State and Revolution in Finland Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board Sébastien Budgen ( Paris ) David Broder ( Rome ) Steve Edwards ( London ) Juan Grigera ( London ) Marcel van der Linden ( Amsterdam ) Peter Thomas ( London ) volume 174 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm State and Revolution in Finland By Risto Alapuro LEIDEN | BOSTON First edition of State and Revolution in Finland was published in 1988 by University of California Press. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2018043939 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. ISSN 1570-1522 ISBN 978-90-04-32336-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-38617-4 (e-book) This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. Copyright 2019 by the Authors. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. 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To Aappo and Mikko ∵ Contents Acknowledgements xi Maps, Tables and Figures xiii 1 The Formation of a Small Polity 1 1 The Problem 1 2 A Comparative Perspective 2 3 What Is to Be Explained 11 4 Plan of the Book 13 Part 1 State-Making and the Class Structure 2 Dominant Groups and State-Making 19 1 The Early Nineteenth Century 19 2 Economic Integration 28 3 The Late Nineteenth Century 34 3 The Agrarian Class Structure and Industrial Workers 38 1 The Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions in Finland 38 2 Freeholding Peasants and Agrarian Workers 40 3 The Link between Industrial and Agrarian Workers 45 4 Crofters 46 4 Territorial Integration 49 1 Finnish Regions up to 1809 49 2 Reorientation from Stockholm to St. Petersburg 56 3 Territorial Integration in the Late Nineteenth Century 58 4 Core-Periphery Interaction – the County of Viipuri and Eastern Finland 63 5 South-Western Finland as a Core Region 66 6 Declining Ostrobothnia 70 7 Division of Labour and State Penetration in Northern Finland 73 8 Summary 74 viii contents Part 2 National Integration and Class Integration 5 Finnish Nationalism 79 1 The Dual Nature of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe 79 2 Finland in a European Perspective 83 3 The Consolidation of a National Culture 85 4 Conclusion 91 6 Before the Revolution: Organisation, Mobilisation, and the Role of Russia 94 1 Early Mass Organisation 94 2 The Finno-Russian Conflict 103 3 The General Strike of 1905, Parliamentary Reform, and the Rise of Agrarian Socialism 106 7 Regional Consolidation of Party Support 118 1 Regions as Loci of Party Systems 118 2 The South-Western Core Region 120 3 The County of Viipuri 122 4 Ostrobothnia 122 5 Eastern Finland 124 6 Northern Finland 125 7 Conclusions 126 Part 3 The Abortive Revolution 8 On Preconditions for Revolutionary Situations 131 9 The Abortive Revolution of 1917–1918 137 1 Socialists within the Polity 137 2 The Rise of Multiple Sovereignty 146 3 The Revolutionary Situation 152 4 The Aftermath 160 5 The Social and Regional Basis for the Revolution 162 6 On the Character of the Finnish Revolution 168 7 Breakdown of Society or Contest for State Power? 172 contents ix 10 State and Nation after the Failed Revolution 179 1 The Failed Revolution and the Nation 179 2 The Persistence of the Volcanic Model of the Finnish Revolution 183 3 On the State, the Nation, and Class Balance 185 4 The Lapua Movement, 1930–2 189 5 The Mass Movement and the Dominant Classes in Finnish Fascism 194 Part 4 The Finnish State and Revolution in a European Perspective 11 Eastern European Revolutionary Movements 201 1 National Movements in the Baltic Provinces 202 2 Revolution in the Baltic Provinces, 1905 and 1917–18 210 3 Challenges in East-Central Europe 221 4 Fascism in Eastern Europe 231 12 The Formation of Finland in Europe 236 1 Economic Consolidation 236 2 The Formation of State and Nation 239 3 Political Organisation and Mobilisation before 1917 241 4 Revolutionary Situations in Small European Polities 244 5 State and Revolution in Finland 246 Postscript to the Second Printing 250 1 A Personal Note 250 2 A Recapitulation 252 3 The Reception of the Comparative Perspective 254 4 Structures and Actors 260 5 The Associational Tradition in the Political Process 264 6 Causes and Scripts 266 Bibliography 269 Index 298 Acknowledgements The most fundamental debts for the completion of this book are owed to two persons. Erik Allardt’s emphasis on structural conflicts in social analysis and the comparative scope of his teaching have provided a basis from which this project has grown. No less important have been Erik’s comments and personal support during many years, as well as the stimulating setting for research and the exchange of ideas provided by the Research Group for Comparative Soci- ology at the University of Helsinki. More specifically, the roots of this book go back to the academic year 1973– 4, which I spent in the Center for Research on Social Organization of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Peasants and political conflicts were, in exciting ways, central issues in Charles Tilly’s work. In the intellectual milieu surrounding him it was natural to come to grips with big structures and large processes without feeling them to be too huge. Since the inception of this book, years later, Chuck’s continuing encouragement and advice have greatly facilit- ated the progress of the work up to publication. Many other friends and colleagues have helped me with valuable criti- cism. Matti Alestalo, Edmund Dahlström, Max Engman, Michael Hechter, Antti Karisto, Pauli Kettunen, Matti Klinge, Klaus Mäkelä, Andreas Moritsch, Veijo Notkola, Gert von Pistohlkors, Seppo