State and Revolution in Finland

State and Revolution in Finland

By analysing the experience of Finland, Risto Alapuro shows how upheavals in powerful countries shape the internal politics of smaller countries. This linkage, a highly topical subject in the twenty-first century world, is concretely studied by putting the abortive Finnish revolution of 1917-18 into a long historical and a broad comparative perspective. In the former respect the revolution appears as a tragic culmination in the unfolding of a small European state. In the latter respect it appears as one of those crises that new states experienced when they emerged from the turmoils of the First World War.

This second edition includes a new Postscript.

Table of Contents



Acknowledgements

Maps, Tables and Figures



1 The Formation of a Small Polity

1 The Problem

2 A Comparative Perspective

3 What Is to Be Explained

4 Plan of the Book



Part 1 State-Making and the Class Structure

2 Dominant Groups and State-Making

1 The Early Nineteenth Century

2 Economic Integration

3 The Late Nineteenth Century



3 The Agrarian Class Structure and Industrial Workers

1 The Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions in Finland

2 Freeholding Peasants and Agrarian Workers

3 The Link Between Industrial and Agrarian Workers

4 Crofters



4 Territorial Integration

1 Finnish Regions up to 1809

2 Reorientation from Stockholm to St. Petersburg

3 Territorial Integration in the Late Nineteenth Century

4 Core-Periphery Interaction - the County of Viipuri and Eastern Finland

5 South-Western Finland as a Core Region

6 Declining Ostrobothnia

7 Division of Labour and State Penetration in Northern Finland

8 Summary



Part 2 National Integration and Class Integration

5 Finnish Nationalism

1 The Dual Nature of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Europe

2 Finland in a European Perspective

3 The Consolidation of a National Culture

4 Conclusion



6 Before the Revolution: Organisation, Mobilisation, and the Role of Russia

1 Early Mass Organisation

2 The Finno-Russian Conflict

3 The General Strike of 1905, Parliamentary Reform, and the Rise of Agrarian Socialism



7 Regional Consolidation of Party Support

1 Regions as Loci of Party Systems

2 The South-Western Core Region

3 The County of Viipuri

4 Ostrobothnia

5 Eastern Finland

6 Northern Finland

7 Conclusions



Part 3 The Abortive Revolution

8 On Preconditions for Revolutionary Situations



9 The Abortive Revolution of 1917-1918

1 Socialists within the Polity

2 The Rise of Multiple Sovereignty

3 The Revolutionary Situation

4 The Aftermath

5 The Social and Regional Basis for the Revolution

6 On the Character of the Finnish Revolution

7 Breakdown of Society or Contest for State Power?



10 State and Nation after the Failed Revolution

1 The Failed Revolution and the Nation

2 The Persistence of the Volcanic Model of the Finnish Revolution

3 On the State, the Nation, and Class Balance

4 The Lapua Movement, 1930-2

5 The Mass Movement and the Dominant Classes in Finnish Fascism



Part 4 The Finnish State and Revolution in a European Perspective

11 Eastern European Revolutionary Movements

1 National Movements in the Baltic Provinces

2 Revolution in the Baltic Provinces, 1905 and 1917-18

3 Challenges in East-Central Europe

4 Fascism in Eastern Europe



12 The Formation of Finland in Europe

1 Economic Consolidation

2 The Formation of State and Nation

3 Political Organisation and Mobilisation before 1917

4 Revolutionary Situations in Small European Polities

5 State and Revolution in Finland



Postscript to the Second Edition

1 A Personal Note

2 A Recapitulation

3 The Reception of the Comparative Perspective

4 Structures and Act