmers were on the whites side) and thus fixing one of the biggest issues a very large portion of the reds actually had with the situation before the civil war.
- jabl 5y ago
  > Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter It's a really strange human quirk to get so worked up about historical events. Finland has these, yes, as excellently explained by the parent and parent's sibling comments. In the US you find people who get really really angry if somebody suggests that a civil war 150 years ago wasn't about slavery. Heck, you'll even find people who somehow identify with ancient Sparta, apparently based on watching that really terrible movie (or even more terrible successor movies), and thinking that Spartans were uniquely badass and honorable and whatnot.
  - rat87 5y ago
    > > Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter > It's a really strange human quirk to get so worked up about historical events. Finland has these, yes, as excellently explained by the parent and parent's sibling comments. In the US you find people who get really really angry if somebody suggests that a civil war 150 years ago wasn't about slavery. Because 1. It was totally because of slavery 2. Claiming it wasn't because of slavery tends to downplay historical racism and tends to be associated with modern day racism
    - jabl 5y ago
      Er, right, yes, I agree with you. It seems I got tangled up in my own explanations, sorry about that. That's what you get for writing a comment in a hurry. What I meant to say there seems to be a fraction of the population in the US who really think the US civil war was about "states rights" or whatever, and not slavery, and they get really angry if anybody suggests otherwise.
mistrial9 5y ago
some of the resolution was the new territory boundaries, securing Vyborg as a Russian city ? edit- incorrect, mixed the conflicts, reading more now
- eMSF 5y ago
  Vyborg was annexed by the Soviet Union in WW2. That had nothing to do with the Finnish Civil War.
nabla9 5y ago
Reconciliation never fully came. People lived and died with their grudges and hate. I remember the bitterness of old people around the issue from the time when I was young. Soon after the civil war Social Democratic party was the government and Finns had a president that was social democrat. It made it possible for reds and whites to live together without killing each other. Then Winter War came (1939) and Finns united to defend the country against common enemy. That created aseveliakseli (comrade-in-arms axis) where both whites (captialists) and red (socialists) fought together against common enemy (Soviet Union)
- pasiaj 5y ago
  Finns were segregated to different sports leagues, different youth groups, different stores etc. based on families political leanings for decades after the war. If you go to any small town in Finland, you'll still find an "S Market" and a "K Market" that have their roots in this left-right segregation going back all the way to the civil war.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    Kinda sad because that is definitely happening in the US. If you look at measures of political polarization over the past couple decades based on where people live, it has gotten much more extreme. You are much less likely to come into contact with people in your neighborhood who are of the opposite political side than a generation ago.
    - vkou 5y ago
      You're not radically less likely to come in contact with people of other political views, you are just more likely to be surrounded by people who keep their political views quiet, because they know what's good for them. Most of the US is purple, the difference is whether it's a blue-ish purple or a red-dish purple.
      - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
pasiaj 5y ago
Here are my two cents: Lots of international pressure was put on Finland due to malnutrition and poor treatment of prisoners in the fall of 1918 that led to mass pardons in October of 1918. My ancestors who fought amongst the "reds" and were convicted to prison camps emmigrated a hundred kilometers north after the war after being pardoned, as things got quite heated where they were from. They seemed to have regretted their actions in the war and expressed gratitude for being welcomed to the their new surroundings. My grandfather remained a communist, and was actually killed by a "white" veteran in 1958 after a municipal government meeting (got hit with a big log). A new Finnish identity was built in 1920s as a unifying narrative. Sports were an important part part of it. Finland had been under the rule of other countries before, but now it started to develop an identity if its own. Paavo Nurmi, the original Flying Finn won 9 olympic gold metals in 1920, 1924 and 1928. Ville Ritola won 6 medals in 1924 olympics. Hannes Kolehmainen won the olympic marathon in 1920. (He was treated as a class traitor by the left.) In 1930 there were significant anti-communist / anti-socialist / far right movements in Finland. "Meetings held by leftist and labour groups were also interrupted, often violently. A common tactic was "muilutus", which started with kidnapping and beating. After that the subject was thrown into a car and driven to the border with the Soviet Union." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapua_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapua_Movement Politically the left and the right were united in 1937 in the selection of Kyösti Kallio as president. A coalition government was formed, largely based on the deep anger and resentment by the left against Stalin's empty promises. The biggest unifiers in the end were the Winter War and the Continuation War against Russia in 1939. It forced ex-enemies to fight side by side against the Russians. Finland was at war from 1939 to 1944. Next, the nation united to take care of war reparations worth 5.52 billion in 2020 dollars. It took until 1952 to to pay off the debt, and I think Finland still claims to be the only country to have paid war reparations in full.
- drcongo 5y ago
  This is a fantastic answer, thank you. It does however raise two other questions... 1. Why was Hannes Kolehmainen treated as a class traitor? And 2. What on earth happened with that big log?
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Jensson 5y ago