Pöntinen, Per Schybergson, Hannu Soik- kanen, Henrik Stenius, Irma Sulkunen, Jukka-Pekka Takala, Hannu Uusitalo, and Matti Viikari have read the manuscript or essential parts of it. Their com- ments and suggestions not only corrected many of my errors but also led to a restructuring of the whole work and to repeated efforts at clarifying my argu- ment. Gavin Bingham and, as copyeditor, Anne Canright, with their care and effort, greatly contributed to improving the language and the entire presenta- tion. I also wish to thank Jutta Scherrer for giving me the opportunity to present the preliminary, and in many ways obscure, idea of the character of the revolu- tionary process in Finland in her seminar at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1981. I completed the major part of this study while a research fellow of the Academy of Finland. I am grateful also to the Emil Aaltonen Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and the Kone Foundation for their financial sup- port. Parts of some chapters have previously appeared in Mobilization , Center- Periphery Structures and Nation-Building , edited by Per Torsvik and published by Universitetsforlaget in 1981 (Chapter 3); The Politics of Territorial Identity: Studies in European Regionalism , edited by Stein Rokkan and Derek W. Urwin xii acknowledgements and published by Sage in 1982 (Chapters 4, 5, and 7); Who Were the Fascists: Social Roots of European Fascism , edited by Stein Ugelvik Larsen, Bernt Hagtvet and Jan Petter Myklebust and published by Universitetsforlaget in 1980 (Chap- ter 10); and The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Europe , edited by Juan J. Linz and Alfred Stepan and published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1978 (Chapter 10). The latter article was written with Erik Allardt; I have drawn here from the section I originally prepared myself. All the materials utilised here are reproduced with the permission of the publishers. Maps 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 are reprinted, with permission, from Engman 1978, Jutikkala 1959, Lento 1951, and Kero 1974. Maps, Tables and Figures Maps 1 Finland, the Baltic Provinces of Russia, and Scandinavia in the nineteenth century (including the border between Sweden and Russia in 1721 and 1743) 21 2 Main Finnish regions and the line between the Reds and the Whites in the revolution of 1918 52 3 The counties of Finland at the beginning of the twentieth century 53 4 Regional distribution of passport-holding Finns living in Russia in 1881, by domicile in Finland 57 5 The Finnish railway network by 1918, with the Saimaa Canal 60 6 Urban industrial workers, 1884–1885 and 1938 61 7 Rural industrial workers, 1884–1885 and 1938 62 8 Net internal migration to 1920, by county of birth 69 9 Overseas emigration from Finland, 1870–1914, by commune 71 10 The Baltic Provinces (Estland, Livland, Kurland) and the border between Estonia and Latvia after 1917 204 Tables 1 Percentage distribution of Finnish population by industry, 1820–1920 26 2 Percentage distribution of Finnish population by estate, 1890 36 3 Indicators of market penetration in the countryside, 1870–1910 42 4 Agrarian households in Finland by class, 1815–1901 43 5 Production of sawn goods by county, 1860 and 1900 64 6 Population and migration in Finland by county, late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries 65 7 Finnish regions in terms of core-periphery position and class relations 75 8 Distribution of seats in Parliament won in Finnish general elections, 1907, 1916, and 1917 108 9 Rural and urban party support in Finnish general elections, 1907, 1916, and 1917 109 10 Regional variations in political mobilization in the Finnish countryside, 1907–1932 120 11 Distribution of seats in Parliament won in selected Finnish general elections, 1919–1933 187 xiv maps, tables and figures Figure 1 Finnish cities, 1815 and 1920, ranked by population 67 © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004386174_002 chapter 1 The Formation of a Small Polity 1 The Problem More than two decades ago Barrington Moore, in his Social Origins of Dictator- ship and Democracy , examined the paths different states have followed when moving into the modern age and assessed the ensuing variation in political sys- tems. Concentrating on a few big countries where a certain social process had ‘worked itself out’,1 he deliberately neglected the small countries: The fact that the smaller countries depend economically and politically on big and powerful ones means that the decisive causes of their polit- ics lie outside their own boundaries. It also means that their political problems are not really comparable to those of larger countries. There- fore a general statement about the historical preconditions of democracy or authoritarianism covering small countries as well as large would very likely be so broad as to be abstractly platitudinous.2 When inverted, Moore’s observation encapsulates the basic problem examined in this book. What are the decisive factors conditioning twentieth-century politics in smaller countries that are economically and politically dependent on big ones? Even though the question was dismissed by Moore, it is worth asking simply because most countries are small, and most people live in polit- ies that are dependent on distant centres of power. In what ways, then, has dependence on powerful states influenced preconditions, forms, and outcomes of collective action in small polities? How has it affected the occurrence of revolutions, other large-scale conflicts, and the institutionalisation of political systems when these polities enter into an era of mass politics? In this study answers to these questions will be sought based on the experi- ence of Finland, one of the smaller European polities economically and polit- ically dependent on big centres. It is also one of the countries called ‘successor states’ between the world wars. The state structures and internal conflicts of these polities, which formed a geographically connected area between Russia 1 Moore 1966, p. xii. 2 Moore 1966, p. xiii. