The Russian government's plan to totally Russify Finland had been leaked to several Finnish newspapers in 1914, and had been heavily criticized.

The Social Democrats managed to win their first and so far only parliamentary majority in the Finnish elections by promising more effectively than the bourgeois parties to help the poor and underprivileged people among the Finns.

[4] In March 1917 the February Revolution essentially forced Tsar Nicholas II, who had the highest authority in the Grand Duchy of Finland, and who could dissolve the Finnish parliament, to refuse any new laws and appoint a governor-general when he abdicated.

[4] During the July Days, when then-capital of the Russian provisional Republic, Petrograd, was experiencing anarchic chaos from both military units, anarchists and Bolsheviks, the Finnish parliament came to an agreement to pass and enforce the "Autonomy Law"/"Legality Act" (Valtalaki), which declared that the Finnish Parliament and its Senate was the highest political authority in Finland.

However, Petrograd's legal government regained control in late July and moderate Alexander Kerensky was appointed prime minister, while the Russian government under Kerensky refused to sign the Valtalaki into law as it would have essentially ceded all political and administrative powers of Finland except foreign and military policy to the Finnish parliament.