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Finland Introduction
Unavailable
Figure 1. Administrative Divisions of Finland, 1988
FINLAND HAS BEEN THE SITE of human habitation since the
last
ice age ended 10,000 years ago. When the first
Swedish-speaking
settlers arrived in the ninth century, the country was
home to
people speaking languages belonging to the distinctive
Finno-
Ugric linguistic group, unrelated to the more prevalent
Indo-
European language family. The first dates in Finnish
history are
connected with the Swedish crusade of the 1150s that,
according
to legend, aimed at conquering the "heathen" Finns and
converting
them to Christianity. There was, however, no Swedish
conquest of
Finland. The bodies of water that lay between Finland and
Sweden,
rather than making them enemies or separating them,
brought them
together. Trade and settlement between the two areas
intensified,
and a political entity, the dual kingdom of
Sweden-Finland,
gradually evolved
(see
The Era of Swedish Rule, 1150-1809
, ch.
1).
During the seven centuries of Swedish rule, Finland was
brought more and more into the kingdom's administrative
system.
Finland's ruling elite, invariably drawn from the
country's
Swedish-speaking inhabitants, traveled to Stockholm to
participate in the Diet of the Four Estates and to help
manage
the kingdom's affairs. Swedish became the language of law
and
commerce in Finland; Finnish was spoken by the peasantry
living
away from the coasts. The clergy (Lutheran after the
Protestant
Reformation), who needed to communicate with their
parishioners,
were the only members of the educated classes likely to
know
Finnish well.
Swedish rule was benevolent. Sweden and Finland were
not
separate countries, but rather were regions in a single
state.
The elite spoke a common language, and it was not until
late in
the eighteenth century that any separatist sentiments were
heard
within Finland. However, Finns occasionally suffered much
from
Sweden's wars with neighboring states. In the sixteenth
and the
seventeenth centuries, Sweden was one of Europe's great
powers
and had a considerable empire around the shores of the
Baltic
Sea. Wars were frequently the means of settling Finland's
eastern
border. In the long run, however, Sweden could not sustain
its
imperial pretensions, and military defeats obliged it to
cede
Finland to tsarist Russia in 1809.
Finland's new ruler, Tsar Alexander I, convinced of the
strategic need to control Finland for the protection of
his
capital at St. Petersburg, decided it was more expedient
to woo
his Finnish subjects to allegiance than to subjugate them
by
force. He made the country the Grand Duchy of Finland and
granted
it an autonomous status within the empire
(see The Russian Grand Duchy of Finland, 1809-1917
, ch. 1). The Grand Duchy kept
its
Swedish code of laws, its governmental structure and
bureaucracy,
its Lutheran religion, and its native languages. In
addition,
Finns remained free of obligations connected to the
empire, such
as the duty to serve in tsarist armies, and they enjoyed
certain
rights that citizens from other parts of the empire did
not have.
Nevertheless, the Grand Duchy was not a democratic
state. The
tsar retained supreme power and ruled through the highest
official in the land, the governor general, almost always
a
Russian officer. Alexander dissolved the Diet of the Four
Estates
shortly after convening it in 1809, and it did not meet
again for
half a century. The tsar's actions were in accordance with
the
royalist constitution Finland had inherited from Sweden.
The
Finns had no guarantees of liberty, but depended on the
tsar's
goodwill for any freedoms they enjoyed. When Alexander II,
the
Tsar Liberator, convened the Diet again in 1863, he did so
not to
fulfill any obligation but to meet growing pressures for
reform
within the empire as a whole. In the remaining decades of
the
century, the Diet enacted numerous legislative measures
that
modernized Finland's system of law, made its public
administration more efficient, removed obstacles to
commerce, and
prepared the ground for the country's independence in the
next
century.
The wave of romantic nationalism that appeared in
Europe in
the first half of the nineteenth century had profound
effects in
Finland
(see The Rise of Finnish Nationalism
, ch. 1). For
hundreds of years, Finland's Swedish-speaking minority had
directed the country's affairs. The Finnish-speaking
majority,
settled mostly in the interior regions, was involved only
marginally in the social and the commercial developments
along
the coast. Finnish-speakers wishing to rise in society
learned
Swedish. Few schools used Finnish as a means of
instruction:
higher education was conducted entirely in Swedish, and
books in
Finnish were usually on religious subjects. The
nationalist
movement in Finland created an interest in the language
and the
folklore of the Finnish-speaking majority. Scholars set
out into
the countryside to learn what they could of the
traditional arts.
