Finland declares independence

On 6 December 1917 the Finnish parliament, the Eduskunta, sitting in the Heimola building in Helsinki, voted for the country’s declaration of independence. The text, which two days earlier had been read to the members by the chairman of the senate, that is, the head of the Finnish government, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, was supported by the 100 members of the non-socialist parties. The 88 Social Democrats backed their own rival draft. The dispute was not about whether Finland should be independent, but about how that independence should be achieved: by a unilateral act or by agreement with the new authorities in Petrograd. The anniversary of that vote is today Finland’s Independence Day.

A Grand Duchy under the Tsar’s sceptre

From 1809, when Russia took these lands from Sweden, Finland was a Grand Duchy linked to the Russian Empire in a personal union. The Tsar was also Grand Duke of Finland, but the country kept its own laws, senate and officials, and in time its own currency, the markka. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries St Petersburg began to curtail this autonomy. The period of Russification, interrupted by the revolution of 1905 and resumed in 1908, was called by the Finns “the years of oppression”. In 1906 the old Diet of the Estates was replaced by a single-chamber Eduskunta elected by universal suffrage, in which, for the first time in Europe, women voted too. During the war Finns were not subject to conscription into the Russian army. Nearly two thousand young volunteers, however, went secretly to Germany, where they were trained in a separate battalion of riflemen, known as Jägers, with a view to a future fight for independence.

After the abdication of Nicholas II in March 1917, Helsinki took the view that the union with Russia had lost its legal basis, since there was no longer a Grand Duke. The Provisional Government restored the liberties Finland had lost, but considered that the monarch’s powers had passed to itself. On 18 July 1917 the Eduskunta, in which the Social Democrats then had a majority, passed the so-called Power Act (Valtalaki). In it parliament declared that it was taking over all legislative power, except for foreign policy and military affairs. The members expected the Provisional Government to fall after the July Days. It survived, however, and on 31 July dissolved the Eduskunta. In the elections at the beginning of October the non-socialist parties, which had fought them as a common front, took the majority from the Social Democrats: the left won 92 of 200 seats.

From the Petrograd coup to the declaration

The Bolshevik coup changed everything. On 15 November, the day on which the new authorities in Petrograd proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, including the right to secede, the Eduskunta declared itself “provisionally” the supreme authority in the country. In doing so it invoked Article 38 of the old Swedish constitution of 1772, which in the event of the extinction of the dynasty gave power to the Estates. In those same days, from 14 to 19 November, a general strike called by the left was under way. There were the first clashes between the workers’ order guards and the bourgeois civic guard, and Red Guards killed several political opponents. According to Finnish historians, 34 people died in all. Society was splitting ever more clearly into two armed camps.

On 27 November a new senate began work, made up exclusively of non-socialist politicians, with Svinhufvud at its head. Its most important task was to be to achieve independence as quickly as possible. The non-socialist parties wanted to break the country away from Russia without entering into talks with the Bolsheviks, whom they did not regard as a legitimate government. They intended to seek recognition in the West and in Germany. Their leaders were encouraged by news from Berlin: according to Finnish historians, Erich Ludendorff urged the senate’s envoy to declare independence and promised German support in the future peace negotiations with Russia.

On 4 December Svinhufvud presented to the Eduskunta a draft of a new constitution, based on the principle that “Finland is to be an independent republic”, and prefaced it with a declaration addressed “To the people of Finland”. In it the senate recalled the resolution of 15 November and wrote that “the century-old striving for freedom must now be fulfilled”, and that the Finnish people “must take its place beside the other peoples of the world as an independent nation”. The government announced that it would ask foreign states to recognise independence. It also gave a very down-to-earth justification: the country’s complete isolation, the threat of famine and unemployment compelled it to establish direct relations with foreign countries, because only imports of food and raw materials could save Finland from hunger and industrial stagnation. The declaration also expressed the conviction that “the free Russian people” and its Constituent Assembly would not wish to prevent the Finns from joining the community of free nations. The Social Democrats listened to the reading seated, as a sign of protest, because they considered that the senate had usurped power belonging to parliament.

The vote of 6 December

Foreign consuls let the senate understand that the declaration still had to be approved by parliament, since it was parliament that had proclaimed itself the supreme authority. On 6 December the members therefore voted on two motions. The first, whose main author was the leader of the Agrarian League, Santeri Alkio, stated that Finland was to be an independent republic and authorised the government to take whatever steps it considered necessary to have that independence recognised. The second, signed first by the Social Democrat Kullervo Manner, also came out in favour of independence, but wanted to obtain it through negotiations with the Russian government, on the basis of the right of nations to self-determination proclaimed by the Bolsheviks. The non-socialist majority saw this as playing for time, which would make independence dependent on the goodwill of Petrograd. The Social Democrats warned against an “adventurist policy” of breaking with Russia without agreement, since Russian garrisons were still stationed in the country. Alkio’s motion was carried by 100 votes to 88.

Recognition and what followed

The senate sent requests for recognition to Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France and Britain, deliberately leaving out Russia. It soon turned out that no one wanted to recognise Finland before its former ruling power had done so, and Svinhufvud had, against his will, to turn to Lenin. A senate delegation arrived in Petrograd at the end of December, and on 31 December (18 December Old Style), a few minutes before midnight, the Council of People’s Commissars decided to recognise Finland’s independence. The decision was confirmed on 4 January 1918 by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. France and Sweden recognised it on the same day, and Germany soon afterwards. Britain and the United States did so only in the spring of 1919. Lenin, for his part, expected that an independent Finland would soon pass into the hands of the Finnish socialists.

The independent country had no army of its own, while tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were stationed in its garrisons, and both sides of the Finnish political dispute already had armed units at their disposal. At the end of January 1918 a civil war broke out between the “Reds” and the “Whites”, which Svinhufvud’s government won in the spring with the help of German troops. The declaration of 6 December 1917 nevertheless remained the founding act of the Finnish state.