Saturday, December 21, 1918 THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE The White Terror in Finland Petrograd, August 8th.
From The Weekly People. December 14, 1918 now and then, about 30 grammes, but not regularly. to of have succeeded in escaping from prison camps in outside can be received for only seven more days barracks. Our daily labor consisted of ridding ourFinland. They confirm, one and all without exception, after sentence has been passed.
selfs of vermin. We were overrun with vermin.
the most horrible reports about the White Terror, It would be great to be able to outlive all this but died to the morgue. Acute stomach catarrh, that Every day we had to carry those comrades who had about hunger and death from starvation. It has, how it is a lottery.
ever, come to the knowledge of the prisoners that the is what the Whites called it.
Socialist of other countries The man who brought this letter also gave us a protesting her partial statistical report of the mortality at the Ekenas of the prison. All was quiet and peaceful. Ail at On Sunday, May 12, we were all in the courtyard getically, and this, although it has not, as yet, had any once we heard the well known rattle of a machine gun.
results in the treatment they receive, has nevertheless prison camp, covering the period from June 4th to July 23rd.
awakened joy and new hope. Your correspondent What was the matter? All around us men dropped.
received yesterday a letter from one of his Finnish For seven consecutive weeks the number of dead Four were killed on the spot. Seven were wounded friends who, at present confined in the prison was 1, 038; of this number 23 were shot.
and had to be carried to the hospital and of these two camp at Ekenas, managed to smiggle this letter through stomach diseases, 88; jundice, 8; other diseases. turned upon helpless prisoners? Simply because the The causas of death (for the same period) were: died soon thereafter. And why was the machine gun the lines. He writes among other things. What is this prisoners camp but an antechamber 18; general debility (starvation. 801; unknown director, Wiklander, had taken too stiff a dose of of death?
causces (including those shot. 23.
whiskey for an cyc opener and had then gone forth From one of our best known members of the Ju to test the gun. In the papers this was afterwards Here human shadows are walking about until genbund, himself a prisoner, your correspondent rereferrd to as a little mishap. That same director they expire from ext ustion and hunger. The death ceived, about fourteen days ago, a letter wherein he used to pelt the prisoners with stones.
rate increases day by day. At first the number of said. There is now much work to be done by our Judeaths per day amountd to from 20 to 30. Today. It seems that you outside in Europe have some gendbund comrades. We have done our share during several thousand, and now amounts in all to about tested so sharply. Every time after the number of prisoners has been reduced by sort of information of our suffering since you pro the revolution and shall continue to do so in the future.
read here how you special Jugendbund company had been formed 5, 000, the mortality rate has risen to 64 per day. in Sweden deal with those butchers, strikebreakers the Karis front. Not many have survived. These in Helsingfors. It fought against the Germans at One becomes so accustomed to this close proxim and Royal Swedish Brigadists. we are ever so glad. brave young comrades are the heroes of the revoity of death that men become callous and think noth The International still lives and the solidarity of the lution.
ing of eating their breakfasts with an odorous corpse workers is not dead.
right beside them. It happens that am now reading all the trashy literature that corpse will lie With us everything is under suppression. The the Whites are trying to feed us with. But they for hours on a cot, or in the corridor, or outside on he sand wherever it may have happened to fall.
members of the Jugenbund have to suffer most. fail to convince me or any one plce trat the fault for One day the bodies of two men from Brahestad lay We, who had to hold aloft the noble banner of the the present catastrophe lies with the Finnish workers. the sun near a water faucet. About fifty prisoners revolution, we have had much work to do and we had The hourgeois are guilty and they feel and know it.
port in line to set water and all passed by the two Whites fadherents of the white or bourgeois Fin terroristic attemnts to eliminate all traces of their to make the greatest of sacrifices. As soon as the That is proven by the tr atment of vs. by all their oses without being seemingly much aff cted.
nish government1 find ort that one has hern a member ruilt. Our salvation will come. It lies in the lan of This morning, as came out of my door. found of any they butcher him at once or, as they the world revolution. And for that we live. Send rpse outside. Many die while in the latrines, and express it more refinedly, we are being fusilladed? our greeting to the prol tariat of the world and conlatter, during the prevailing summer heat, emit Ich which alone is almost enough to kill. At the Viborg camp, where have been interned vev tn it that within us faith and fighting spirit are for one month together with Comrades and not dead.
