REVIEWS 363 Huttula, Tapio. Nauloilla laadittulaki. Tybvdentalojen sulkemiset1929-1932. Suomalaisen kirjallisuudenseura, Helsinki, 2000. 443 pp. Notes. Bibliography .Index.Englishsummary. FIMI50.00. FINLAND was the only one of the new statesformed afterthe FirstWorldWar where the democratic system survived both the crises of the I 930S and the Second WorldWar. This does not mean that there were no crises. Social and political tensions in Finlandwere not settledby the brutalcivil war of I9 I8, to say the least. Communist activityin Finland also grew quite aggressiveat the end of the I 920s, true to the offensive line adopted by the Comintern. This triggered a rightistmovement, which soon took on fascistovertones and was able to affect the policies of the government and the practices of the civil service. This rightistferment, known under the title of the Lapua Movement, culminated in the so-called Mantsala rebellion in I932, where a small armed group resistedthe government for some time and presented its own demands. After Mantsala, Finnish right-wing radicalismwas rapidly marginalized and in the I939 elections the radical right receivedjust seven parliamentaryseats out of 2oo. While the multipartysystemsurvivedand while therewerejust a handfulof casualties,it does not follow thatthe crisisof democracy in Finlandwasmerely superficial.In fact, quite a lot happened on the local level, where directaction reached mass dimensions. Tapio Huttula's book delves into one of the lesserknown aspects of this crisis, namely the closing down of the labour halls. Labour organizations had been building their halls since the nineteenth century and by I9 I6 there were almost one thousand labour halls in Finland. The authordoes not give exact numbersfor the end of the I920S, but the sum total seems to have remained almost the same, while about 65o halls were occupied by Social Democrats and the restby Communists. The Communist partywas illegal in Finland, but it ran a wide range of activitiesunder a legal guise. From the autumn of I929 rightist mobs began to force the closure of the Communist labour halls. At the end of the year a new Associations Act empowered the authoritiesto close down the halls. Within a couple of years, from the autumn of I929 until the spring of I932, no less than 399 cases of 'nailings'(a term deriving from the practice of nailing the hall entrance shut) or hall closurestook place. The authorhas surveyedevery single case and also provides a complete list of them with a short description of each. The survey reveals interesting information about the progressof the rightistmovement and its geographical dimensions. It turns out that no less than 285 cases of closures and nailings took place in I930 alone. In 332 cases the halls were owned by the Communists, in 67 cases by the Social Democrats. In 39 cases, the doors of the halls were physically nailed shut, there were also ten cases of arson, four cases involvingthe use of explosivesand also otherviolence, but over 300 halls were simply closed down by authorities with little or no violence. The state police had an active role in the closures and they were motivated by the necessity of avoiding disturbances.As the author shows, the closures were at first directed against the Communists and often took the form of a patriotic 364 SEER, 8o, 2, 2002 ritual.Later,the movementwas radicalizedand turnedagainstthe Social Democrats.The two phasesare distinctlyseparatefrom each other.The radicalized movementalsoresortedto violence,whichreducedthesphereof itssupport. AtfirsteventheSocialDemocratshadbeenmerelylukewarm or formally criticaloftheclosures. Yetalongwiththegrowingviolencenotonly the bourgeoiscentre,but even the majorityof the supporters of the rightist parties,leftthemovement. Afterclosure,thehallsweremostlysoldinauctions.Inthegreatest number oftheestablished casesthenewproprietors wereSocialDemocratic organizations (8I cases).TheCivilGuard(suojeluskunnat), othernon-socialist organizationsandvariousprivatepersonsalsobecamenewlandlords in manycases. Quiteoftenthenewproprietor remainsunknown. Theauthorofthispieceof scrupulous researchhasbeen ablealsoto givesomeinteresting information aboutthe geographical andorganizational aspectsof the Lapuamovement. This is perhapsstillnot the finalnailin the construction of studiesintothe crisisofdemocracy inFinland, butitisanimpressive addition andcomplement totheconsiderable corpusofstudytodate. Renvall Institute TIMO VIHAVAINEN University ofHelsinki Boobbyer, Philip. TheStalinEra. Routledge Studies in History. Routledge, London and New York,2000. XX + 250 pp. Bibliography.Index. fI4.99 (paperback). WRITING about Stalinism has exploded over the last decade thanks to the conjuncture of newly-available archives in the defunct Soviet Union and history'sawakeninginterestin culturaland social theory.New scholarshiphas therefore been able to grafttheory on to rich new archival sources so that as Sheila Fitzpatrick,the doyenne of Staliniststudies...
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