G ENOCIDE AND E THNIC C LEANSING ? T HE F ATE OF R USSIAN “A LIENS AND E NEMIES ” IN THE F INNISH C IVIL W AR IN 1918 J YRKI L OIMA INTRODUCTION:TASK,SOURCES, AND POLITICAL SITUATION IN 1918 This study examines the treatment of Russians and other “Russian” foreigners such as Baltic, Polish, and Ukrainian peoples during the Finnish Civil War. 1 It first provides an analysis of the most noteworthy “ethnic” battlefields—Tampere and Rautu—from this particular point of view, concentrating especially upon the foreign combatant and civilian population. It then considers the Russian prisoners of war (POWs) and their destinies during and after the Finnish Civil War as well as the national and international rules regarding the treatment of civilians under wartime conditions. Those responsible for the treatment of foreign POWs will also receive attention. The brief but savage war in Finland was a local, ideological outburst at the end of World War I (WWI), which itself opened political possibilities for various small European nations to reach for independence. The Finnish Civil War was caused by three main phenomena. First, Russian Tsarist troops and navy and military officials lost their willingness, motivation, and control in the Grand Duchy of Finland along with the revolutions in March and October 1917. Consequently, Finnish workers had organized voluntarily, but armed Red Guards to maintain control in industrial towns and southern Finland, while farm owners and the middle class had their White Guards for the same reasons elsewhere. Second, the Senate of Finland voted for and manifested the Declaration of Independence in December 1917, but the political question of power remained open. Third, a Russian military train from St. Petersburg in January 1918 was a final spark to start local and sporadic shooting, which rapidly flamed into Jyrki Loima is an adjunct professor/docent in Intellectual History and History of Minorities, Universities of Joensuu and Helsinki. 1. For the purposes of this study, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, and Ukrainians will be included in the term “Russians.”