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p Finland in the 1930s was more like a fascist than a bourgeoisdemocratic state. The social and political life of the country was dominated by organisations with marked chauvinistic, fascist leanings: the para-military Suojeluskuntalaisel, the Lotta Svard women’s organisation, the Academic Karelian Society, the Patriotic National Movement, and others.

p Official representation of the working class was monopolised by the Social-Democratic Party, then controlled by a Right-wing reactionary leadership. The party’s position was strengthened by harsh government repression of all Left working-class organisations.

p Finland’s 100,000-strong revolutionary trade-union organisation was disbanded in 1932, while the Communist Party had been outlawed from the moment it was founded in 1918. The upsurge of the anti-fascist movement in Europe after German fascism came to power was also felt in Finland, stimulating a nation-wide discussion of the question of a united workers’ and people’s front. Some legal possibilities even opened up for the Left forces to work for peace and democracy and against war and fascism.

p The events in Spain following the fascist revolt enhanced these new trends in the political life of Finland. Although the bourgeois press presented a distorted picture of the situation depicting the government of the Spanish Republic as despotic, and the reactionary revolt as a national liberation movement, Finnish workers were nonetheless able to grasp the real meaning of those events thanks largely to the efforts of the Communists and certain progressive magazines. Workers were everywhere .discussing the latest news from Spain and collecting money for the Spanish people. Local Social-Democratic organisations where Left elements were in the majority collected contributions and arranged lectures and concerts in behalf of the Spanish Republic. At the initiative of its chairman, Sylvi-Kyllikki Kilpi, the Social-Democratic Women’s Union organised aid to Spanish children. However, the Social- 126 Democratic leadership, fearing the growing influence of Left elements in the workers’ movement, tried to inhibit all mass forms of solidarity. The Women’s Union conducted its collection campaign as a neutral, charity project. Moreover, it avoided publicity and tried to keep people with Left views from active participation in it. The Finnish Committee for Aid to Spanish Children sent 100,000 francs, as well as food and clothing, to Spain through the International Committee in Paris.

p The only political force in the country to work vigorously and consistently for all-round assistance to the Spanish Republic was the Communist Party. Its attempts to create a united front of all democratic forces were continually hampered by the leadership of the Social-Democratic Party. Although denied the right to use the press and verbal propaganda and agitation, the Communist Party nonetheless worked hard to turn the aid-to-Spain campaign into a broad public movement and to connect it with the movement for a united Popular Front.

p High on the list of measures taken by the Communist Party to support the Spanish Republic was its selection and dispatching of volunteers. The Comintern’s appeal found favourable response in Finland; there were many who were ready and willing to take up arms to stop fascism. But the government repression and the fact that the Party had to operate underground prevented the movement from assuming mass proportions.

p The government used the pretext of Finland’s “neutrality” to prohibit volunteers from leaving Finland, and the political police kept a vigilant eye out for violations of the ban. It required great resourcefulness on the part of the volunteers and organisers to avoid police surveillance. Anyone caught trying to leave for Republican Spain could be tried on charges of "intention to commit treason”. Any worker expressing a desire to leave the country was suspected of intentions to join the International Brigade and was subjected to stern questioning. Most left the country by illegal means.

p The volunteers preferred the route via Sweden. They travelled singly and often without money to the assembly point in Stockholm, from where they usually proceeded in groups by sea to France.

p Overcoming obstacles connected with their lack of documents and their unfamiliarity with the language, and running into French gendarmes as they crossed the Pyrenees, or the fascists in the Mediterranean between Murcia and Barcelona (as was the case, for example, with the Spanish Republican merchant ship, the Ciudad de Barcelona, which the fascists torpedoed on May 30, 1937), the volunteers ultimately reached Spain.

p Of the 300 to 350 Finnish volunteers, about 60 came directly from Finland, primarily from Helsinki, Vyborg, Turku, 127
Finnish volunteers at Albacete, July 1937
Pietarsaari and Kemi. The others came from countries like the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union and Sweden, to which they had earlier emigrated. Seamen made a considerable group. Most were workers, the youngest of whom was 16, and the oldest 40. Some had gone through military service in the Finnish army, while others had either taken part in the Finnish civil war of 1918, the Russian civil war, or in the First World War. Most of the volunteers who came from Finland were Communists, but there were also some Social-Democrats and some who belonged to no party. Differences in political views, however, did not interfere with the militant camaraderie of the volunteers in the ranks of the International Brigades.

