Recognition of Finnish independence

On 4 January 1918 (22 December 1917 Old Style) the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the supreme organ of Soviet power between congresses of soviets, approved the decision of the Council of People’s Commissars recognising the independence of Finland. The matter was presented by the Commissar for Nationalities, Joseph Stalin. On the same day Finnish independence was recognised by France and Sweden and, according to later statements by Chancellor Georg von Hertling, also by Germany. Further states followed over the next few days. A month after the vote in the Eduskunta that declared independence, Finland had become a state recognised by part of Europe.

The road to this day was humiliating for the government in Helsinki. The Senate of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, which did not want to recognise the Bolsheviks as the legitimate government, first sought recognition in Scandinavia, Berlin, Paris and London. When the reply came from there that no one would recognise Finland before its former metropolis did, the Eduskunta decided on 22 December to ask for recognition from the Russian Constituent Assembly, which was soon to convene. In the end pressure from Berlin prevailed. Germany was already negotiating with the Bolsheviks at Brest and advised the Finns to apply directly to the Council of People’s Commissars.

A Senate delegation, which besides Svinhufvud included Carl Enckell and Karl Gustaf Idman, arrived in Petrograd on 29 December. On 31 December (18 December Old Style), a few minutes before midnight, the Council of People’s Commissars decided to propose to the Central Executive Committee that the state independence of Finland be recognised. The Finns were not content with the document alone and waited at the Smolny until Lenin received them. Svinhufvud, who in tsarist times had been exiled to Siberia, had to thank the Bolshevik leader in person. Lenin had his own reasons. He believed that the right of nations to secede from Russia would later make easier their “voluntary union” in a socialist federation. The Finnish Social Democrats who came to see him in December had argued that independence would deprive the Finnish bourgeoisie of its best argument and hasten the revolution. The gesture towards Finland also helped the Bolsheviks at Brest, where they presented themselves as defenders of national self-determination. At the session of 4 January Stalin said openly that the Council of Commissars had, against its will, given freedom not to the Finnish proletariat but to the Finnish bourgeoisie. The chairman of the committee, Yakov Sverdlov, handed the document to Idman the next day.

The governments that had earlier sent the Finns to Petrograd now recognised Finland quickly. According to the Finnish foreign ministry, France, Sweden and Germany did so on 4 January, Greece on 5 January, and Denmark and Norway on 10 January. Switzerland recognised it on 11 January, Austria-Hungary on 13 January and the Netherlands on 28 January. German recognition was officially announced on 6 January. Sweden, with which Finland shared a common history and the language of a large part of its elite, recognised it as the first Scandinavian state, although the question of the Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, whose inhabitants wanted union with Sweden, was already coming between the two countries. Great Britain and the United States refused. They suspected that an independent Finland would become a German satellite, and recognised it only in May 1919.

Recognition did not solve the most important problem. Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers still stood in Finnish garrisons, and the commission that was to agree on their withdrawal had not had time to meet. The Red and White Guards were arming ever faster, and three weeks later the country plunged into civil war.