In the previous InsideGMT article on All Bridges Burning, we looked in in more detail at some historical particularities the game deals with. It is understood that as a topic the Finnish Civil War is relatively little known, and so gamers may appreciate detailed looks at some aspects of the history and how these are simulated in the game.

In this article we’ll look in more detail at some of the Moderates faction’s commands and special activities.

In the historical literature, the Finnish Civil War is not typically considered a three but a two-party affair. All Bridges Burning, however, tells a little bit different story ―controversial even― of the war as a three-party affair. There is, however, one mention in the literature on the three-party structure, this from the “grand old man” of Finnish history, Ohto Manninen, who in a 1978 paper spoke of a third group in the Finnish Civil War:

“There is still a great deal to be done on the objectives and motives of the Reds and Whites, but  above all, a third group, those who remained neutral or stayed outside the conflict, has received little or no attention. These neutrals can be and have indeed sometimes been called ‘Blues’.”

(Manninen, Ohto, 1978. Red, White and Blue in Finland, 1918: A Survey of Interpretations of the Civil War. Scandinavian Journal of History 3(1-4).)

In All Bridges Burning, the Moderates are individuals and groups who rejected the violent means by which the societal problems and divisions were being addressed in the country. They sought to influence the warring parties through various means to initiate peace negotiations as well as to maintain and developed moderate political structures for the purposes of post-conflict societal reform.

A game of All Bridges Burning in full action. (Non-final playtest art.)

Moderates and the News markers

Unsurprisingly, information on the activities of Manninen’s “Blues” is hard to come by in the literature. My sources in the design process were mainly certain wartime memoirs of individuals the game casts as the Moderates.

In this regard, of significant interest is the wartime diary of Juhani Aho, a novelist, journalist, and a formative literary figure in Finland.

Aho was a self-confessed bourgeoisie and spent the war in Reds controlled Helsinki from the onset of the Red Revolt in late January 1918 to the arrival of the Germans in Helsinki in mid April and beyond. His diary is a fascinating look at life in Red Helsinki as seen by an ardent critic of the Red Revolt. However, while a critic of the Red Revolt, Aho was nonetheless a “moderate” in that he understood and even sympathized with the plight from which the Red Revolt sprung:

“Those ideals, that drove the worker’s movement, have also belonged to others, to us as well, to that entire generation to which I belong”.

In Aho’s view, the Red Revolt was definitely to be condemned, but still, for sake of the future of the country, societal reforms had to be instituted to prevent the tragedy from repeating:

“We can no more return to the old forms. A new society must be built. We must begin with a confession of sins. The causes that have led to this situation must be eliminated.”

The novelist, Juhani Aho, wrote a number of novels formative in the development of Finnish literature describing life in modernizing Finland of the 19th and early 20th century. (Image Source)

In Phase II, the war phase of the game, one of the things the Moderates player will find themselves doing is the gathering and distribution News given rise to by events and atrocities committed in the war. In All Bridges Burning, occurrences such as the Germans landing on Finnish soil, extensive Terror, and particularly destructive Attacks give rise to News markers on the map.

In the game, the Moderates may move their cells to these News markers, pick them up, and transport them to where their Personality marker resides. Along the way they will have to avoid capture by unfriendly cells. Once the News reach the Personality, the Moderates may undertake a Special Activity to “cash in” the News for certain benefits: more Resources, a decrease in Polarization, or an advance in the political process.

The Message command as described in the faction foldout sheet (non-final playtest art).

This bundle of mechanics is partly based on Aho’s diary. Thus, in the diary entry for 26 March 1918, two months into the civil war, Aho tells of an informal “news agency” that had got set up among Aho and his bourgeoisie friends in Helsinki:

“I went to Pietarinkatu 5 [an address in Helsinki] where, at a friend of mine who did not have other service personnel in the house than their own, there had been a “news agency” during the entire revolt. There we gathered together from various corners all contributing straws of information to a shared pile.”

Earlier in the diary Aho had written:

We’ve got some acquaintances with a proper news agency where we gather once or twice a day to estimate the course of the war of liberation.

Aho speaks there of the war of liberation, a common term used by the Senate supporters to describe their efforts to defeat the Red Revolt.

Aho goes on to describe the news agency as consisting of a network of bourgeoisie persons, politicians, journalists, and more, noting also that other news networks existed in the town. Elsewhere in the diary Aho also mentions the news agency having got its hands to a private letter from a Red Guard in the town of Tampere. The letter describes the desperate conditions among the Reds in the town as it was besieged and assaulted by the White Senate army.

Such information undoubtedly played a role as Aho and others gathered to discuss the reforms needed in the post-war country. In All Bridges Burning, the News mechanic describes such efforts at acquiring News as well as the hypothetical uses these were put to by the “moderates”.

A second key “moderate” person highlighted in he game is the formative Finnish politician Väinö Tanner. Tanner was a Social Democratic Party politician who, however, did not join his party comrades in the Red Revolt. In the decades after the civil war, Tanner went on to lead the Finnish Social Democratic Party and to serve in important ministerial and other political positions.

Tanner, too, engaged in “News” gathering efforts for the purposes of exposing war’s excesses and in order to bring the warring parties to the negotiation table. Tanner and associates held meetings in what they referred to as the catacomb. A striking example of the “moderates” acquiring and spreading News was the confidential Senate report on the conditions at the prisoners of war camps ―the so-called Tigerstedt report, named after its author. Tanner got hold of the report and leaked it to the foreign press during a trip to Stockholm, Sweden. The uproar was international and affected the way the victors handled their Reds captives.

Moderates and the Publish Special Activity

In All Bridges Burning, the Moderates have a special activity called Publish. Thematically, it denotes the Moderates attempts to publish written materials from truce proposals to newspaper columns aimed at setting the stage for peace. In the game, Publish earns the Moderates more resources which, in All Bridges Burning, are understood as political will and political capital.

The Publish special activity as described in the faction foldout sheet. (Non-final playtest art.)

Historically, several attempts at initiating peace negotiations are known. Even the otherwise revolutionary Reds newspaper Työmies (“The Worker”) published a number of writings (such on 8 April 1918, two months into the civil war; the digitized version of the article, in Finnish, can be read here). Only two days later in The Worker, again, Tanner and the group of moderate Social Democrats around him published a truce proposal (the digitized version of the article, in Finnish, can be read here).

Again, towards the end of the war, Tanner and two dozen other signatories published a second proposal, this one was sold in the streets as The Worker had ceased to exist upon the arrival of the Germans in Helsinki following the capture of the town from the Reds in 12-13 April 1918. In a somewhat skeptical tone about the intentions of the Germans, Tanner explains the background to the truce proposal:

“Quite soon after the Germans set up in Helsinki, I got an invitation to arrive at the German headquarters in Hotel Kämp. […] Apparently, the [Germans’] purpose was not to interfere in the country’s internal matters, only to pacify the country. If they could in this mission save ammunition as well as lives and instead of those only spend newspaper sheets, this would mean great savings for them. They would be grateful to us if we could influence the armed Reds forces in the direction that blood letting would cease. […] We promised to consider the matter, and the result was the then much discussed, of 25 Social Democratic Party members’ on 16 April [1918] signed wide-ranging declaration, in which the situation was explained and the request made that the Reds forces give up resistance that would only cause unnecessary blood letting.”

The said declaration ended with the words: “Therefore, weapons down everywhere and let us return to the fighting methods of Western democracy, let us return to constructive parliamentary work and nonviolent union action”.

Articles in this Series: Part 1  Part 2

Author: V.P.J. Arponen