Elias Lönnrot, the most important of these men, first
published
his collection of Finnish folk poems in 1835. This
collection,
the Kalevala, was quickly recognized as Finland's
national
epic. It became the cornerstone of the movement that aimed
at
transforming rural Finnish dialects into a language
suitable for
modern life and capable of displacing Swedish as the
language of
law, commerce, and culture.
Several generations of struggle were needed before the
Finnish nationalist movement realized its objectives.
Numerous
members of the Swedish-speaking community entered the
campaign,
adopting Finnish as their language and exchanging their
Swedish
family names for Finnish ones. Finnish journals were
founded, and
Finnish became an official language in 1863. By the end of
the
century, there was a slight majority of Finnish-speaking
students
at the University of Helsinki, and Finnish-speakers made
up
sizable portions of the professions.
Finland's first political parties grew out of the
language
struggle. Those advocating full rights for
Finnish-speakers
formed the so-called Fennoman group that by the 1890s had
split
into the Old Finns and the Young Finns, the former mainly
concerned with the language question, the latter urging
the
introduction of political liberalism. The Swedish-speaking
community formed a short-lived Liberal Party. As the
century drew
to a close and the Fennoman movement had achieved its
principal
goals, economic issues and relations with the tsarist
empire came
to dominate politics.
Finland's economy had always been predominantly
agricultural,
and with the exception of a small merchant class along the
coast,
nearly all Finns were engaged in farming, mostly on small
family
farms
(see Growth and Structure of the Economy
, ch. 3).
Despite
the location of the country in the high north, long summer
days
usually allowed harvests sufficient to support the
country's
population, although many lived at a subsistence level. In
years
of poor harvests, however, famine was possible. In
1867--68, for
example, about 8 percent of the population starved to
death.
Sweden's political development had favored the
formation of
an independent peasantry rather than a class of large
landowners.
Even while part of the tsarist empire, Finland maintained
this
tradition. As a result, instead of serfs, there were many
independent small farmers, who, in addition to owning
their land,
had stands of timber they could sell. When Western Europe
began
to buy Finnish timber on a large scale in the latter part
of the
nineteenth century, many farmers profited from the sale of
Finland's only significant natural resource, and ready
money
transformed many of them into entrepreneurs. There was
also
demand for timber products, and, at sites close to both
timber
and means of transport, pulp and paper mills were
constructed.
Liberalization of trade laws and the institution of a
national currency not tied to the Russian ruble encouraged
a
quickening of the economy and the growth of other sectors.
Finland's position within the Russian Empire was also
beneficial.
As Finnish products were not subject to import duties,
they could
be sold at lower prices than comparable goods coming from
Western
Europe.
The appearance of an industrial sector offered
employment to
a rural work force, many of whom owned no land and earned
their
living as tenant farmers or laborers. Much of the
employment
offered was of a seasonal nature, a circumstance that
meant
considerable hardship. In contrast to the larger European
countries, most of this emerging proletariat did not live
in
concentrated urban areas, but near numerous small
industrial
centers around the country. This had two results: the one
was
that the Finnish working class retained much of its rural
character; the other was that labor problems affected the
entire
country, not just urban centers.
Finland's modernizing economy encouraged the formation
of
social groups with specific, and sometimes opposing,
interests.
In addition to the Finnish movement's Old and Young Finns,
other
political organizations came into being. Because the
existing
political groups did not adequately represent labor's
interests,
a workers' party was formed at the end of the century. In
1903 it
became the Finnish Social Democratic Party (Suomen
Sosialidemokraatthinen Puolue--SDP). At the same time
labor was
organizing itself, the farmers began a cooperative
movement; in
1907 they formed the Agrarian Party (Maalaisliitto--ML).
