Reno said:
But the peace of Tartto was signed by the Finnish government. True Eastern-Karelian conquest attempt was not tried by Finland but by it's citizens. Although Mannerheim supported the war.
They did not sign it to end a war; they signed it to recognize Soviet Russia, since there was not an existing peace treaty with the nations. Finnish citizen (volunteers, not army soldiers) were fighting on Russian soil to liberate Karelians, yes, but Finland as a country was not in a war with Soviet Russia even though they did not have a peace treaty. I cannot emphasize this enough: the reason why this peace treaty did not exist between the countries of Finland and Soviet Russia was because
Soviet Russia did not exist as a country, not because there would have been a war going on.
Mannerheim supported Finns fighting in Karelia to liberate them, but he did it as a citizen of Finland, not as the head of state which he was until 1919.
Sure, it was a Grand Duchy, but with it's own law's vastly different from the rest of Russia. And we had our own Senate. Hence a Republic.
Russia also had their
duma, it did not make them a Republic.
Finns did see their nation apart from Russian. Russia was led by their government, and Czar was the leader of it, while Finland was led by their government apart from the Russian one, and the Grand Prince (or Grand Duke or whatever it would be) was the leader of the Finnish government. It was just a coincidence that Russian Czar and Finnish Grand Prince happened to be the same person. It still didn't mean that the Russian
government would have anything to say to issues of Finland. Only the Grand Prince (i.e. the Czar did).
That's how it was seen in Finland. Finns tried to point out the Czar as the ultimate ruler because then Russian government had less influence on Finns.
Therefore, we cannot consider Finland to be a republic. True, we had our own senate (altough the Czar and the General Gouvernor were the main characters who appointed it, for example the "saber senate" of 1916 consisting ONLY of Russian admirals and marshals). We also had our own one-chambered parliament since 1906, and everyone were allowed to vote - even the women!
But what use is a parliament, when the Czar has the right to abandon every law it makes, and to dissolve the parliament whenever he wants to?
This brings us to question..
WHAT IS A REPUBLIC?
I'd say that in modernday world, most people would consider Republic to be a government in which the PEOPLE of the nation have the highest power (which is used by representives, i.e. MP's, who the people chooce). A parliament did exist in Finland
but it did not have the highest power until november 15th 1917. Therefore, Finland was not a true republic until then, altough it was more liberal in it's constitution than Russia. Finland was a monarchy, with the monarch being the highest executive and the highest legaslative force in the nation.
A possible exception is the three-four White Movements that were formally allied.
As the saying goes "Where ever there has been fighting in Europe the Polish have always lost." (Missä ikinä on Euroopassa taisteltukin Puolalaiset ovat aina hävinneet.)
