Lapua Movement - Activities

Activities

Marches and meetings were arranged throughout the country. On June 16, 1930, more than 3,000 men arrived in Oulu in order to destroy the printing press and office of the Communist newspaper Pohjan Voima. However, the last issue of Pohjan Voima had appeared on June 14. The same day, a Communist printing press in Vaasa was destroyed. A so-called "Peasant March" to Helsinki was a major show of power. More than 12,000 men arrived in Helsinki on July 7. The government yielded under the pressure, and communist newspapers were outlawed in a "Protection of the Republic Act."

Meetings held by leftist and labour groups were also interrupted, often violently. More than 400 meeting locals owned by the labour movement were closed by Lapua activists.

One common treatment was "muilutus", which started with kidnapping and beating. After that the subject was thrown into a car and driven to the border of the Soviet Union. On October 14, 1930, the popular ex-president Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg and his wife were kidnapped and driven to Joensuu (i.e., not really to the Soviet border this time). After this the general support of the movement collapsed. Moderate people left the movement, and extremists took the stage.

Nevertheless, a few months later the Lapua Movement was capable of not only demanding "their man" appointed President of Finland by the Collegium of Electors, which only weeks before had been chosen in nation-wide voting, but a sufficient number of the electors followed the Lapua Movement's request, disregarding the intentions they had declared during the election campaign. The Movement's man, Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, was elected.