The
Swedish People's Party (Svenska Folkpartiet--SFP), also
dating
from this period, was formed to serve the entire
Swedish-speaking
population, not just those involved in commerce, an area
where
Swedish-speakers were still dominant.
The Grand Duchy's relationship with St. Petersburg
began to
deteriorate in the 1890s. The nervousness of tsarist
officials
about Finnish loyalty in wartime prompted measures to bind
Finland more closely to the empire. The campaign of
"Russification" ended only with Finland's independence in
1917
(see The Era of Russification
, ch. 1). In retrospect the
campaign
can be seen as a failure, but for several decades it
caused much
turmoil within Finland, reaching its most extreme point
with the
assassination of the governor general in 1904. The first
Russian
revolution, that of 1905, allowed Finns to discard their
antiquated Diet and to replace it with a unicameral
legislature,
the Eduskunta, elected through universal suffrage. Finland
became
the first European nation in which women had the
franchise. The
first national election, that of 1907, yielded Europe's
largest
social democratic parliamentary faction. In a single step,
Finland went from being one of Europe's most politically
backward
countries to being one of its most advanced. Nonetheless,
frequent dissolutions at the hands of the tsar permitted
the
Eduskunta to achieve little before independence.
The second Russian revolution allowed Finland to break
away
from the Russian empire, and independence was declared on
December 6, 1917. Within weeks, domestic political
differences
led to an armed struggle among Finns themselves that
lasted until
May 1918, when right-wing forces, with some German
assistance,
were able to claim victory
(see The Finnish Civil War
, ch.
1).
Whether seen as a civil war or as a war of independence,
the
conflict created bitter political divisions that endured
for
decades. As a consequence, Finland began its existence as
an
independent state with a considerable segment of its
people
estranged from the holders of power, a circumstance that
caused
much strife in Finnish politics.
In mid-1919, Finns agreed on a new Constitution, one
that
constructed a modern parliamentary system of government
from
existing political institutions and traditions. The
200-seat
unicameral parliament, the Eduskunta, was retained. A
cabinet,
the Council of State, was fashioned from the Senate of the
tsarist period. A powerful presidency, derived, in part at
least,
from the office of governor general, was created and
provided
with a mixture of powers and duties that, in other
countries,
might be shared by such figures as king, president, and
prime
minister. Also included in the new governmental system was
an
independent judiciary. The powers of the three branches of
government were controlled through an overlapping of
powers,
rather than a strict separation of powers
(see Governmental Institutions
, ch. 4).
Finland faced numerous political and economic
difficulties in
the interwar years, but it surmounted them better than
many other
European countries
(see
Independence and the Interwar Era, 1917-39
, ch. 1). Despite the instability of many short-lived
governments, the political system held together during the
first
decades of independence. While other countries succumbed
to
right-wing forces, Finland had only a brush with fascism.
Communist organizations were banned, and their
representatives in
the Eduskunta arrested, but the SDP was able to recover
from
wounds sustained during the Civil War and was returned to
power.
In 1937 the party formed the first of the so-called
Red-Earth
coalitions with the ML, the most common party combination
of the
next fifty years, one that brought together the parties
representing the two largest social groups. The language
problem
was largely resolved by provisions in the Constitution
that
protected the rights of the Swedish-speaking minority.
Bitterness
about the past dominance of Swedish-speaking Finns
remained alive
in some segments of the population, but Finnish at last
had a
just place in the country's economic and social life.
Finland's economy diversified further during the the
1920s
and the 1930s. Timber, the country's "green gold,"
remained
essential, but timber products such as pulp and paper came
to
displace timber as the most important export. Government
measures, such as nationalization of some industries and
public
investment in others, encouraged the growth and
strengthening of
the mining, chemical, and metallurgical industries.
Nevertheless,
agriculture continued to be more important in Finland than
it was
in many other countries of Western Europe.
Government-enforced
redistribution of plots of land reduced the number of
landless
workers and fostered the development of the family farm.
Survival
during the Great Depression dictated that Finnish farmers
switch
from animal products for export to grains for domestic
consumption.
