That's true, although this did invite the white terror into Finland. They liked democracy, but not when people started to have their own ideas. Weirdly enough I think some of the earliest democracies were actually done by pirates. Since their democratic entities would govern ships and fleets comprised of maybe hundreds or thousands rather than entire nations, they would often have surprisingly democratic structures. Most famous being Ching Shih, a kind of Grace O'Malley of China.