A group of Red Guards hung a red lantern atop the tower of the Helsinki Workers' House, symbolically marking the start of the Finnish Civil War.

The Red Guards were the paramilitary units of the labour movement in Finland during the early 1900s. The Red Guards formed the army of Red Finland and were one of the main belligerents of the Finnish Civil War in 1918.

Paasitorni, also known as the Helsinki Workers' House, is a conference and congress centre of exceptional value in terms of its architecture and cultural history. The historic building is located in Hakaniemi, Helsinki, Finland. It was designed in Art Nouveau style by architect Karl Lindahl, opened in 1908 as conference and leisure premises for the working class, and for a long time, served actively as a workers' house. As a professional congress centre Paasitorni's functions have been developed since the mid-1990s. Today Paasitorni houses almost 30 spaces for meetings and events for 8–800 people, four restaurants and hotel Scandic Paasi with 170 hotel rooms. A floating restaurant pavilion, Meripaviljonki, seating 200 was also opened in 2015 in front of Paasitorni, by the Eläintarhanlahti bay.

The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic during the country's transition from a grand duchy ruled by the Russian Empire to a fully independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The war was fought between the Red Guards, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party with backup of the Russian bolsheviks and the White Guards of the senate and those who opposed socialism, with major assistance by the German Imperial Army, along the German goal to control Fennoscandia. The paramilitary Red Guards, which were composed of industrial and agrarian working class people, controlled the cities and industrial centres of southern Finland. The paramilitary White Guards, which consisted of land owners and the middle and upper class Finns, controlled rural central and northern Finland, and were led by General C. G. E. Mannerheim.