Sture Lindholm & Cecilia Toivanen: Punavankila – Tammisaari Forced Labor Institution 1918–1930 (Ekenäs Universitetet – Där inbördeskriget inte 1918). Finland. Anu Koivunen. Athena. 495 pp.
Civil war did not end until the spring of 1918. The armed battles ended with the victory of the whites, but the hatred and conflicts of the opposing sides continued to be active.
The Tammisaari forced labor facility proved to be an important battle arena, where many overtime rounds were held. More than 3,000 Red prisoners had died in the same Dragsvik barracks in the summer of 1918.
Historians Sture Lindholm and Cecilia Toivanen investigate the lives and fates of political prisoners Sourcein his work. They studied the period 1918–1930 culminating in the communist laws. Although the institution still operated in the 1930s, the limitation is justified, the 1920s alone already produces a solid book.
A picture taken with a camera smuggled into the Kokkolan barracks. In Tammisaari in the spring of 1924, Hugo Tolvanen (left), Kalle Robert Harju, MP Toivo Hjalmar Långström and Gunnar Keltamäki.
Source continues independently Lindholm Prison camp hell Dragsvik(2017), in which he explained the camp disaster in 1918.
The newer book is not a happy read either, yet it is more civil to the extent that the prisoners already showed more concrete means of resistance. It was difficult, but not with the immediate threat of death like in 1918.
In a forced labor facility work was done, forced labor. In the early days of the institution in 1919, there were about a thousand prisoners in workshop and agricultural work. Political prisoners – the target group of Lindholm and Toivanen – were a clear minority, as the number of sentences rose to 350 only in 1930.
State criminal prisoners had their internal hierarchy, their class division. The Närpiön barracks was home to members of the leadership, such as parliamentarians and ay leaders, and they lived in relatively freer conditions. You could order magazines, borrow books and do written work.
Prisoners of the lower categories mostly inhabited the Kokkolan barracks. They were the “middle class”, the young class-conscious urban proletarians, whose proportion increased with the new convictions. They were also enthusiastic students, thanks to which the term Tammisaari University became established in political language.
“There we work hard / we are trained until / until everyone is a Bolshevik”, as is sung in a shrill workers’ song.
The gate of the forced labor facility, possibly at the beginning of the 20th century.
The worst caste were the “ruble communists”, a large group of small farmers from Kannas, Kainuu and Lapland, who mostly helped in illegal cross-border traffic for a reward.
Prisoner resistance organized a network that the authors quite bluntly name the “communist Soviet system” – almost giving the impression that some organization was transferred directly from Russia to Tammisaari. There were instructions and a model, but the prototype still does not mean the full picture.
The use of power was not only gentle peer guidance, but also harsh social isolation. Henchmen and politically unstable were suppressed.
For a long time, the political prisoners engaged in their silent mutual battle. There was a faction of the more independent “hoipertelijas”, which was met by “huiots” obedient to the emigrant Skp. It is not difficult to see what kind of future public disputes of the communists were already ignited in the Dragsvik barracks. Some schisms soon flared up.
There were often arguments about prison food. For example, in 1926 the authorities gave a rating according to which the prisoners lived almost on a treat, while the prisoners reported “rodent remains” found in the soups. Complaints were made, but the food was inferior across the board.
The book sheds light interactions with inmates, guards and management very well. There were easier and absolutely unbearable relationships, even negotiations, but as a last resort many days in a dark isolation booth with water and bread.
Leaders of the Finnish Socialist Workers’ Party: Niilo Vällari (seated left), Hannes Mäkinen, Emil Tuomi, Kalle Huhtamäki, Alvar Lunden, Väinö Vuorio, Hjalmar Eklund, Arvo Tuominen
Prisoners often resorted to braking measures. However, the most effective and public was a week-long hunger strike in the fall of 1929. About a hundred political prisoners went on strike, and the far left organized support marches and gatherings across the country. A general strike was even declared, but it failed.
The hunger strike was widely reported in the newspapers, and a by-election was held in which the government won the confidence of the parliament by a vote of 99–54. The strike was so successful that prison conditions became a national issue – for a while.
Scientists deny the spontaneity of the strike. The question and answer wouldn’t even need to be asked afterwards, after all, a hundred men don’t throw themselves into a life-threateningly serious protest on a whim. The strike was primed for a long time. The different thing is that in the propaganda and memoirs of the time, the project had to be presented as a last cry for help.
Source clearly shows how you can find a lot of information even in a closed community. Of course, it requires hard work. Authentic images of the forced labor facility with its prisoners and guards are thrown.
The work with its interpretations makes you think about different aspects. Opposite feelings and anger, merciless acts, fighting for the right to exist. The 1920s are breathing behind.
The 1930s hardly eased the status of state prisoners – that becomes clear in the next Dragsvik book.
Tammisaari guards. Vilho Matinlassi in the top row Fifth from the right. The names of the other guards in the picture are not certain.
University alumni
Brother Pekka Leppänen
The author is a doctor of political science and a historian.
Tammisaari a whole bunch of politicians, former and up-and-coming, sat in the forced labor facility. There were MPs, ministers and ambassadors, such as Yrjö Mäkelin, Sulo Wuolijoki, Yesterday A. Wuori and Eino Pekkalaoli ay-pomo Matti Väisänenpiloting the Seamen’s Union Niilo Wällarithere were also doctors and journalists, and Arvo “Son” Importing. To name the most famous.
Someone familiar with the matter would like to prepare the alumni matriculation of this Tammisaari University. Whose path led to the stars, whose path led to the edge of the pit in Stalin’s persecutions? Many hundreds of lives and deaths.
There were surprises already during the prison term. In the 1925 presidential election, the far-left nominated Matti Väisänen (1887–1939), a member of parliament who led the ay central union SAJ before his prison sentence. Väisänen got 16 electors and 6.6 percent of the votes.
A reasonable result, no big speech round is organized from the prison.