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Finland Soviet Union
Two hard-fought wars, ending in defeat and in the loss
of
about one-tenth of Finland's land area, convinced some
leading
Finnish politicians by the end of World War II that the
interwar
policy of neutral distance from the Soviet Union had been
mistaken and must be abandoned if the country were to
survive as
an independent nation
(see The Cold War and the Treaty of 1948
, ch. 1). Juho Paasikivi, Finland's most prominent
conservative
politician and its president from 1946 to 1956, came to
believe
that Finnish foreign policy must center on convincing
Soviet
leaders that his country accepted, as legitimate, Soviet
desires
for a secure northwestern border and that there was no
reason to
fear an attack from, or through, Finland.
The preliminary peace treaty of 1944, which ended the
Continuation War, and the Treaty of Paris of 1947, which
regulated the size and the quality of Finland's armed
forces,
served to provide the Soviets with a strategically secure
area
for the protection of Leningrad and Murmansk. The
deterioration
of superpower relations, however, led the Soviets to
desire a
firmer border with the gradually emerging Western bloc. In
February 1948, Finnish authorities were notified by Soviet
officials that Finland should sign a mutual assistance
treaty
with the Soviet Union.
The treaty that Finnish and Soviet negotiators worked
out and
signed in April 1948 differed from those the Soviets had
concluded with Hungary and Romania. Unlike those
countries,
Finland was not made part of the Soviet military alliance,
but
was obliged only to defend its own territory if attacked
by
Germany or by countries allied with that country, or if
the
Soviet Union were attacked by these powers through Finnish
territory. In addition, consultations between Finland and
the
Soviet Union were required if the threat of such an attack
were
established. According to the FCMA treaty, Finland was not
bound
to aid the Soviet Union if that country were attacked
elsewhere,
and the consultations were to be between sovereign states,
not
between military allies. Just what constituted a military
threat
was not specified, but the right of the Finns to discuss
the
posited threat and how it should be met, that is, to what
extent
military assistance would be required, allowed Finnish
officials
room for maneuver and deprived the treaty of an automatic
character.
Since its signing, the treaty has continued to be the
cornerstone of Finnish relations with the Soviet Union;
that both
found it satisfactory was seen in its renewal and
extension in
1955, 1970, and 1983. For the Soviet Union, the FCMA
treaty meant
greater security for the strategically vital areas of
Leningrad
and the Kola Peninsula. Any attack on these areas through
Finland
would meet first with Finnish resistance, which many
observers
believed would slow an offensive appreciably. The
prohibition of
Finnish membership in an alliance directed against the
Soviet
Union meant hostile forces could not be stationed within
Finland,
close to vital Soviet installations.
Finland's neutral status had an effect on the Nordic
area as
a whole. Its special relationship with the Soviet Union
reduced
pressure on Sweden and eased that country's burden of
maintaining
its traditional neutrality. The consequent lowering of
tensions
in the region allowed Norway and Denmark NATO membership,
although each of these countries established certain
restrictions
on the stationing of foreign troops and the deployment of
nuclear
weapons on their soil. The interdependence of security
postures
in northern Europe, sometimes referred to as the Nordic
Balance,
has removed the region somewhat from the vagaries of the
Cold War
over the last few decades. The Soviets have closely
monitored
developments in the area, but their basic satisfaction
with the
security situation that has prevailed there has allowed
Finland
to survive as an independent country, bound to some degree
to the
Soviet Union in defense matters, but able to maintain its
democratic institutions and its membership in the Western
community of nations.
During the years immediately following the signing of
the
FCMA treaty, the Finns complied with their obligation to
pay
reparations to the Soviet Union; the last payment was made
in
1952. The preceding year the two countries had signed a
treaty
setting up trade between them on the basis of a barter
arrangement, which has been renewed every five years since
then.
In 1954 Finland became the first capitalist country to
sign a
scientific and technical agreement with the Soviet Union.
Despite the provisions of Article 6 of the FCMA treaty,
which
enjoined each contracting party from interfering in the
domestic
affairs of the other, Soviet comments on Finnish domestic
politics were often quite harsh. Soviet attitudes toward
Finland
softened, however, with the death of Joseph Stalin and the
advent
of beter relations with the western powers in the
mid-1950s;
consequently, no objections were raised to the 1955
decisions to
admit Finland to the Nordic Council and to the UN
(see Nordic Europe
, this ch.). Late in the same year, the Soviets gave
up
their base at Porkkala in exchange for an extension of the
FCMA
treaty, due to expire several years after Paasikivi's
scheduled
retirement in 1956. Soviet uncertainty about the conduct
of his
successor made Moscow anxious for the treaty's renewal.
