Red Guards (Finland)

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Red Guards Finnish: Punakaarti Swedish: Röda gardet
A Red Guard fighter (right) and a nurse (left) in 1918
Leaders	Johan Kock Ali Aaltonen Eero Haapalainen Eino Rahja Kullervo Manner Otto Wille Kuusinen
Dates of operation	1905–1907 1917–1920
Allegiance	Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic
Active regions	Finland (FSWR), East Karelia
Ideology	Socialism Communism Left-wing nationalism
Allies	Russian Red Guards  Russian SFSR
Opponents	Russian Empire (1905–1907) Protection Corps (1905–1906) Finland (1918) White Guards (1917–1920)  German Empire (1918)
Battles and wars	Russian Revolution of 1905 Finnish Civil War Estonian War of Independence Kinship Wars

The Red Guards (Finnish: Punakaarti, IPA: [ˈpunɑˌkɑːrti]; Swedish: Röda gardet) were the paramilitary units of the labour movement in Finland during the early 1900s. The Red Guards formed the army of Red Finland and were one of the main belligerents of the Finnish Civil War in 1918.

The Red Guards were first established during the 1905 general strike but disbanded a year later until they were re-established after the February Revolution in 1917. The combined strength of the Red Guard was about 30,000 at the beginning of the Civil War, peaking at between 90,000 and 120,000 during the course of the conflict, including more than 2,000 members of the Women's Guards. The Red Guards were defeated in Finland by the Whites in May 1918 and around 80,000 were captured as prisoners of war, where 12,000 to 14,000 of them died in the post-war prison camps due to disease, malnutrition, and execution. Most Red Guards were pardoned by the Government of Finland in late 1918.

Approximately 10,000 to 13,000 Red Guards fled to Soviet Russia where some fought against the Finnish Whites in the Russian Civil War, including the North Russia intervention and the Estonian War of Independence.^[1] The Red Guards ceased to exist as an organized force by 1920.