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Finland Finnish Security Policy Between the Wars
The first security policy issue Finland faced upon
becoming
independent concerned the Aland Islands. Settled by Swedes
in
about the sixth century A.D., the islands were
administered as
part of Finland as long as Finland was part of Sweden. In
1809
they were transferred to Russian sovereignty, where they
remained
until the Russian Revolution. Throughout this period,
almost all
of the inhabitants of the Aland Islands, the Alanders,
continued
to be Swedish speakers. During the chaos of the Russian
Revolution, the Alanders began negotiations to be united
with
Sweden, a move that was later supported in a plebiscite by
96
percent of the islands' inhabitants. The Swedish
government
welcomed this move, and in February 1918 sent troops who
disarmed
the Russian forces and the Red Guards on the islands. The
Finns
felt that the Swedish intervention in the Aland Islands
represented an unwarranted interference in the internal
affairs
of Finland. Tension rose as both countries claimed the
islands,
Sweden emphasizing the principle of national
self-determination
and Finland pointing to its historical rights and to the
need to
have the islands in order to defend Finland's southwestern
coast.
Germany then moved into the islands as part of its
intervention
in the civil war and forced out the Swedes; later that
year,
however, Germany handed the islands over to Finland. The
Finns
arrested the Aland separatist leaders on charges of
treason. In
1920 both countries referred the matter to the League of
Nations,
which ruled the following year in favor of Finland. The
Swedes
were placated by the demilitarization of the islands as
well as
by the grant of extensive autonomy to the Alanders, a
settlement
that still obtained in 1988.
Finland's interwar security policy was dominated by
fear of
an attack by the Soviet Union. Two of its priorities were
to end
the conflict between Finland and the Soviet Union--that
had
continued unofficially since the civil war--and to settle
the
Soviet-Finnish boundary. Negotiations were held
intermittently
between 1918 and 1920, leading in October 1920 to the
signing of
the Treaty of Dorpat. In it, Finland received all of the
land it
had held under Russian rule plus the Petsamo area, which
gave
Finland a port on the Arctic Ocean. At this point, Finland
controlled more territory than it had at any other time in
its
history. The Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus
was
drawn only thirty kilometers from Leningrad (formerly St.
Petersburg). The new border caused some Soviet
apprehension
because it placed the city and the vital naval base at
Kronstadt
within the range of the Finns' heavy artillery.
Finland's relations with the Soviet Union had been
problematic from the beginning, because of the Finns'
strong
historical distrust for Russia and the inherent
incompatibility
of the two political systems. The Finns saw themselves as
occupying an exposed outpost of Western civilization, an
attitude
that was well expressed in a poem by Uuno Kailas that
included
the verse:
"Like a chasm runs the border.
In front, Asia, the East;
In back, Europe, the West:
Like a sentry, I stand guard.
The mistrust between the countries had been
strengthened by
the
tsarist policies of Russification, by the Bolsheviks'
participation in the Finnish revolution, and by continued
Soviet
efforts to foster subversion in Finland. From the Soviet
viewpoint, the Greater Finland agitation and the
blossoming of
ideological anti-communism in Finland posed a threat. In
1932 the
Soviet Union and Finland signed a ten-year non-aggression
pact,
which, however, did not mitigate the mutual
distrust--illustrated
in part by the Soviets' cessation of all trade between the
two
countries in 1934--that was to culminate in war.
In dealing with the Soviet threat, Finland was unable
to find
effective outside help. The Finns sought assistance first
from
the other Baltic states, and in March 1922 an agreement
was
signed by Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland. The Finns
soon
realized, however, that in a crisis no substantial help
would be
forthcoming from these countries, and they thereupon
sought
support through active membership in the League of
Nations. The
breakdown of collective security in the 1930s led the
Finns to
seek security through a collective neutrality with the
other
Nordic states, but that arrangement offered no effective
counterweight to the Soviets. The more powerful Britain
and
France did not take a major interest in the Baltic area.
Throughout this period, the Finnish ruling circles had
been
strongly pro-German in outlook, in large part as a result
of the
civil war. For this reason, the Soviets developed the
suspicion
that Finland would allow Germany to use its territory as a
base
from which to invade the Soviet Union. Although Soviet
fears were
unfounded, the Finns did little to allay them. In 1937 a
German
submarine flotilla visited Helsinki, and it was greeted
warmly by
the people and by the government. In April and in May
1938, the
Finnish government presided over two great celebrations,
marking
the twentieth anniversary of the entry of German troops
into
Helsinki and of the entry of Mannerheim's forces into
Helsinki,
respectively, events that numerous prominent Germans
attended.
The Finns were also indiscreet in allowing a German naval
squadron to visit Helsinki. Soviet suspicions were fuelled
again
by the visit to Finland in June 1939 of the German army
chief of
staff, General Franz Halder, who was received by the
government
in Helsinki and who viewed Finnish army maneuvers on the
Karelian
Isthmus. In summation, Finnish foreign policy between the
wars
was genuinely unaggressive in relation to the Soviet
Union, but
it lacked the appearance of unaggressiveness, a deficiency
that
Finland since World War II has been at pains to remedy.
With German help, Finland established regular armed
forces in
1918 to 1919, using the army of the Whites as a
foundation.
Beginning in the 1920s, conscription was introduced, and
most
Finnish males were trained for military service. Finnish
military
doctrine presumed an essentially defensive war in which
Finland's
forests, lakes, and other geographical obstacles could be
exploited to advantage. The Defense Review Committee, in
its
report of 1926, called for the establishment of a Finnish
army of
thirteen divisions, equipped with the most modern arms, as
the
surest means of deterring a possible Soviet invasion.
Because of
budget restraints, however, these recommendations were
instituted
only in part, so that when the Soviet Union did attack in
November 1939, Finland had only nine available divisions,
and
their equipment was generally inadequate. Beginning in
1931,
however, General Mannerheim had contributed ably to
Finnish
military preparations from his position as chairman of the
Defense Council, and thousands of citizens spent the
summer of
1939, without pay, strengthening the Mannerheim Line of
fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. The line later
proved to
be the anchor of Finland's defenses in this important
area.
Data as of December 1988
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