p Finnish volunteers began arriving in Spain in groups in the beginning of 1937. Prior to that a few had come singly from other countries. One of the first was Tuure Lehen, a Communist who came from the USSR. In September 1936, he was in Madrid in the ranks of the famous 5th Regiment, training soldiers of the People’s Militia. Later he was in Albacete helping to organise the International Brigades, and since the spring of 1937 he was an instructor in the international and Spanish formations.

p When the Finnish volunteers began arriving in Spain, they were assigned to various units of the International Brigades, which made it difficult for those who knew no other language but Finnish. Later, in the course of the war, it became possible to bring 128 Finns together, primarily into units of the 15th International Brigade. In the Canadian Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of that brigade, a machine-gun company, named after Jaakko Ilkka (leader of the Finnish peasant uprising of 1597-98), was formed and placed, under the command of Captain Niilo Makela, a Finn from Canada. Among the other commanders in the battalion were Finns from the United States, Canada and Finland. Finns also served in the machine-gun company of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion of that same brigade, one machine-gun platoon of which was named after the Finnish revolutionary, Toivo Antikainen. About 20 Finns fought in the llth International Brigade. Small groups of Finns served in rifle companies, guerrilla detachments, the artillery and various army services and medical units.

p The combat history of the Finnish volunteers began in February 1937, when in the ranks of the llth International Brigade Finns took part in repulsing an insurgent offensive at the Jarama river. Next, Finnish machine-gunners took part in the fighting against Italian interventionists near Guadalajara. There, machine- gunner Paavo Pajunen fought with outstanding courage as in the course of the battle he replaced the wounded M. G. platoon commander, Henry Maki, a Finn from Canada.

p The Toivo Antikainen M. G. Platoon, commanded by Niilo Kruth, a Finn from the U.S.A., saw its first action in the Brunete operation in July 1937. In command of machine-gun teams were the Finns, Toivo Suni from Canada, Henry Bushka from the U.S.A. and Frans Pakkala from Finland. Finns participated in the attacks and counter-attacks at Villanueve de la Canada and at Mosquito Crest, where they suffered their first casualties in killed and wounded. Sergeant Suni’s machine-gun group distinguished itself in the fighting to repulse an attack by the Moroccan cavalry.

But the largest and most difficult military operation in which the bravery, steadfastness and fighting qualities of the Finnish volunteers were displayed in full measure was the retreat of the troops of the Eastern (Aragon) Front in March and April 1938. On March 9, the insurgents and interventionists suddenly attacked the Republican troops with several infantry corps supported by tanks after devastating artillery and aerial barrage. The Republicans hastily retreated. Their communications were cut, and a wide breach was made in their line of defence. The iob of closing the breach, into which four enemy divisions were pouring, was assigned to three incomplete International Brigades of the 35th Division. The forces were too uneven, and the most the internationalists could do was to try to prevent the enemy’s motorised columns, which were now moving fast over every road towards the Republican rear, from surrounding them. The men of the 35th Division selflessly repulsed the enemy wherever the locality permitted.

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Paavo Koskinen (Gunnar Ebb)

p At that time, the Mackenzie- Papineau Battalion almost always acted as the 15th Brigade’s rearguard. Time after time, units of the battalion, and above all the machine-gun company, clashed with fascist troops pressing in from the rear and the flanks. The constant skirmishes with the enemy and the latter’s frequent air attacks, during which the roads were bombed and strafed, disrupted the Republican columns, caused units to become confused, and took a heavy toll in lives.

p On its very first day on the front, on March 10, after an all-night march, the Canadian Battalion ran into advanced detachments of the Italian Black Arrows and Blue Arrows divisions. The machine-gun company took up convenient positions on a hill north of the village of Azuara, near Belchite. The platoon under the command of Henry Bushka dug in on the northern slope and Lt. Gunnar Ebb’s (Paavo Koskinen’s) platoon, on the southern. Skilled machine-gunners Kauko Nihtila, the Finnish sailor who had distinguished himself in the battle of the Jarama, Villi Paakko and Sergeant Toivo Suni, hero of the battle of Brunete, had their machine-guns trained on the two roads to Lecera over which the enemy was trying to break through to the 15th Brigade’s rear. The hill was bombarded by fascist artillery and bombed from the air. Among those killed was Yrjo Kyyny, a Finnish volunteer from Canada. But the machine-gunners kept up their fire throughout the day.

