Red Guards (Finland)

The Red Guards (Finnish: Punakaarti Swedish: Röda gardet) formed the army of Red Finland during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. The combined strength of the Red Guard was about 30,000 at the beginning of the Civil War, and peaked at 90,000-120,000 during the course of the conflict.

The leadership of the Red Guards altered during the war: Ali Aaltonen, Eero Haapalainen, Eino Rahja and in the end Kullervo Manner. The government of Red Finland was the Finnish People's Delegation. The Red Guards were in power from 28 January to the end of April 1918 in southern Finland.

The Red Guards' general staff was located in Helsinki; the other major cities controlled by the Red forces were Tampere, Turku, Pori and Viipuri. Red Tampere came to its end on 6 April 1918 after bloody battles when the White Guards commanded by Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim conquered the city.

Thousands of Red Guards were imprisoned, hundreds of them were executed, and the rest were transported to POW camps. Helsinki was in White control by April 12, 1918. Some joined the Red Army and fought against nationalist Finns in the heimosodat. In fact, during the 1920s, the Soviet International Red Officer School had more Finnish students than the Finnish Reserve Officer School. The highest rank was obtained by Eino Rahja, who was a commander of an army corps (komkor).

Red Guard

Red Guard or Redguard may refer to:

Communist groups

Other groups

Fictional uses

Red Guards (Russia)

Red Guards (Russian: Красная гвардия) were paramilitary volunteer formations consisting mainly of factory workers, peasants, cossacks and partially of soldiers and sailors for "protection of the Soviet power". Red Guards were a transitional military force of the collapsing Imperial Russian Army and the base formations of Bolsheviks during the October Revolution and the first months of the Civil War. Most of them were formed in the time frame of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and some of the units were reorganized into the Red Army during 1918. The Red Guards formations were organized across most of the former Russian Empire, including territories outside of the contemporary Russian Federation such as Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, others. They were not centralized and were formed by decision of a local party and Soviet authorities.

General outlook

Composing the majority of the urban population, they were the main strike force of several radically oriented socialist political factions. Red Guard units were created in March 1917 at manufacturing companies by Factory and Plant Committees and by some communist-inclined party cells (Bolsheviks, Left Socialist Revolutionaries, others). The Red Guards formations were based on the workers strike forces of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Lenin gave a following evaluation of the phenomenon:

Red Guard Party

The Red Guard was a radical Chinese-American street youth organization formed in February 1969. The street youth party formed in the dusky pool halls in San Francisco's Chinatown aimed to attain adequate social services and serve as a unified front against the police brutality and oppression they faced as minorities. The Red Guard served as a pioneering revolutionary organization for the Asian American movement on the West Coast which sought to combat the model minority image and promote solidarity with other oppressed racial minorities. Though the Red Guard existed for a brief period of four years, their presence highlights the various radical critiques and responses to perceived injustices.

Origins

The Red Guard formation resulted from several societal and economic pressures combined in the late 1960s. In the late 60s, the Black Panther Party had already gained significant media and community attention for their militaristic actions and struggles for self-determination and third world solidarity, and for the opposing governmental oppression. Meanwhile, San Francisco and much of the nation was in an uproar via protesting the Vietnam War. With common place discussions on the reprehensible actions of the U.S. government in the war, Bay Area, and allowance of institutional racism, street youth organized against their own dismal circumstances.

Finland

Finland (ⁱ/ˈfɪnlənd/; Finnish: Suomi [suomi]; Swedish: Finland [ˈfɪnland]), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, a peninsula with Gulf of Finland to the south and Gulf of Bothnia to the west. It has land borders with Sweden and Norway to the north and Russia to the east. Finland is part of the geographic region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia and parts of Russia.

Finland's population is 5.5 million (2014), staying roughly on the same level with only about 9% increase in 24 years since the last economic depression in 1990. The majority live in the southern regions. The single largest group of foreigners living in Finland are Russians and Estonians, 36% of all of the foreigners (2014). In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 317 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which produces a third of the country's GDP. Other large cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti, and Kuopio.

Finland (comedy song)

"Finland" is a Monty Python comedy song written and performed by Michael Palin and arranged by John Du Prez with a guitar accompaniment. It features on Monty Python's Contractual Obligation Album from 1980, is also included on the CD Monty Python Sings, and was incorporated into the musical Spamalot.

It purports to be a celebration of Finland, a country that is overlooked when travelling abroad as "a poor second to Belgium", despite the fact that it "has it all" with lofty mountains and tall trees and pleasures including: pony trekking, camping or "just watching TV". In reality "mountains so lofty" are not characteristic of Finland as the Scandinavian Mountains only just touch the northwesternmost corner of the country.

Palin gave an impromptu rendition of the song while travelling through Finland for the 1992 travel documentary Pole to Pole.

References

Finland (European Parliament constituency)

In European elections, Finland is a constituency of the European Parliament, currently represented by thirteen MEPs. It covers the member state of Finland.

2014 election

The 2014 European election was the eight election to the European Parliament. Finland's representation remained at 13 MEPs.

2009 election

The 2009 European election was the seventh election to the European Parliament. The number of seats was decreased to thirteen.

MEPs 2009-2014

At the end of the Seventh European Parliament:

2004 election

The 2004 European election was the sixth election to the European Parliament.

Both the Finnish Social Democratic Party and the Finnish Centre Party improved their vote at the expense of the conservative National Coalition Party and the Greens.

1999 election

The 1999 European election was the fifth election to the European Parliament.

1996 election

This was the first European election in Finland.

References

External links