Finland's official foreign policy of neutrality in the
interwar period could not offset the strategic importance
of the
country's territory to Nazi Germany and to the Soviet
Union
(see World War II, 1939-45
, ch. 1). The latter was convinced
that it
had a defensive need to ensure that Finland would not be
used as
an avenue for attack on its northwestern areas, especially
on
Leningrad. When Finland refused to accede to its demands
for some
territory, the Soviet Union launched an attack in November
1939.
A valiant Finnish defense, led by Carl Gustaf Emil
Mannerheim,
slowed the invaders, but in March 1940 the Winter War
ended when
Finland agreed to cede to the Soviets about 10 percent of
Finnish
territory and to permit a Soviet military base on Finnish
soil.
In June 1941, Finland joined Germany as cobelligerent in
its
attack on the Soviet Union. In what Finns call the
Continuation
War, Finland confined its military actions to areas near
its
prewar borders. In the fall of 1944, Finland made a
separate
peace with the Soviet Union, one that was conditional on
its
ceding territory, granting basing rights, agreeing to
onerous
reparation payments, and expelling German forces from its
territory. However, although Finland suffered greatly
during
World War II and lost some territory, it was never
occupied, and
it survived the war with its independence intact.
Finland faced daunting challenges in the immediate
postwar
years. The most pressing perhaps was the settlement of
400,000
Finns formerly residing in territory ceded to the Soviet
Union.
Most were natives of Karelia. Legislation that sequestered
land
throughout the country and levied sacrifices on the whole
population provided homes for these displaced Finns.
Another
hurdle was getting the economy in shape to make reparation
payments equivalent to US$300 million, most of it in kind,
to the
Soviet Union. This payment entailed a huge effort,
successfully
completed in 1952.
A less concrete problem, but ultimately a more
important one,
was the regulation of Finland's international relations
(see The Cold War and the Treaty of 1948
, ch. 1;
Foreign Relations
, ch.
4). The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1947, limited the size
and the
nature of Finland's armed forces. Weapons were to be
solely
defensive. A deepening of postwar tensions led a year
later to
the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual
Assistance
(FCMA--see Appendix B) with the Soviet Union, the treaty
that has
been the foundation of Finnish foreign relations in the
postwar
era. Under the terms of the treaty, Finland is bound to
confer
with the Soviets and perhaps to accept their aid if an
attack
from Germany, or countries allied with Germany, seems
likely. The
treaty prescribes consultations between the two countries,
but it
is not a mechanism for automatic Soviet intervention in a
time of
crisis. The treaty has worked well, and it has been
renewed
several times, the last time in 1983. What the Soviet
Union saw
as its strategic defensive need--a secure northwestern
border--
was met. The Finns also achieved their objective in that
Finland
remained an independent nation.
The Finnish architect of the treaty, Juho Kusti
Paasikivi, a
leading conservative politician, saw that an essential
element of
Finnish foreign policy must be a credible guarantee to the
Soviet
Union that it need not fear attack from, or through,
Finnish
territory. Because a policy of neutrality was a political
component of this guarantee, Finland would ally itself
with no
one. Another aspect of the guarantee was that Finnish
defenses
had to be sufficiently strong to defend the nation's
territory
(see Concepts of National Security
, ch. 5). This policy,
continued after Paasikivi's term as president (1946-56) by
Urho
Kekkonen (1956-81) and Mauno Koivisto (1982- ), remained
the core
of Finland's foreign relations.
In the following decades, Finland maintained its
neutrality
and independence. It had moved from temporary isolation in
the
immediate postwar years to full membership in the
community of
nations by the end of the 1980s. Finland joined the United
Nations (UN) and the Nordic Council in 1955. It became an
associate member of the European Free Trade Association
(EFTA-- see Glossary)
in 1961 and a full member in 1986. Relations
with the
European Community (EC--see Glossary)
and the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance
(CMEA, CEMA, or Comecon--see Glossary)
date from the first half of the 1970s. In mid-1989,
Finland joined the
Council of Europe (see Glossary).