p At nightfall, the battalion was ordered to retreat to new positions beyond the Aguas river, two kilometres from its former line. They dug trenches all the night. At that place, the only highway to Lecera passed through a gorge, which provided a good vantage point for keeping the entire area occupied by the fascists under 130 fire. A group of machine-gunners was positioned on the top of a sheer and nearly inaccessible cliff directly above the highway.

p At daybreak, the superior enemy forces renewed their offensive, but were met with heavy artillery and machine-gun fire. At that moment, the battalion received orders from the divisional command to retreat in the direction of Lecera, and immediately began carrying them out. But the order never reached the machine-gun group on the cliff: the messengers had been killed. After covering the withdrawal of their comrades-in-arms, the men on the cliff kept up the fight to their last cartridge, whereupon they were surrounded and brutally murdered by the fascists. Among those brave internationalists were Group Commander Nihtila, Platoon Commander Bushka, Commissar Aarne Mynttinen, and machine-gunner Villi Paakko.

p In the meantime, fighting was going on south of Belchite, where the llth Brigade’s infantry and a Finnish machine-gun group, in which Eero Lojander served, were caught in an encirclement. Italian tanks had blocked the group’s retreat route. Putting up a fierce fight, the machine-gunners helped their unit break out of the encirclement, but by then they themselves were cut off and lost all contact with the other units of their brigade. Only upon reaching Hi jar were they able to rejoin the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.

p As it retreated towards Lecera, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion’s machine-gun company learned that the fascists had already occupied the town and that the only road leading from it to Albalate was under enemy artillery fire. There was only one way out—to bypass Lecera and to reach Albalate in a roundabout way. Late in the evening of March 12, after travelling by country roads, hunted down by fascist planes, and having lost contact with the Brigade HQ, the men of the Canadian Battalion came out onto the highway about two kilometres from Albalate. The commander of the machine-gunners, Gunnar Ebb (Paavo Koskinen), had orders from the division commander, General Walter (Swierczewski), to set up a line of defence. But in a few hours the order was given to continue retreating towards Hijar, because the enemy, flanking the brigade on the right, was approaching that town. Under heavy enemy fire, the machine-gunners drove headlong through Hi jar, now enveloped in flames, and came out onto the road leading to Alcaniz. The other units of the Canadian Battalion were forced to turn off the highway and to move towards Alcaniz in roundabout ways, often losing contact with each other.

p Six kilometres from the city, a Republican artillery battery, without infantry cover, bombarded the advancing fascists. Then the commander of the Ilkka M. G. Company, Captain Makela, ordered his men to take up defensive positions on the closest hills. 131 Coming up to join the company at that point were riflemen from the 15th Brigade and machine-gunners from the Lincoln Battalion who had lost contact with their units. Thus a composite detachment was formed, consisting of a group of heavy machine-guns with Finnish machine-gunners Eero Hautojarvi and Lojander, a group of light machine-guns under the command of Asser Mantere (also a Finn), a rifle unit and one tank. This detachment, headed by Ebb (Koskinen), joined battle with two squadrons of the Moroccan cavalry and thwarted their attempt to flank the Republican column on the left.

p Ebb’s detachment held its position for a day and a half, but when on the morning of March 15 it became known that the fascists had accomplished the flanking manoeuvre and taken Alcaniz, the detachment moved northward, taking back roads, in the direction of Caspe. Towards evening the soldiers were already engaging the enemy at the approaches to Caspe, the first town along the six-day line of retreat that had not yet been taken by the enemy. The composite units of the 15th and llth International brigades, 1,200 men in all, took up defensive positions on the hills west of Caspe.

p For two days the internationalists put up a stubborn fight against the fascist Navarre Division which was advancing against them with the support of 30 guns and 30 tanks. The first enemy attacks were repulsed. In the afternoon of March 16, the fascists, bringing in fresh reinforcements, succeeded in breaking through to the town, but the internationalists, with the help of units of the 14th Brigade that had come up in the meantime, threw them back. Casualties in the battle at Caspe included Aulis Taivanen, killed, and M. G. Company Commander Makela and Platoon Commander Hugo Lehtovirta, both mortally wounded. Machinegunners Eero Hautojarvi, Eero Lojander, Asser Mantere and Olavi Ohman distinguished themselves in the fighting, as did Kaarlo Siskonen, who knocked out an enemy tank with a hand grenade.

