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return to their senses at the last moment? Even if they could no longer stop the advance of the Red gangs, could they not at least keep aloof, warn and protest? They did nothing of all this. Quite the opposite. On the 24th January the Party Council issue a proclamation to the Russian soldiers, the chief contents of which in all their bombast run as follows:—
"Russian Comrades!
"From the bourgeois of our country a constant provocative agitation and a stream of filth have during the last months been directed against the Russian revolutionary military garrisoned in Finland. This agitation has exasperated the Russians as well as their Finnish comrades. The revolutionary democracy of Finland and its organisations are overwhelmed with the like abuse. The bourgeoisie papers want to throw the responsibility for the outrages committed against individuals or groups that do not understand the tenets of the revolution on to the shoulders of the revolutionary soldiers and labourers, though these misdeeds are in reality the result of the civil corruption. They therefore brazenly exaggerate what has happened, colour it, and invent lies. All their thoughts run on insulting and blackening the revolution, thus to prepare the soil for a counter-revolution. We understand that this must of course greatly affront the revolutionary Russian military in Finland, which, adhering firmly and with undeviating constancy to its principles, has acknowledged the political independence of Finland. We, the representatives of the working-men of Finland, fight staunchly with you against such a false and provocative stream of insults provoked by the bourgeois of Finland, and express our distinct disapproval of the counter-revolutionary efforts of the bourgeoisie press.