The departure of Soviet troops from Finnish territory
removed
an obstacle to Finland's full sovereignty and to its
achievement
of neutrality. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, first secretary
of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), spoke for the
first
time of Finnish neutrality. Soviet tributes to Finland's
neutrality and nonaligned status grew common in the next
few
years.
Finnish-Soviet relations were shaken by two crises--the
Night
Frost Crisis of 1958-59 and the more serious Note Crisis
of 1961
(see Domestic Developments and Foreign Politics, 1948-66
, ch. 1).
The Note Crisis was a watershed in Finnish-Soviet
relations in
that Kekkonen, whose successful resolution of the crisis
made him
the virtual master of Finnish foreign policy, and others
realized
that in the future Finnish foreign policy ought to be
formulated
only after its effects on Soviet interests had been
carefully
weighed. Another effect of the crisis was that it led to
the
inauguration of a policy of active and peaceful neutrality
(see Neutrality
, this ch.).
Finnish-Soviet relations since the Note Crisis have
been
stable and unmarked by any serious disagreements. Trade
between
the two countries has remained steady since the 1951
barter
agreement. In 1967 Finland became the first Western
country to
set up a permanent intergovernmental commission with the
Soviet
Union for economic cooperation. A treaty on economic,
technical,
and industrial cooperation followed in 1971, as did a
long-term
agreement on trade and cooperation in 1977 that, in 1987,
was
extended to be in effect until the turn of the century.
The first
joint venture agreements between Finnish and Soviet firms
were
also arranged in 1987. In 1973 Finland was the first
capitalist
country to cooperate closely with the Council for Mutual
Economic
Assistance
(CMEA, CEMA, or Comecon--see Glossary)
(see Regional Economic Integration
, ch. 3).
The Soviet Union has carefully monitored Finland's
adherence
to the FCMA treaty, and Finland's awareness of this
scrutiny has
influenced its Finnish policy. For example, Finland
refrained
from full membership in the European Free Trade
Association
(EFTA) and instead joined the body through an associate
membership in 1961. The entry into a free-trade
relationship with
the European Economic Community
(EEC--see Glossary) in
1973 occurred only through a carefully orchestrated preliminary
plan that included formal links with Comecon and a special
re-election
of Kekkonen in 1974 to assure the Soviets of continuity in
Finnish foreign policy.
Since the Note Crisis, Soviet interference in Finnish
domestic concerns has been limited to occasional critical
comments in the Soviet press and from official spokesmen.
Clarification about Soviet policy toward Finland could be
obtained from Soviet officials themselves, or from
articles
published in authoritative newspapers or journals. Since
the
1970s, a frequent source of enlightenment about the
Kremlin's
attitudes toward Finland, and about Nordic Europe in
general,
were articles written under the name of Komissarov, many
of which
were commonly believed to have been written by Iurii
Deriabin, a
well-placed and knowledgeable Soviet specialist on Finnish
affairs. As valued indicators of Soviet attitudes, the
articles
were examined line by line in Finland. Komissarov
articles, for
example, disabused Finnish foreign affairs specialists of
the
notion, which they had entertained for a time, that
Finland had
the right to determine on its own whether consultations
according
to Article 2 of the FCMA treaty were necessary. A
Komissarov
article that appeared in January 1984 in a Helsinki
newspaper
expressed the disquieting Soviet view that the passage of
cruise
missiles through Finnish airspace might conceivably mean
the need
for consultations.
Two examples may indicate the restraint exercised by
the
Soviets in their dealings with Finnish affairs since the
early
1960s. In 1971 the Soviet ambassador was recalled from
Helsinki
after he had become involved in the internal feuds of the
Communist Party of Finland (Suomen Kommunistinen
Puolue--SKP). A
suggestion in 1978 by a Finnish communist newspaper, which
was
repeated by the Soviet chief of staff General Dmitri
Ustinov,
that Finnish military forces should hold joint maneuvers
with
Soviet forces was quickly dismissed by Finnish officials
as
incompatible with their country's neutrality; there was no
Soviet
rejoinder.
Finnish foreign policy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union
enjoyed
widespread support from the Finnish people. Polls in the
1980s
consistently measured an approval rate of over 90 percent.
Another proof of the acceptance of the Paasikivi-Kekkonen
Line
was that foreign policy played virtually no part in the
parliamentary elections of 1983 and 1987. From the Soviet
side,
comments on these elections were neutral, with no hints of
preferred victors.
Data as of December 1988
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