p On the night of March 16, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, along with the entire 15th Brigade, was withdrawn to an area around Batea for rest and reinforcement. But the breathing spell was not long-lived. In the last days of March the battalion was again in the thick of battle, this time countering a renewed fascist attack at Gandesa. A rifle company under the command of I. Paivio, a Finn from Canada, along with Ebb’s machine-gun platoon which was attached to it, took up a position by the CalaceiteGandesa road east of the river Algas. Another detachment, under the command of Henry Maki, was reinforced with the machinegun teams of Walter Forsman, Asser Mantere and Tauno Hermans. Its job was to occupy positions at the Algas along the BateaMaella highway. At dawn, Paivio’s detachment was attacked and 132 surrounded by units of the Italian division, and in the uneven battle Paivio was captured. Hautojarvi’s machine-gun group, occupying a separate position, held off enemy tanks trying to break through to Gandesa. By nightfall, however, they had used up all their ammunition, whereupon they withdrew through a ravine to the crossroads leading from Batea to Calaceite.

p Mäki’s detachment, in the meantime, which was fighting between Batea and the River Algas, was forced to retreat to avoid being surrounded. But even so, the fascists succeeded in encircling Tauno Hermans’ machine-gun team. All the men, including Team Commander Hermans and orderly Syvert Virtanen from Helsinki, were killed.

p In the beginning of April the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, together with the entire 15th Brigade, was pulled back for regrouping and reinforcement. The ordeals of the March retreat had not shaken the morale of the Finnish internationalists; they were all eager to get back into action. In the course of reorganising the Canadian Battalion, Finnish volunteer Frank Rogers was appointed commissar, Henry Maki, commander of the second company, and Gunnar Ebb, commander of the machine-gun company.

p In the summer of 1938, the Finnish volunteers took part in their last action—the Republican Army’s drive to the Ebro. On the night of July 24, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion took up initial positions for making a forced crossing of the river in a sector between Flix and Asco. Ebb’s machine-gun company moved at the head of the battalion. At 5 hours 40 minutes the machine-gun groups climbed into the boats and the crossing began. The first to reach the opposite shore of the Ebro was Hautojarvi’s machine-gun group.

p A substantial role in the battalion’s successful crossing was played by the sailors found among the Finnish volunteers, men who were excellent rowers. A correspondent for the American newspaper, The Daily Worker, wrote in glowing terms about the feats of sailor Kaarlo Siskonen, Boris Karlenius, a leader of Canadian unemployed Walsh Castello, and Tauno Erkkila during the crossing which proceeded under continual artillery fire and attacks from the air. Olavi Suhonen was killed and Tauno Erkkila was wounded.

p As soon as it reached the other side, the machine-gun company was caught in the enemy’s artillery fire. The battalion suffered casualties in killed and wounded, among whom were some Finns. The enemy battery was neutralised only after the battalion had advanced five or six kilometres into the territory occupied by the fascists. The sudden strike by the Republican forces caught the fascists unawares. Many surrendered, and the battery that was bombarding the battalion was captured.

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p Towards morning on the following day, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion reached the outskirts of Corbera. The men, who all this time were wearing alpargatos (Spanish sandals), had barely time enough to get leather shoes from captured fascist supply depots when the town was subjected to heavy bombing that lasted all day and night. The battalion was ordered to quit the burning city and to head for the road going south from Gandesa. There, enemy resistance was particularly fierce.

p The machine-gun company was given the task of advancing to the south of Gandesa. Walter Forsman’s team, which was in the lead, got caught in a heavy cross fire. Forsman was mortally wounded, and machine-gunner Sulo Tourunen, from Canada, was killed. The major obstacle to the advance was Hill 368, held and fortified by the fascists. The fighting for this hill went on for three weeks, but because of the lack of artillery it was unsuccessful. Among those who fell in these battles was the activist in the Communist Party of Finland, Kalle Manninen, and the machinegun company’s messenger, Arvi Myllykangas, who came from Canada.

p After being pulled back for a few days’ rest, the MackenziePapineau Battalion was sent into the Sierra Pandols south of Gandesa to replace units of the glorious llth Division. The positions there were on bare cliffs, with no possibility of digging in, and there was no water available anywhere nearby. Shell, mine and bomb splinters took a heavy toll in casualties. The bombardment continued for days on end. It was there that Arvi Mikkolo was killed and Eero Hautojarvi and Kaarlo Siskonen were wounded.

p After heavy, exhausting battles, the men of the battalion, tortured by heat and thirst, were withdrawn. But soon they were taking part in a new offensive northeast of Gandesa, in the Sierra Caballs. Just before the offensive, the battalion commander fell ill, and Captain Ebb was appointed in his place. Ebb’s command of the machine-gun company was given to Karl Syvanen, a Finn from the U.S.A. who had taken part in the Brunete operation.

