He steals a machine
He is judged
Judged and taken to jail
Under the guard's eyes so grey
He turns into a machine himself
It is said
”Justice has prevailed again”
He murders a man
He is judged
Judged and taken to jail
Under the guard's eyes so sad
He turns into a corpse himself
It is said
”Justice has prevailed again”
(Chorus)
(Justice has) justice has prevailed again
An eye for an eye and peace on Earth
(Justice has) justice has prevailed again
On a way to a lifeless world
...
Hassisen Kone:
Oikeus on voittanut taas (1981)
XXVII. On a Way to a Lifeless World
...still is a subject of some controversy in the PPO and the FNA, though such plans were also taken into use by other remnant governments in Europe. The idea of prescribing a better-preserved area as a sort of a national redoubt and forsaking the more damaged territories pretty much entirely would have horrified many pre-war politicians, but in the post-Exchange conditions in Finland it was a dire necessity. As the Finnish Emergency Cabinet was struggling to rebuild even a rudimentary state apparatus, communications, food distribution and medical services, the northern and southern parts of the country were originally left outside of the plans for the near and intermediate future. In the north this meant the whole of the province of Lapland. In the south, the province of Uusimaa entirely and the southern parts of the Kymi, Häme and Turku and Pori provinces. The decision was prompted by what limited information the cabinet had about the nuclear explosions, about severed roads and railways and about which areas it had been able to get in touch with by radio. More information was received over time from surviving Air Force units that could send a handful of aircraft on reconnaissance flights over some parts of the country, including light transport planes, light trainers but also a few fighters such as a MiG-21, and a Draken.
These areas were in effect left to fend for themselves for an extended period of time, the surviving municipal and provincial officials remaining the highest available authority. All military units the cabinet's new General Staff was in contact with were withdrawn from these areas, if possible and having the means, to defend this national redoubt from all external and internal threats. This included not only the Red Army remnant in Southeastern Finland or any possibly subversive or criminal elements, but also a big part of the stricken but peaceful populace that was turning from an asset to a liability while the resources of the authorities were stretched towards breaking point.
Under pre-war legislation dating from 1972, the capital punishment was not to be taken into use even during a state of war. In the first two months after the exhange that presented a problem for enforcing martial law. Officially those who were, for example, found guilty of acting against state authority or looting were given an indefinite sentence of hard labour. In reality, however, the worst offenders would often get shot while
attempting to escape or
assaulting an officer of the law (now extended to military and Civil Defence personnel). After a period of uncertainty, the rump Parliament in Seinäjoki officially (though controversially) reinstated the capital punishment in April, partly prompted by a deadly attack against itself when a reserve military officer subscribing to far-right views shot two SDP parliamentarians near the Seinäjoki market square.[1] It had been 40 years since the last lawful execution in Finland.
While originally military checkpoints and refugee camps were formed only as parts of the perimeters set up around the different blast areas to help the evacuees, the inadequacy of the existing medical organisations to treat even a considerable part of those affected by the nuclear explosions and follow-up effects soon became apparent to local and provincial authorities. By April 1984 various military units deemed functional enough were ordered to establish a system of ”transit camps” along the major roadways to southern Finland to filter the refugees passing through, separating the desired from the undesired, in an effort to preserve trained medical personnel and supplies only for those who had a reasonable chance of survival – on the main, only those deemed healthy enough (often due to spurious criteria) would be allowed to reach the areas directly unaffected by the nuclear explosions. The process was much less pronounced in the north – but then even the potential number of refugees from Lapland would have been negligible.
The field hospitals attached to the transit camps (as well as the camps themselves) saw some of the most horrible conditions in post-Exchange Finland. Food as well as medical help was often nonexistent and those forced to stay suffered from 50% to 95% mortality. It has to be noted, however, that most of the people on the camps suffered from radiation sickness of varying stages, different mechanical injuries, various diseases and even malnutrition upon arrival and even in the most well-off areas under the Emergency Cabinet could not have received life-saving medical help. Allegedly, large-scale refusals to remain at camp resulted in breakouts which saw a bloody end when the military restored order swiftly and brutally. It has been estimated that desertion rates among the units in charge of maintaining the Line were especially high.[2]
That wartime regulations were still in order and that the military could be used to enforce them following orders from State and Provincial officials was being continually proclaimed by the YLE broadcasts and in posters put out by officials that were in contact with the new national leadership. The reformed Ministry of the Interior was behind this campaign to reassert state authority. That the state would have the monopoly of violence and that this would be made known was agreed among the members of the new cabinet. Anarchy would and could not be tolerated inside the Line. Outside it, chaos often reigned. But that wasn't something the tired, harried and often sick men and women sitting in Mikkeli or Seinäjoki could do anything about under the circumstances.
