File No. 861.00/399
The Consul at Petrograd (Winship) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 26.]
Sir: I have the honor to report that in the first days following the revolution, the Temporary Government in consultation with Finnish representatives issued a decree abrogating all the encroachments on Finnish constitutional rights made by the old regime in recent years. It was held that the suzerain rights over Finland had passed from the Grand Duke of Finland, Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia, to the Temporary Government, together with all other rights held by Nicholas II in general. It was understood that these rights of the Temporary Government would be handed by it to the Constitutional Assembly. This was accepted by all Finns during the first weeks of the revolution.
The first public expression of a different attitude on the part of the Finns was shown in a speech made by the Social Democrat Tokoi, vice president of the Finnish Senate, who indicated that a certain current of opinion in Finland considered the question of Finland’s future connection to Russia an open question.1
Soon it was more prominently and unambiguously stated publicly that the Russian revolution had destroyed the juridical bond between Finland and Russia which had existed only in the person of Nicholas II. This opinion denies that the Temporary Government has inherited any rights of sovereignty regarding Finland and, consequently, that the Finnish question will not be within the jurisdiction of the Russian Constitutional Convention, that the relations of Russia and Finland can only be established by the will of the Finnish people itself and by international treaty. Some partisans of this view declare that Finland’s relations to Russia ought never to be of a federal nature as this will injure Finland in the interests of Russia.
[Page 724]In this connection two clear lines of opinion among the Russian socialists have appeared. The moderate socialists, those now taking part in the government or not openly inimical to any socialist participation in government in a bourgeois state, take the attitude of the Temporary Government, whereas the irreconcilable Maximalist socialists, now opposing the Temporary Government in Russia, entirely favor immediate and complete Finnish independence.
The immediate aspect of the question rests on the mode of confirmation of laws passed by the Finnish Seim. The Temporary Government claims a right to pass finally on these laws that was formerly held by Nicholas as Grand Duke of Finland. The particular case in hand is the confirmation of the law regarding the regulation of food supplies and trading rights of Russian subjects in Finland recently adopted by the Seim. During the debates the Finnish Social Democrats and the Swedish party took a decided stand in favor of complete and immediate independence; namely, that the Russian Temporary Government has no right to pass on these laws. The Seim eventually adopted a resolution stating that the two laws under consideration should be confirmed by the Temporary Government but that the Seim’s consent must not be taken as a precedent, the Seim reserving its right to a later and final decision.
Since this the influential Swedish organ in Helsingfors, Hufvud-stadsblaidet, states that the immediate and complete autonomy of Finland in regard to all internal affairs is the present minimum demand of all Finnish political parties, but that eventually full independence will be necessary to the Finns.
The Temporary Government [is] now deliberating two questions raised by the Finns: first, that Finland should be given the full parliamentary system, namely, that administrative officials now appointed by the Temporary Government should be responsible to the Seim and Senate; and, secondly, that there should be a supreme administrative court. Finns are now, according to the well-informed Rech of this city, negotiating with the Temporary Government in regard to these two demands, and are insisting that nothing whatever be made public regarding the nature or progress of these negotiations. They further demand that when their demands are granted, this grant should be made not only by Russia but should be further guaranteed by other powers. The Rech’s source further stated that the Finns will give no direct answer to the Temporary Government queries regarding the status of the Jews in Finland. The restrictions on Jews in Finland in regard to carrying on trade, being witnesses in legal proceedings, and marrying without special permit have not yet been abolished.
[Page 725]While in Helsingfors, Minister of War Kerensky spoke as follows:
We will do this (end the war) and will pay no attention to what governments and people do who do not understand magnanimity. It shows, comrades, how careful one must be and how often other people try to reap ugly profits from the simplicity and open-heartedness of the Russian people. And here in Finland (raising his voice) we must be especially careful because not only the Germans alone may misunderstand our magnanimity and love as weakness. The revolution is creative strength and let no one think that the Russian revolutionary people is weaker than the old Tsarism, and that it need not be taken into account.
This speech aroused much comment in the Helsingfors press. The Hufvudstadsbladet says that Russia must not forget that all Finnish parties are united on the question of Finland’s relations to Russia, and the Svenska Tidningen declares that the Russian Temporary Government is preparing to commit its first violation of the principle it proclaimed itself, that every nation has the right to determine its own future.
It was reported here recently that the Finnish Social-Democrats, then attending the Socialist conference at Stockholm, declared that Russian-Finnish relations should be included in the competency of the international socialist conferences and should also be handled by the official and general peace conference at the end of the war.
It is significant that the Swedish parties in Finland are leading this movement for immediate Finnish independence, and are being seconded in Russia particularly by the New Life, the Social Democrat Maximalist paper in Petrograd, which published the attempt to prove that the Entente Allies had made greater preparations for the war than the Central powers (see despatch No. 310 of May 291) and is attacking the coalition Temporary Government and the present movement in Russia for an aggressive forward movement at the front. This same New Life also received the secret letter from the Bulgarian envoy in Berlin mentioned in despatch No. 315 of June 5.1
The strike movement in Finland is very large. It is stated that the strikes of hired farm laborers are particularly serious. There is a movement of the farm interests in all political parties to unite in a single party in defense of their interests and in the interests of the country at large, threatened by a serious diminution of the scanty Finnish breadstuffs crops this season.
So long as Russia refuses or is unable to send flour to Finland no steps will be taken to relieve the rate of exchange. The Bank of Finland has reduced the exchange on the ruble to 194 rubles for 100 marks.
[Page 726]The present shortage of export from Russia to Finland has caused hardship in Finland which, since the war, is dependent to a large extent on Russia for cereals. If the shortage continues it may increase the growing Finnish dissatisfaction with the Russian revolutionary government.
I have [etc.]
- See also the Consul’s despatch No. 297, Apr. 30, vol. i, p. 34.↩
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