Lapua Movement

a fascist movement in Finland from 1929 to 1932.

The Lapua movement took its name from the village of Lapua, where a meeting of working youth was raided by Skyddskår adherents in November 1929. The organizers of the Lapua movement were the National Coalition Party and the right wing of the Agrarian Union. Its social base was the well-to-do farmers and a segment of the urban petite bourgeoisie. Under the banner of “destroying Communism,” the movement had as its aim the suppression of working class upsurges. It fanned anti-Soviet attitudes and chauvinist hatred for Finland’s national minorities. Armed Lapua bands organized pogroms and committed murders. They kidnapped participants in the workers’ movement. The Lapua movement’s supporters attempted to stage an armed uprising in the city of Mäntsälä in February 1932. The government prohibited the movement in March 1932.