In some ways of course the Line and trying to maintain order and uphold the rule of law were just means to an end: the survival of the state and at least a part of the people. Where this is most evident is that first of all military and civilian authorities were during the first months after the exchange most worried about food, medicine and communications. If organised military or armed Civil Defence units were seen on the move on the snowbound roadways inside the Line, in tractor-drawn convoys, on various motor vehicles with snowploughs or even on skis, they were most likely on their way to take control of warehouses and shops, to set up food distribution or to open up vital roads for traffic. Road maintenance crews formerly under the aegis of the Roads and Waterways Works Authority[3] were very important for maintaining even the major roadways for traffic under the conditions. Due to their increased value and coming into contact with looters, deserters and bandits they were bolstered by police officers, soldiers or military police to form armed road patrols.
While some parts of the country remained unreachable by any means short of using the few Air Force and Border Guard helicopters that were still in a working condition[4], in the west and the east parts of the railway network were theoretically usable. In late March the Emergency Cabinet initiated an early effort to restart railway traffic in some places. Because the national electrical grid was mainly still down, the first trains to run would use the surviving Dv and Dr series diesel locomotives – as long as the fuel stockpiles would allow it. Restarting the traffic proved very slow, as it met several obstacles, including the need to clear several weeks' worth of snowfall (and ice that had formed during that time) from all otherwise usable tracks and switches, different mechanical troubles that were due to the cold weather and extended disuse of equipment and the dearth of technically proficient engineers and other railway personnel.
And that is not taking into account the long stretches of track rendered unusable by nearby nuclear explosions, shockwaves and firestorms. Some of the first locomotives to leave the surviving railway hub of Pieksämäki in Eastern Finland, equipped with heavy snowploughs and cranes, were pulling passenger and goods carriages full of military conscripts or civilians in work duty wielding chainsaws, hacksaws, axes and shovels on their way to open blocked parts of track running to the west or the north. Very soon, though, such efforts were deemed ineffective when several days of work trying to open the tracks near the Kuopio blast area yielded no concrete results and only caused the men working at the site to become sick with radiation poisoning, other (often related) ailments or exposure to the cold. More often than not clearing of the tracks would have to be left to the summer. In the end, for example the line running across central Finland to Ostrobothnia would be partially opened in 1985 when the State Railways was already starting to bring old steam locomotives back into use.[5]
The communications between the two main centres of civilian authority were maintained for the while by radio. Later when possible (and deemed necessary) light transport or military trainer aircraft were used, flying from the Mikkeli airport to the Seinäjoki airport (Ilmajoki). One of the remaining light military transports, a Piper PA-28, was used to send a small delegation from Seinäjoki to Sweden on a mission for help in April. The transport plane was chosen deliberately as one of the least ”military” aircraft available not to cause alarm in the Swedish. The problems with the availability of fuel and spare parts would mean that while the only partly damaged air base and Air Force Technical School in Halli (Jämsä) and the surviving road bases had a fair number of untouched aircraft of different types, keeping even a part of them flying would prove a major challenge in the future.
One indication of the de facto division of Finland into different areas with most communication cut between them was the reorganisation of the military into four streamlined ”Defence Areas” during 1984: the Eastern, headquartered in Mikkeli, the Western (Seinäjoki), the Northern (Kajaani) and the Southern (Lahti). While neat and logical on paper, the reorganisation was mostly due to accepting both that the first three of the HQ towns had managed to remain orderly centres for civilian and/or military authority and that they were in communication with the Cabinet. The Southern DA was, at first, mainly a theoretical formation as the areas placed under its authority were mostly either outside of the Line or actually under occupation by the remaining organised Soviet formations in Southeastern Finland. The Southern DA would become relevant only with the renewed hostilities with the Soviet troops in the spring, and then only as a support organisation. All Defence Areas, in turn, were theoretically under the new General Staff, though in reality both the Western and the Northern DA would work quite independently from Mikkeli for 1984 and into the following...
Notes:
[1] The assassin himself was shot and killed on the spot by regular police officers. Apparently the man had been convinced that the Soviet Union had already taken over Finland and that the parliamentarians were traitorous members of its secret puppet government.
[2] A lot of what has been written about the Line and the camps during
Minne 1984 is unfortunately based on conjecture and unverified accounts. Very few members of camp personnel have allowed themselves to be interviewed during the project. Additionally, FNA records about this issue remain incomplete, apparently misfiled and often classified.
[3]
Tie ja vesirakennuslaitos (TVL) or
Väg- och Vattenbyggnadsverket VVV).[/FONT]
[4] But it took some time before it became known that they, in fact, existed. The helicopters in question were two Mil Mi-8s in Säkylä and two AB 206s in Kajaani.
[5] These locomotives had been stockpiled at the Lievestuore train yard pre-war and would be converted to wood-fired to allow the use of domestic resources.