All the red supporters were dead, in prison or fled to Soviet, they just lost. Reconciliation is very easy then, the whites just did what they wanted to do. Or do you wonder why there was no more resistance afterwards? I think that the people were happy that they weren't under foreign rule for once, they didn't rebel against Russia so why rebel against a Finn ruler now? They were used to living under much worse conditions without complaining.

toiletfuneral 5y ago
Cool story bootlicker

aqsalose 5y ago

It is difficult to give a comprehensive answer in a fly-by HN comment. Very brief answer: It was complicated. It is complicated. Slightly less brief answer: Define reconciliation. I doubt any kind of perfect, ideal reconciliation was ever reached. It is not like there were two sides who agreed to something: there were many political actors, with different opinions. It was a mess, and it still is a mess. Many people who had first-hand experience of the war or the terror or its consequences remained bitter. The distinction between the Red and the White social sphere continued for a long time (Anecdote: there were Red and White country-wide sports unions SVUL and TUL until 1993.) Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter and legacy of Mannerheim and which was worse, the White terror or the hypothetical Red terror if the Reds had won. Another anecdote. A couple of years ago a student chapter at one university put a portrait of Mannerheim on the wall of their club room. One professor made a very angry public complaint. I don't know what happened afterwards, but there were lots opinions in newspapers and social media, for a moment. If we define "reconciliation" as "why there was no further violence, at least not much", one reason was that some of the political leaders on White pushed through torpparilaki (a land reform). SDP could participate in the elections, and due to efforts of some centrist politicians on White side, could once enter a government. Economy was good, the Great Depression wasn't as bad as in many other places. When Winter War happened, many regular people on the Red side felt their lives were improving and were distrustful of Stalin's clumsy propaganda moves (it helped that many Reds who "escaped" to the USSR during 1920s-1930s were shot or imprisoned with other ethnic Karelians and Finns in Stalin's purges; the word eventually got back that the USSR was not a paradise). The Reds were divided: non-communist socialists like SDP leader Väinö Tanner enjoyed electoral support among the working class, but were also quite hated by the pro-Soviet left. Maybe the White-aligned political police simply was very efficient at suppressing the would-be revolutionary left (some true believers on the Red side attempted to continue underground pro-Soviet / revolutionary efforts, not very successfully.) Other part of the answer is that there was a lot of ...not-exactly-reconciliation for several decades. Remember, some on the Red side continued with not necessarily reconciliatory political efforts? Some on the White side were actively not pleased about this at all, and some objected to any leftists being allowed to participate in politics at all. Feeling the legacy of their Independence War Victory was being squandered. In the 1920s/30s, for several years, some white extremists burned leftists printing presses, kidnapped and roughhoused lots of perceived communists, killed some, and the state apparatus turned a blind eye. Eventually they proceeded to kidnap bourgeois politicians not deemed anti-communist enough, including the ex-president Ståhlberg. At some point the danger of a genuine coup / intra-white civil war was real. (Google for Mäntsälän kapina.) In the end, after the parties and politics to the left of SDP were effectively banned, the extreme right lost its steam. After the WW2, many outright communists and other on the Red side of left who had spent 1920s-1930s out of politics or in prison were able to enter the politics (thanks Finland mostly losing the WW2 to the Soviets) in force. In some respects, they got some amounts of revenge, when the most bourgeois party, Kokoomus, could not enter the government for decades because of Soviet objections. Google for Kekkonen and Finlandization.