vome die after they have received a food parcel, among many others. eight members of the Jugend ong live thre Zimmerwald International!
others because they never receive any food from the bund were shot without trial. among them one of Thus writes this Finnish comrade. From other outside. The oat bread and the half done dried cod our best novelists and poets. Koesi Almala. Bocanse sources learn that the peneral conditions in Finland souD carise stomach disorders are indescribably had for the working class. tin.
to subsist on this food is free fat no one who has there were so many of us at Viboso 10. 00 Succeeded in escaping. In Vihorg. during the month of emnlovment is widespread. And in tans of thousands It is a sad sight to observe how these shadows Mav, about sixty to seventy persons were butchered families. where the bread winner has either heren move ahort. One debilitated body surports annther. every day, among them several women.
One day a teacher, Riku Penttinen. and his wife taken to a prison camp or has been shot wrive and both barely able to krep on their feet, they drag along children are starving to death. The authorities are listlessly. their eyes staring dully before them. All were shot. but their three year old little son was doing nothing and hardly can do anything. The sav.
are weak and appear sunken. Those that still have spared! After we had been cantored on April 29. eral housneois parties are dismiting and finhting each a somewhat botter annearance are orderlies or belong we aid not get anything to eat for four days. Since nther and no one pavs attention to the starving workto the sanitary or kitchen personnel. But after sen then our food has consisted of four herrinos and of ing clacs. Everywhere there is desnair and misery.
tence has been pronounced it will be all over with herring soup on two occasions. They gave us bread splendid result of the war of liberation.
Written by Ferdinand Freligrath in 1848 THE REVOLUTION Translated from the German by Edith Bags With drawn sword shall stretch out my arm That the world may be redeemed.
Inil even if. zwith your hangman vassals, She sings a song, that makes you spring horrified You capture him noble stag.
from your chair, And even if you drive them, as Prisoners, That makes your heart your cowardly heart your Straight and upright, within your fortress walls, false heartAnd even though, since many a day, Shake in your body.
The hills are covered with their corpses, No songs of sorrow, Those lls, over whose green in sunrise glow the No song of tears, young peasant No song of lamentng for those who fell ays wreaths for her deadAnd even less a song of mockery Vet say to you she is not dead.
At that abject interlude.
You see me only in the prison; You see me only in the pit; You see me only as a wanderer On the thorny path of erile, You silly fools do not live There, where your power has an end!
Have not my abode Behind each forehead!
In each Heart?
In every brain that thinks defiantly!
That carries itself high and unbowed!
Is my asylum not every breast Which feels humanely, And humanely beats!
Not in each workshop Where blows fall?
Not in each hut, wherein one groans!
And even though those flouing locks their high foreheads you sheared away, even though you seek as companions murderer and the thief, even though they wear Prisoners garb, in their laps, the bowls of prison fare, even though they weave oakum and wool, boldly say to you: is not dead.
The beggar opera which at present You now act so clumsily; How moth eaten your Ermine!
How rotten also is your purple!
Oh no, what she sings to the waters Is not the pain, Not the ignominy, It is a song of victory, song of triumph, song of the Geat day of the future.
The future, which is no longer distantShe speaks with bold prophesyings, Even as your God spake a short time sinceI was am shall be.
even though you hunt them into erile, hary them from land to land.
even though their wounded feet y in the stream of distant waters, lever hangs she high her harp on Babel willows.
10 she places it before her.
Am not the breath of humanity, IVhich restlessly thirsts for deliverance!
Therefore shall beAnd once again shall go on ahead of the Peoples On your necks your heads on your crowns shall stand.
It is History iron MUST; It is no boasting No threat.
The day glows hot.
How cool yox wave willow leaves of Babylon. plays it defiantly in dehance of you.
scoffs laughingly at her erile, as she scoffed at the scaffold. shall be, and once agains will go on ahead of the peoples.
On your necks, your heads, On your crowns shall stand Deliverer Avenger Judge.