WI: Fascist Finland?

What if the Lapua Movement never fell out favor, by never attempting the Mantsala Rebellion? Could they have gained power in Helsinki? It would all hinge on Mannerheims support. But he wasn't necessarily anti-Lapua. And the Lapuans would most likely be more friendly towards the Axis.
 
And presuming Butterfly's don't erode to much and C.E.G. Mannerhein is still put power when WWII breaks out and may have stronger ties to NAZI germany.

Mannerheim was at the core of his person a Finnish nationalist. With command of a larger German army Mannerheim could have done wonders.
 
What if the Lapua Movement never fell out favor, by never attempting the Mantsala Rebellion? Could they have gained power in Helsinki? It would all hinge on Mannerheims support. But he wasn't necessarily anti-Lapua. And the Lapuans would most likely be more friendly towards the Axis.

You'd need an earlier POD than avoiding the Mäntsälä rebellion.

Generally speaking, to make Finland actually Fascist the Lapuans were too law-abiding. It was essentially a rural, conservative movement, and despite the rhetoric of some of its leaders too big a part of its supporters were not ready to go against the lawful authority of the first republic. See the Peasants' March of 1930 for example: even though it was a big show of force, it was nowhere near to a coup attempt and most of the participants in fact were very reverent towards the institutions of the republic, the president, the military leadership and the army.

By 1932 the movement was already seen as discredited even among the its own base, because of the kidnappings of Social Democrat MP and parliament vice chairman Väinö Hakkila and especially the respected former president K.J. Ståhlberg.

Also, by 1932 most of the movement's demands against the far left had already been fulfilled, for example the banning of Communist parties right after the 1930 elections. After this its support was on the way down and the Mäntsälä rebellion was an act of desperation on part of the extremist Lapua activists who were realizing that their historical moment had passed.

It is a paradox, really: to have a Lapua movement likely to make Finland Fascist you would need its rank and file seriously more extreme and anti-democratic, ready to destroy law and order to reach its goals. But a truly revolutionary right wing movement in post-late 20s Finland would never muster the supporter base big enough to overthrow the republic.

For Fascist Finland (or something so close to be undistinguishable from one), I would recommend a POD or PODs from the beginning of WWI to the early 20s. Making the Civil War or its aftermath go (even more) horribly wrong is my favourite starting point.

And Mannerheim? He was a career soldier, an anti-Bolshevik, an aristocrat and a royalist. He never did love democracy, but as traditionalist he believed in stability and duly constituted authority. He did refuse the Lapua Movement's suggestion to become their candidate for president (/dictator). If 30s Finland becomes Fascist in the form of steretypical jackbooted thuggery, it is not a bygone conclusion that Mannerheim would even accept the command of Finland's armies come a WWII-analogue. The old man might have better things to do than to go and work for idiots, his love for Finland notwithstanding.
 
Thanks for the reply, so I'll change the POD. Maybe, longer Communist control of Helsinki, or more violence between the Reds and the Whites.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
The Lapua radicals would need more active Conservative backing, Mannerheim tolerated them, so did many others, but none wanted to become too involved with them. If the Mäntsälä rebellion had gone out of hands things would quickly go down the toilet. I doubt the army would want to open fire at the suojeluskunta (anti- Communist militia), so the Lapua rebellion could probably seize Helsinki. However then the hard part come. Kosola was not that interested in seizing power. He would want to appoint a respectable Conservative leader as Dictator. Mannerheim is certainly an alternative. But then there would be conflict by the more radical Nationalists and the Conservatives. What my point is even a Lapua revolution would probably not create a Fascist State, but rather a Conservative Authoritarian State close to what Poland, the Baltic States and the Balkan States were.
 
Thanks for the reply, so I'll change the POD. Maybe, longer Communist control of Helsinki, or more violence between the Reds and the Whites.

Or maybe if the Civil War is avoided altogether. If there was something "good" about the Finnish Civil War, at least it sort of cleared the air and decimated the far left. This made the conservatives and various middle groups able to build the consensus that sustained the first republic. But if the war was avoided, just barely, 20s and 30s might have well been a running battle between increasingly polarizing right and left parties, with the state too weak to enforce a level, civilized political playing field.

Something a bit like Weimar Germany, in other words.


yourworstnightmare said:
What my point is even a Lapua revolution would probably not create a Fascist State, but rather a Conservative Authoritarian State close to what Poland, the Baltic States and the Balkan States were.

Agreed. As things go, Finnish extremists with a real shot at power in the early 20th century were not that extreme, all things considered. Even the Reds of 1918 would have rather wanted to built a vanilla Socialist Republic than a Bolshevik state.
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
Agreed. As things go, Finnish extremists with a real shot at power in the early 20th century were not that extreme, all things considered. Even the Reds of 1918 would have rather wanted to built a vanilla Socialist Republic than a Bolshevik state.
There were some very extreme dudes in the Lapua movement who really envisioned a Finland where the Swedish speakers were evicted and where all of Karelia and Norwegian Finnmarken was annexed. However they were a minority in the movement, and due to the need of cooperating with the Conservatives they could never be anything else than a minority.
 
There were some very extreme dudes in the Lapua movement who really envisioned a Finland where the Swedish speakers were evicted and where all of Karelia and Norwegian Finnmarken was annexed. However they were a minority in the movement, and due to the need of cooperating with the Conservatives they could never be anything else than a minority.

Quite. These guys were the fringe of the fringe, just like actual "Bolsheviks" were among the Civil War Red leadership.
 
Or maybe if the Civil War is avoided altogether. If there was something "good" about the Finnish Civil War, at least it sort of cleared the air and decimated the far left. This made the conservatives and various middle groups able to build the consensus that sustained the first republic. But if the war was avoided, just barely, 20s and 30s might have well been a running battle between increasingly polarizing right and left parties, with the state too weak to enforce a level, civilized political playing field.

Something a bit like Weimar Germany, in other words.

Alright, I've just had the empty folder with the title "Fascist Finland" on my desktop for some months now, and I just totally found myself out of my depth.
 
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