The policy of neutrality became more active in the 1960s, when Finland
began to
play a larger role in the UN, most notably in its
peacekeeping
forces. Measures aiming at increasing world peace have
also been
a hallmark of this policy. Since the 1960s, Finland has
urged the
formation of a Nordic Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone (Nordic
NWFZ),
and in the 1970s was the host of the Conference on
Security and
Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), which culminated in the
signing of
the Helsinki Accords in 1975. By the end of the 1980s, the
most
serious question for Finland in international relations
was how
the country's economy, heavily dependent on exports, would
fare
once the EC had achieved its goal of a single market in
1992.
Finland's neutrality seemed to preclude membership in an
organization where foreign policy concerns were no longer
left to
individual member nations.
Finland also dealt effectively with domestic political
problems in the postwar era
(see Domestic Developments and Foreign Politics, 1948-66
, ch. 1;
Political Dynamics
, ch.
4). By
the early 1950s, the patterns of postwar Finnish politics
were
established. No one group was dominant, but the ML under
the
leadership of Kekkonen, who became president in 1956,
became an
almost permanent governing party until the late 1980s. In
1966 it
changed its name to the Center Party
(Keskustapuolue--Kesk) in an
attempt to appeal to a broader segment of the electorate,
but it
still was not successful in penetrating southern coastal
Finland.
The SDP remained strong, but it was often riven by
dissension. In
addition, it had to share the socialist vote with the
Communist
Party of Finland (Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue--SKP). As a
consequence, nonsocialist parties never had to face a
united
left. In the 1980s, the communists had severe problems
adjusting
to new social conditions, and they split into several
warring
groups. As a result, their movement had a marginal
position in
Finnish politics. The SFP, a moderate centrist party with
liberal
and conservative wings, had a slightly declining number of
seats
in the Eduskunta, but its position in the middle of the
political
spectrum often made it indispensable for coalition
governments.
The National Coalition Party (Kansallinen
Kokoomuspuoue--KOK),
rigidly conservative in the interwar period, gradually
became
more moderate and grew stronger, surpassing Kesk in the
number of
parliamentary seats in 1979. Excluded from a role in
government
for decades, possibly because it had been so right-wing
earlier,
th KOK Party participated in the government formed after
the
national elections of 1987, supplying the prime minister,
Harri
Holkeri. The Liberal Party of the postwar period was never
strong, and it had a negligible role by the 1980s.
A number of smaller parties, protest parties, and
parties
representing quite distinct groups filled out the list of
about a
dozen organizations that regularly vied for public office.
Pensioners and activist Christians each had their own
party, and
environmentalists won several seats in the 1983 and the
1987
national elections. The most active of the protest parties
was
the Finnish Rural Party (Suomen Maaseudun Puolue--SMP),
which
managed to take votes from both Kesk and the socialist
groups. It
scored its first big successes in the 1970 national
elections.
Since then its electoral results have varied considerably.
By
late 1980s, it seemed a spent force.
After the 1966 national elections, President Kekkonen
succeeded in forming a popular front coalition government
that
contained communists, socialists, and members of Kesk.
Although
this government lasted only two years and was succeeded
for
another decade by short-lived coalition and caretaker
civil
service governments, it was the beginning of what Finns
call the
politics of consensus
(see
Finland in the Era of Consensus
, ch.
1). By the 1980s, consensus politics had become so
dominant that
some observers claimed that Finnish politics, long so
bitter and
contentious, had become the most boring in Western Europe.
Although the larger parties differed on specific issues,
and
personal rivalries could be poisonous, there was broad
agreement
about domestic and foreign policy. The cabinet put in
place after
the 1983 elections, consisting mainly of social democrats
and
members of Kesk, completed its whole term of office, the
first
government to do so in the postwar period. Observers
believed
that the next government, formed in 1987 and composed
mainly of
conservatives and social democrats, would also serve out
its
term.
A foundation of the politics of consensus was the
success of
the system of broad incomes agreements that has
characterized
Finland's employee-employer relations in recent decades.
The
first of these, the Liinamaa Agreement, dated from 1968.
By the
1980s, the process was so regular as to seem
institutionalized.