On September 21, after a short rest, the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion returned to its former positions to repulse a major offensive begun by the fascists. Fascist infantry and tanks, moving on in the wake of a heavy artillery barrage, squeezed off the battalion’s right flank. At the same time, the fascists cut off the battalion from neighbouring units on the left. Trapped in a pocket, the battalion began a fighting retreat. M. G. Company Commander Henry Maki from the U.S.A. was wounded, and the machine- gunner Viljo Siltanen from Canada was mortally wounded. This was the battalion’s and the Finnish volunteers’ last battle. The Spanish Republican Government issued a decree withdrawing the International Brigades from the front.

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Eino Laakso (Walter From)

p Two-thirds of the Finnish anti-fascists who had served in the battalion returned home. The remainder were either killed in action or murdered by the fascists after being captured. Those of the volunteers who survived remember with affection and respect their comrades-in-arms who gave their lives for the freedom of Spain.

p In the first half of 1937, the Republican Command had begun forming small guerrilla detachments to be sent into action in the enemy’s rear. They were made up primarily of Spaniards, but some internationalist volunteers were also accepted into their ranks. A group of Finnish volunteers was among them.

p A guerrilla detachment usually operated in the fascists’ rear for three or four days, and then returned through the front lines, using local inhabitants as guides. The guerrillas were armed with light machine-guns, submachineguns, Mausers, hand grenades, and mines that worked on a flashlight battery. The favourite weapon of the Finns was the submachine-gun, since it was very convenient in close combat. There was a shortage of weapons, and they had to be gotten mostly from captured fascist arms depots.

p In western Andalucfa a guerrilla detachment, which included five Finns, used an estate near Blazquez as an assembly point. From there the guerrillas would go out in groups to make raids along the Azuaga-Penarroya sector. In one of their operations they blew up an enemy train carrying fascist troops from Pueblonuevo to Belmez. Republicans keeping an eye out for the train from observation points in the hills reported that many fascists were killed in the explosion. In operations such as this, the explosives were usually placed by the Finns, Onni Hukkinen and Kallas Laakso.

p At the height of the fighting for Penarroya in the spring of 1937, a 100-man strong guerrilla detachment, which included eight Finns, penetrated to the fascists’ rear and blew up their headquarters. At Ovejo, five Finns took part in a guerrilla attack on a fascist caravan in which four lorries with foodstuffs were 135 destroyed. In a railway tunnel, that same detachment blew up a train carrying Italian soldiers.

p Six Finns were sent from a base in Ja6n to join a guerrilla detachment operating in the Segovia-Avila area. During the Brunete operation, this detachment, under the command of Ebb, kept the enemy’s communications under constant harassment. Among the Finns there were Reino Keto and Yrjo Korpi from Canada.

p Another guerrilla detachment, this one under the command of Lieutenant Eino Laakso, was sent to the mountain village of Lanteira in the Sierra Nevada. Operating from positions atop Mulhacen peak, the guerrillas made raids into enemy territory. The fighting went on there for two months, in the course of which the guerrillas blew up a hotel located on the slope of Mulhacen peak, in which high-ranking officers of the fascist army were quartered. Eino Laakso’s detachment accomplished raids on Guadix, just outside Granada, in Granada itself, and along the road to Malaga. During one of their sudden attacks, in which the Swede, Venberg, and the Finn, Vattulainen (both of whom were ultimately killed in Spain) took part, the guerrillas succeeded in freeing 200 prisoners of war.

p Four Finns served as miners in a guerrilla detachment that operated in the Broto-Fiscal (Upper Aragon) sector from their base in Boltana. Near Jaci a troop train was blown up, a mission in which Liimatainen and Hukkinen took part along with their Spanish comrades.

p During the battle of Belchite, the guerrillas, seven Finns among them, were very active, continually harassing the enemy’s troops and supply transport. In those operations Kallas Laakso and Ahti Lassila displayed outstanding courage and daring. Kallas Laakso, for example, burst into a room in which there were 20 fascists and destroyed them all with a burst of machine-gun fire.

The Finnish volunteers fought valiantly and selflessly in the first big battle against the fascists in Europe. Their feat still serves as an inspiring example to all democrats and anti-fascists in Finland.