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New research sponsored by the Finnish government has found that some 39,500 people, almost 10,000 more than previously believed, died during Finland's four-month civil war in 1918, a historian said Friday. The study came about after relatives of fallen Socialist combatants claimed that the winning Conservative side and consecutive governments deliberately covered up its massacres of "Red" troops and the true extent of the bloodshed. Some 30,000 or so were until now believed to have died in the conflict. "The civil war caused a national trauma, and even though it has lessened over the years, the government saw the need in 1998 to launch a five-year research program into the war deaths," Heikki Ylikangas, a prominent historian in charge of the study, told AFP. Not least was the research made possible by the "change of atmosphere in Finland" following the collapse of the neighboring Soviet Union in 1991, he added. Finland was part of Russia from 1809 to December 6, 1917, when, on the heels of the Russian revolution, Finns declared themselves independent. Just a month later, however, a domestic power struggle between "Red" Socialists and "White" Conservatives erupted into a full-blown civil war that involved almost 200,000 combatants, including troops from Russia and Germany. Battles from January to May 1918 pitting urban Socialist workers against Conservative farmers claimed the lives of more than 5,000 fighters on each side, the study completed this week found. Both factions in addition carried out executions and massacres of civilians, but mostly "White" forces, who slaughtered around 10,000 Socialists and their sympathizers outside combat, Ylikangas noted. Almost 13,000 "Reds" died in prison camps -- half of them succumbing to disease -- while 2,000 others simply went missing, bringing Socialist losses to over 30,000, he said. Included in the overall death toll are also 2,500 Russian troops fighting on the "Red" side, 400 German soldiers in "White" service, about 100 Swedish volunteers and various other casualties, Ylikangas said. The details of the deaths have been registered in a database which is now available on the Internet, he said. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
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