doikor 5y ago
> one reason was that some of the political leaders on White pushed through torpparilaki (a land reform) This is a often overlooked but very important part of making the post civil war much more peaceful. A large portion of the reds were tenant farmers (torppari) and giving them their own land basically made them "whites" (basically all the landed farmers were on the whites side) and thus fixing one of the biggest issues a very large portion of the reds actually had with the situation before the civil war.
jabl 5y ago
> Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter It's a really strange human quirk to get so worked up about historical events. Finland has these, yes, as excellently explained by the parent and parent's sibling comments. In the US you find people who get really really angry if somebody suggests that a civil war 150 years ago wasn't about slavery. Heck, you'll even find people who somehow identify with ancient Sparta, apparently based on watching that really terrible movie (or even more terrible successor movies), and thinking that Spartans were uniquely badass and honorable and whatnot.
- rat87 5y ago
  > > Some people remain bitter. The kind of people who like to have arguments about history and historical figures continue to debate the matter > It's a really strange human quirk to get so worked up about historical events. Finland has these, yes, as excellently explained by the parent and parent's sibling comments. In the US you find people who get really really angry if somebody suggests that a civil war 150 years ago wasn't about slavery. Because 1. It was totally because of slavery 2. Claiming it wasn't because of slavery tends to downplay historical racism and tends to be associated with modern day racism
  - jabl 5y ago
    Er, right, yes, I agree with you. It seems I got tangled up in my own explanations, sorry about that. That's what you get for writing a comment in a hurry. What I meant to say there seems to be a fraction of the population in the US who really think the US civil war was about "states rights" or whatever, and not slavery, and they get really angry if anybody suggests otherwise.

mistrial9 5y ago

some of the resolution was the new territory boundaries, securing Vyborg as a Russian city ? edit- incorrect, mixed the conflicts, reading more now

eMSF 5y ago
Vyborg was annexed by the Soviet Union in WW2. That had nothing to do with the Finnish Civil War.

nabla9 5y ago

Reconciliation never fully came. People lived and died with their grudges and hate. I remember the bitterness of old people around the issue from the time when I was young. Soon after the civil war Social Democratic party was the government and Finns had a president that was social democrat. It made it possible for reds and whites to live together without killing each other. Then Winter War came (1939) and Finns united to defend the country against common enemy. That created aseveliakseli (comrade-in-arms axis) where both whites (captialists) and red (socialists) fought together against common enemy (Soviet Union)

pasiaj 5y ago
Finns were segregated to different sports leagues, different youth groups, different stores etc. based on families political leanings for decades after the war. If you go to any small town in Finland, you'll still find an "S Market" and a "K Market" that have their roots in this left-right segregation going back all the way to the civil war.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Kinda sad because that is definitely happening in the US. If you look at measures of political polarization over the past couple decades based on where people live, it has gotten much more extreme. You are much less likely to come into contact with people in your neighborhood who are of the opposite political side than a generation ago.
  - vkou 5y ago
    You're not radically less likely to come in contact with people of other political views, you are just more likely to be surrounded by people who keep their political views quiet, because they know what's good for them. Most of the US is purple, the difference is whether it's a blue-ish purple or a red-dish purple.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

pasiaj 5y ago

Here are my two cents: Lots of international pressure was put on Finland due to malnutrition and poor treatment of prisoners in the fall of 1918 that led to mass pardons in October of 1918. My ancestors who fought amongst the "reds" and were convicted to prison camps emmigrated a hundred kilometers north after the war after being pardoned, as things got quite heated where they were from. They seemed to have regretted their actions in the war and expressed gratitude for being welcomed to the their new surroundings. My grandfather remained a communist, and was actually killed by a "white" veteran in 1958 after a municipal government meeting (got hit with a big log). A new Finnish identity was built in 1920s as a unifying narrative. Sports were an important part part of it. Finland had been under the rule of other countries before, but now it started to develop an identity if its own. Paavo Nurmi, the original Flying Finn won 9 olympic gold metals in 1920, 1924 and 1928. Ville Ritola won 6 medals in 1924 olympics. Hannes Kolehmainen won the olympic marathon in 1920. (He was treated as a class traitor by the left.) In 1930 there were significant anti-communist / anti-socialist / far right movements in Finland. "Meetings held by leftist and labour groups were also interrupted, often violently. A common tactic was "muilutus", which started with kidnapping and beating. After that the subject was thrown into a car and driven to the border with the Soviet Union." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapua_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapua_Movement Politically the left and the right were united in 1937 in the selection of Kyösti Kallio as president. A coalition government was formed, largely based on the deep anger and resentment by the left against Stalin's empty promises. The biggest unifiers in the end were the Winter War and the Continuation War against Russia in 1939. It forced ex-enemies to fight side by side against the Russians. Finland was at war from 1939 to 1944. Next, the nation united to take care of war reparations worth 5.52 billion in 2020 dollars. It took until 1952 to to pay off the debt, and I think Finland still claims to be the only country to have paid war reparations in full.

drcongo 5y ago
This is a fantastic answer, thank you. It does however raise two other questions... 1. Why was Hannes Kolehmainen treated as a class traitor? And 2. What on earth happened with that big log?
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]