With about 80 percent of the work force as members, unions
negotiated incomes agreements with employers'
organizations
(see Industrial Relations
, ch. 3). The government often helped
in the
talks and subsequently proposed legislation embodying
social
welfare measures or financial measures that underpinned
the
agreements. The process was successful at increasing labor
peace
in a country that had been racked by strikes for the first
decades after World War II. Although there were complaints
that
the agreements bypassed political channels or excluded
minority
opinion, the obvious prosperity they had helped bring
about made
the incomes policy system and the politics of consensus
highly
popular.
For much of its history, Finland had been a poor
country, but
in the postwar era it gradually become one of the world's
most
prosperous. At the end of the war, the country's economy
faced
serious hurdles. Although it was never occupied, Finland
had
suffered extensive material damage, especially in the
north. The
burden of reparations, to be paid in kind, meant that much
rebuilding had to occur quickly and the economy had to be
diversified (see
Industry
, ch. 3). The Finns were successful,
and by
the early 1950s the country had an economy well poised to
compete
in the world market. Timber and timber products remained
important, but a skillful selection of export objectives
and the
general high quality of its manufactures allowed Finnish
products
to penetrate the international economy at many points.
Careful
government fiscal policies and selected state supports
combined
with liberal trade policies and financial deregulation to
create
an economy among the most capitalistic of Western Europe
(see Role of Government
, ch. 3). In the 1980s, Finnish
businessmen
began to invest some of their profits abroad. Faced with
the
prospect of being closed out of the EC's single market,
they
bought into many firms located within the EC's member
states.
Finland's membership in EFTA, an important trading partner
of the
EC, also served to allay worries about the future of
Finland's
export trade
(see Foreign Economic Relations
, ch. 3).
Finland's access to the Soviet Union's economy, through
an
arrangement whereby Finnish products were exchanged for
raw
materials, had for decades provided a fairly secure market
for
many of Finland's exports
(see Finnish-Soviet Cooperation
, ch.
3). By the late 1980s, trade with the Soviet Union was
declining
because of the long-term drop in the price of oil, but
sophisticated joint venture agreements were being adopted
to meet
changed circumstances.
The economic transformation of Finland caused a social
transformation as well. In 1950, approximately 40 percent
of the
work force was engaged in agricultural and forest work. By
the
1980s, fewer than 10 percent were employed in this sector.
Rather, the service sector became the largest single
source of
work
(see Occupational and Wage Structure
, ch. 2;
Employment
, ch.
3). As the country became wealthier, between 1950 and the
1980s,
the number of persons retired or being educated increased
dramatically and accounted for a significant portion of
the
population. An advanced economy required a skilled work
force,
and enrollment at the university level alone had
quadrupled.
A changing economy changed ways of life. Finns moved to
areas
where jobs were available, mainly to the south coastal
region
(see Internal Migration
, ch. 2). This area saw a
tremendous
expansion, while other regions, most notably the
central-eastern
area, lost population. Finns call this movement of people
from
the countryside to the urbanized south the "Great
Migration." It
gave Finns improved living conditions, but it caused much
uprooting with predictable social effects: loss of
traditional
social ties, psychological disorders, and asocial
behavior. Not
all of the new settlements constructed in the south were
as famed
for their design as the garden town Tapiola in greater
Helsinki
(see Urbanization
, ch. 2).
The new prosperity was widely distributed, and people
of all
classes benefited from it. Labor was highly organized, and
the
broad incomes agreements involved nearly all of the
working
population. Those not in the active work force got a
decent share
of the country's wealth via an extensive system of social
welfare
programs
(see Public Welfare
, ch. 2). Worries about health
or old
age were no longer pressing because government assistance
was
available for those who needed it. Some social measures
dealt
with family welfare. Paid maternity leave lasted for
nearly a
year, and in the 1980s increasing resources were earmarked
for
childcare, as most mothers were employed outside the home.
Finland's welfare system was based on the model developed
in the
other Nordic countries in which coverage was universal and
was
seen as a right, not as a privilege. Faced with special
problems,
and beginning with smaller means, Finland put its welfare
system
in place somewhat later than did the Scandinavian
countries. By
the late 1980s, however, it had become a member of that
small
community of nations that combined an extensive state
welfare
system with a highly competitive, privately owned market
economy.
August 7, 1989
Eric Solsten
Data as of December 1988
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