Finnish People's Delegation

The Finnish People's Delegation (Finnish: Suomen kansanvaltuuskunta) was a governmental body, created by a group of members in the Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP), to serve as the Government of the Reds during the Finnish Civil War. Chairman of the Delegation was former Speaker of the Parliament Kullervo Manner.

The Delegation seized power at the start of the civil war by supplanting Pehr Evind Svinhufvud's first senate and the Parliament, after which it passed laws and enactments aspiring to a controlled social reformation as per the policy of the labor movement. A corporate Workers' General Council also operated alongside the Delegation, although its' role in the Reds' administration remained rather minor. The most ambitious of the Delegation's legislative undertakings was a proposition for a new constitution, which aimed at keeping a Democratic foundation. The act could not be implemented amidst the war and the progress advanced in the complete opposite direction; eventually the Chairman of the Delegation Manner was even declared dictator of Finland. The Delegation faced major difficulties in organizing the administration and the economy, and it could not prevent the terror exercised by the Red Guards.

Soviet Russia was the only nation to recognize the Delegation as Finland's lawful government. At the final stages of the war at the beginning of April 1918, the Delegation moved from Helsinki to Vyborg from where its' members eventually fled to Petrograd.

The decision to start an armed revolution was initially made by Red Guards' leadership and by a branch split from SDP's party committee on 23 January 1918 called "Finland's workers' executive committee", whose members represented the most radical wing of the labor movement. On the night of 27 January, the executive committee ordered the Red Guards to arrest members of the senate led by P. E. Svinhufvud, and a host of other leading capitalist politicians, including 33 members of Parliament; however, this failed completely. Red Guards' Supreme military staff postponed the coup by a day because of unfinished preparations, so the senators were informed of the arrest warrant through a prematurely issued public handout, and had time to hide. The assembling of Parliament on 28 January was blocked and a few members that turned up were arrested.

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