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. 2 chapter 1 and other major European powers, were dramatically affected by World War I, and the countries reached a critical point in their political development at one and the same moment. These characteristics set this group of polities apart from other small coun- tries for which this perspective is also relevant, namely the Third World coun- tries that have won independence from colonial rule in the twentieth century. Although it is true that dependence through capitalist commercialisation and interstate competition has powerfully shaped state-making and political con- flicts in both classes of polities, only the European cases were dependent on backward empires, only they were geographically contiguous with the metro- poles themselves, and only they experienced a simultaneous, sudden, and com- plete collapse of the metropolitan country. John Dunn’s distinction between world war and decolonisation as the two major nondomestic processes related to the important revolutionary challenges in the twentieth century captures the main difference between the European and the other cases.3 The focus here is on Finland, which means that the problems will be dealt with in the context of a single country. The main thrust of the book will concern the nature of political and economic dependence and the particular political consequences it had in the Finnish case. At the end of the book a few comparis- ons with other Eastern European polities will be made to show the distinctive- ness of certain Finnish features. Because Finland is an example of a whole class of countries, analysis of the Finnish experience, together with the comparisons with other countries, should help to put political development in this class of countries into perspective. The analysis may throw some light more generally on the development of politics in the dependent Eastern European countries and, ultimately, on how the political and economic impact of the big powers is reflected in the internal processes of the smaller countries. 2 A Comparative Perspective From what perspective should early twentieth-century politics in Finland and other small Eastern European polities be viewed? If the small countries really are a case apart, various well-known models of political development cannot be used, because they are based, explicitly or implicitly, on the experience of 3 Dunn 1977, p. 98. Actually, Dunn speaks of revolutionary success and of big and small coun- tries alike. The outcome in the small polities was presumably much more dependent on outside forces than in the large ones. the formation of a small polity 3 the large European national states.4 Moreover, it is by no means obvious that even the forms of collective action found in small countries are the same as those in big, established European states. Thus, if the causes of political trans- formation in the small European states are substantially different from those in the larger ones, then both the ‘phases’ or ‘sequences’ of political develop- ment and the nature of collective action in the two cases may likewise differ markedly. During the years since Moore’s work appeared, the problem of comparabil- ity has been approached in at least two new systematic ways. First, it has been pointed out that even in large states political transformation is dependent on the capitalist world-economy and on processes involving other states or the international state system. In this view Moore’s distinction is not as unambigu- ous as he assumed it to be. The analysis of the relationship between states and the international system should not be confined to small polities but should be extended to large ones – as Theda Skocpol has forcefully maintained in her comparison of the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions.5 Immanuel Wallerstein’s and Perry Anderson’s delineations of the rise of the European world-economy and the European state system can also be seen in this light.6 In both these analyses the emergence of the various individual states depends on their relations to the entire emerging structure: the trajectories of particular states are conditioned by their different relations to the system as a whole. This perspective obviously suggests one way in which Finland can be com- pared with other states, even large ones. For example, it would appear useful to view the Finnish revolution of 1917–18 as the outcome of the interplay of domestic and international processes and in this sense similar to the ‘great’ revolutions examined in Skocpol’s study. This approach, unlike theories of political development, does not imply that similarities between large and small countries must be found. Rather, it facilitates comparisons that should enable us to determine what was specific to the Finnish experience itself. For Finland, the significance of the international context is obvious; therefore, looking at other European states and their emergence in an international perspective may help to identify the key features of Finland’s development. This does not neces- sarily mean that ‘general statements’ will be applicable to Finland, but it may help us see how the internal and external factors important throughout Europe were linked together in this particular case. 4 See Tilly 1975c. 5 Skocpol 1979. Also Skocpol 1982, pp. 367–73; Østerud 1978b, pp. 176–8. 