The Soviet Union, Finland, and the Baltic StatesSoviet War News — Soviet Information Bureau, 1941

The Lapuan Movement in Finland.

The most active anti-Soviet role in Finland since she gained her independence has been and is being played by the well-known subsidiary military organisation—the Schutz Corps. A number of leaders of this organisation, for instance, General Wallenius and others, have repeatedly demonstrated their hostility to the U.S.S.R., both in words and in acts. However, the record for enmity towards and hatred of the U.S.S.R. and for the direct preparation of an attack on the Soviet Union, was won by another organisation known as the “ Lapuan Movement.” This Movement had put in the forefront of its official programme—war against the U.S.S.R. in order to “ unite all Finnish races living in the territory of the Soviet Union.”

By the phrase “ Finnish races living in the territory of the Soviet Union,” the Lapuans and their supporters meant the peoples of Ugro-Mongolian origin (the peoples of Komi and others) living in north-eastern Eurapean Russia, and naturally, having nothing whatever in common with the Finns except very far distant historic origins.

In 1930, the Lapuan movement reached considerable strength, when Svinhuvud came to power first as Prime Minister and later, in February, 1931, as President of Finland. Leaving on one side the violent Fascist activity of the Lapuans within the country, their connection with the German and Italian Fascists (it is known, for instance, that a number of Lapuan leaders went to Rome where they were received by Mussolini who presented them with “ Fascist Dirks of Honour ”), we consider it necessary to note the provocative activities of the Lapuans against the Soviet Union.

It must be emphasised that the anti-Soviet activities of the Lapuans were not only in no way hindered by the Finnish Govern­ ment, but on the contrary received every encouragement from them. In particular, this refers to the period when Svinhuvud was President. As far back as the autumn of 1930 the Lapuans made an attempt to kidnap the former President of Finland, the Progressive Stolberg, and to plant him on Soviet territory with the aim of assassinating him there ; this was then to be used as a cause for war against the U.S.S.R. The Lapuan plot, however, was discovered, and its exposure made such an impression on Finnish public opinion that the Government of Finland was compelled to prosecute the then Commander of the General Staff of the Schutz Corps, the above-mentioned Wallenius. It is hardly necessary to mention that the trial of the latter ended quite happily for the accused.

At the beginning of December, 1930, at the celebrations of “ Independence Day,” in the presence of Svinhuvud and the members of the Finnish Government, one of the leaders of the Lapuans, Kares, declared : “ Our task is to unite into one whole both parts of Karelia, both on this and the other side of our frontier, also the Leningrad Province reaching right to the north to the vast spaces of the Urals, which are also inhabited by men of our own race.”

In January, 1931, the Lapuan organ “ Aktivist ” in the course of a leading article addressed to their “ Estonian brothers ” wrote : “ The day will come when the Eastern frontiers of Finland will be the Ural mountains, and the great Finnish Power will be an important factor in world policy.”

The journal “ Uusi Suomi ” the chief organ of the Government Coalition Party, which secretly had been at the back of the Lapuan Movement, wrote in May, 1931, that Finland “ is in duty bound before Europe to be a source of information and also an initiator of the struggle against the East.”

The Lapuan Movement was connected most closely with organisations bearing various names, but with one common aim—the organisation of conflicts against the U.S.S.R. In addition to the “ Academic Karelian Society ” which was the General Staff of the Lapuans, it is necessary to mention also such organisations as “ The Union for Independence,” “ The Union of Karelian Refugees,” “ The Ingermanland Union,” “ Union of Front Line Soldiers,” and so on. In particular, the Ingermanland Union had as its aim “ the liberation ” of the territory lying to the south-west of Leningrad in the immediate proximity of the town itself. It goes without saying that what was actually meant was the hardly-concealed claim to Leningrad.

Thus, at only 3o kilometers from Leningrad a veritable poisonous nest of anti-Soviet conspirators had been formed under the protection and with the help of the Finnish Government, and preparations were being made for provocative attacks.

In addition to their anti-Soviet aims, the Finnish Chauvinists also had various plans for the seizure on behalf of Finland of territories belonging to Sweden and Norway. In January, 1940, the well-known Norwegian economist Johann Vogt, in his book on Finland wrote : “ It is characteristic that the so-called ‘ Academic Karelian Society ’ the bulwark of the Finnish militarists propagates not only the seizure of Soviet Karelia, but also the territory of Northern Norway and Northern Sweden.”