Punaiset ja valkoiset: Kuvaus Suomen luokkasodasta

In the chaotic months of 1918 Finland teetered between a fledgling parliamentary order and a revolutionary surge from its own working masses. This audio work weaves together contemporary letters, newspaper excerpts and speeches to paint a raw picture of the streets where red flags flew beside the gunfire of a terrified bourgeoisie. Listeners hear the everyday concerns of miners, farm hands and city clerks as they grapple with promises of eight‑hour days, land reform and the looming threat of violent repression.

The narrator also follows the internal debates of the Social Democratic leadership, who wrestled with whether to seize the moment or preserve hard‑won parliamentary gains. By foregrounding the personal tragedies of massacres, imprisonments and orphaned children, the account challenges later histories that have downplayed the human toll. It offers a sober yet compelling window into a brief, brutal clash that reshaped Finnish society and still echoes in its politics today.