6 Wallerstein 1974–80; P. Anderson 1974. 4 chapter 1 This approach alone, however, is not sufficient. It hardly suggests more than a general course for considering a northeastern latecomer state such as Fin- land. In order to determine what was specifically Finnish as opposed to what was common with other countries, notably the other small Eastern European polities, the emergence of Finland should be viewed more concretely and in a large perspective. Perhaps the most ambitious effort in this, second, direction is Stein Rokkan’s ‘conceptual map of Europe’.7 In commenting on Barrington Moore’s decision to concentrate on leading countries, Rokkan argued that the analysis should not be restricted to large and powerful leading polities when examining spe- cific regions such as Europe. ‘On the contrary, the purpose is to account for variations among all the distinctive polities in the region, and this requires direct attention to the possible consequences of such factors as size, eco- nomic resource potential and location in the international power system’.8 Thus Rokkan developed schemes that account for variations in the Western European party systems and in the scope for state-making in Europe. In his conceptual map of Europe, state-making patterns vary along two major axes of development. On the West-East axis indicating the economic resource bases of the state-making centres, Finland is a region where surplus was extracted from agricultural labour and not, as in the West, from a highly monetised economy. Together with the Baltic territories, Bohemia, Poland, and Hungary, Finland was a ‘landward buffer’ in which both territorial centres and city networks were weakly developed. On the North-South axis measuring con- ditions for rapid cultural integration – that is, nation-building – Finland falls in the same class as Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. In these north- ern countries, national Protestant churches marked off religious and linguistic areas into which cultural penetration could occur fairly easily. In the South, in contrast, religious ‘supraterritoriality’ created obstacles for cultural integ- ration.9 It is in this perspective – of an alliance between statemakers and landowners for extracting food and manpower and of separate cultural identit- ies developing into political entities – that the major characteristics of Finnish state formation should be viewed. Clearly, this model relates Finland to other political entities in Europe and provides a starting point for comparing state-making in Finland with state- making elsewhere in Europe. It helps us to see that the Finnish state-making 7 Allardt 1981b, p. 264. 8 Rokkan 1969, p. 60. 9 Rokkan 1973, pp. 80–4; Rokkan 1980, pp. 178–183; Tilly 1981, pp. 10–13. the formation of a small polity 5 experience resembles that not only in the fringe between Russia and the other major European powers but also in Scandinavia. Nonetheless, this approach has a major problem: by placing Finland or any other polity in a European con- text, it fails to take into account the way the entities interact. The international system is seen as the sum total of its component parts rather than as an environ- ment affecting, perhaps in contradictory ways, the destinies of single entities. The model is essentially taxonomic; it does not really address Moore’s prob- lem, that is, the special features of internal developments in small polities that result from their dependence on big ones. Basically, as Charles Tilly puts it, it treats national experiences as ‘cases’ that result from different combinations of certain central variables.10 Sweden, to take an obvious instance, is not simply a ‘case’ located some- where in the northern reaches of a giant cross-tabulation. The Sweden which appears on Rokkan’s conceptual map is a shrunken remainder of the expansive power which at one time or another dominated Norway, Finland, Estonia, Livonia, and other important parts of the North. Can we reconstruct the political development of Sweden – or, for that matter, of Norway, Finland, Estonia and Livonia – without taking that interaction directly into account?11 Tilly himself has explicitly suggested that small polities should be viewed as dependent on big ones. He also proposes a dichotomy exemplified by the above distinction between Sweden, on the one hand, and Norway, Finland, Estonia (Estland), and Livonia (Livland), on the other. The distinction represents the first two steps in the general movement toward a worldwide state system that originated in Europe. The first phase was the formation of the first great national states. This involved commercial and military competition followed by economic penetra- tion into the remainder of Europe and parts of the world outside Europe. The expansive processes were facilitated by the absence of important concentra- tions of power immediately outside the areas in which the substantial states were forming, as well as by the availability of new territories for expansion, conquest, and extraction of resources. What took place in this period, from approximately 1500 to 1700, was the consolidation of a system of states acknow- ledging, and to some extent guaranteeing, one another’s existence. The Treaty 10 Tilly 1981, 16. Also Allardt 1981b, pp. 269–70. 11 Tilly 1981, 16.