The pork mutiny ( ) was an incident in Northern

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

in 1922. On February 2 a group of roughly armed

Red Guard The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

members crossed the Finnish-Soviet border near Kuolajärvi and

Savukoski Savukoski (; ; ) is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Lapland, Finland. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is , which is the lowest in relation to ...

after disarming a company of the Finnish border guards. They advanced to a logging yard owned by Kemijoki Oy. They arrested the heads of the yard and confiscated the cashbox. The incident derives its name from the fact that the leader of the Red Guardists, Frans Myyryläinen, stood on a crate that had formerly contained pork when he delivered his speech called the 'Declaration of Battle of the Red

Guerrilla Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, Partisan (military), partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include Children in the military, recruite ...

Battalion of the North'. After the speech, 283 workers and members of their families joined the battalion and were armed and given money.Niinistö 2005, p. 232.Salomaa 2018. The Battalion then made its way back to the border. On its way, it robbed a group of border guards and other workplaces. On February 7, the battalion, by that time about 240 men, crossed the border back to the Soviet Union. Information of the incident was received at

Rovaniemi Rovaniemi ( , ; ; ; ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Lapland (Finland), Lapland. It is located near the Arctic Circle in the northern interior of the country. The population of Rovaniemi is approximately , while the Rovaniemi su ...

only on February 5, and the battalion managed to slip away before a group of the White Guard arrived.

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Citations

{{mil-hist-stub Finland in the Russian Civil War 1922 in Finland Finland–Russia relations Finland–Soviet Union relations Rebellions in Finland Conflicts in 1922 Uprisings of the Russian Civil War

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