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Finland The Cold War and the Treaty of 1948
The Finnish statesman Juho Kusti Paasikivi was a
leading
proponent of the relationship between Finland and the
Soviet
Union that permitted Finland's postwar development. For
decades,
Paasikivi had been the leading noncommunist Finn
advocating
reconciliation with the Soviet Union. Before World War I,
he had
been on Old Finn and a Compliant
(see The Era of Russification
, this ch.), who advocated accommodation with Russification.
In the
negotiations over the Treaty of Dorpat in 1920, he had
argued for
drawing Finland's border farther away from Leningrad. In
the fall
of 1939, he had recommended giving in to some of the
Soviet
demands, because he considered the ensuing war avoidable.
He had
also opposed Finland's entry into the Continuation War. As
a
former prime minister under the Finnish White government
of 1918
and as a member of the Conservative National Coalition
Party
(Kansallinen Kokoomuspuolve--KOK), Paasikivi was
politically an
anticommunist. His lifelong study of history, however,
convinced
him that Finland's policies toward the Soviet Union needed
to be
governed by pragmatism. By late 1944, Finland's previous
policy
of antagonism to the Soviet Union had been shown to be
counterproductive, because it had nearly led to Finland's
extinction as an independent state. Summoned out of
private life
to serve--first as prime minister from October 1944 to
March 1946
and then as president from March 1946 to March
1956--Paasikivi
established the policy of accommodation with the Soviet
Union
that, with time, became almost universally accepted among
the
Finns. The change in Finland's policy was so marked that
some
observers considered the post-1944 years to be the era of
the
"Second Republic."
The immediate postwar years of 1944 to 1948 were filled
with
uncertainty for Finland because it was in a weakened
condition
and the because new policy of reconciliation was still
being
formed. The Allied Control Commission, established by the
1944
armistice to oversee Finland's internal affairs until the
final
peace treaty was concluded in 1947, was dominated by the
Soviets.
Under the leadership of a Soviet, Marshal Andrei Zhdanov,
the
commission checked Finland's adherence to the terms of the
preliminary peace of September 1944. The first test of
Finland's
new policy of reconciliation was thus to observe
faithfully the
treaty with the Soviets, including the punctual payment of
reparations and the establishment of war crimes trials.
Eight
leading Finnish politicians were tried for war crimes in
proceedings lasting from November 1945 to February 1946.
Among
the accused were ex-president Risto Ryti (served 1940-44),
who,
along with six other prominent Finnish politicians, was
convicted
of plotting aggressive war against the Soviet Union and
was
sentenced to prison.
The war crimes trials and other stipulations of the
armistice
were distasteful to the Finns, but their careful
compliance led
to the reestablishment of national sovereignty. Compliance
may
have been facilitated by Finland's having its national
hero,
Mannerheim, as president to carry out these policies,
until he
resigned for health reasons in March 1946 and was
succeeded by
Paasikivi. The signing of the Treaty of Paris on February
10,
1947, led in September 1947 to the removal of the Allied
Control
Commission.
In their strict fulfillment of the Soviet terms of
peace, the
Finns faced other difficulties. The armistice agreement of
September 1944 had legalized the SKP, which had been
outlawed in
1930. In October 1944, the SKP led in the formation of the
Finnish People's Democratic League (Suomen Kansan
Demokraattinen
Liitto--SKDL). Commonly referred to as the People's
Democrats,
the SKDL claimed to represent a broad spectrum of
progressive
forces. From its inception, however, the SKDL has been
dominated
by the SKP and has provided the electoral vehicle by which
members of the SKP have been sent to the Eduskunta.
In March 1945, in the first parliamentary elections
held
after the war, the SKDL scored a major success by winning
fifty-
one seats and becoming the largest single party in the
Eduskunta
(the ML had forty-nine and the SDP had forty-eight).
Several
factors account for the success of the communists. A
strong
sympathy for communism among a large number of voters had
persisted since the Finnish civil war. In addition, many
Social
Democratic voters were alienated from the SDP because of
its
ardent support of the recent war that had cost Finland so
dearly.
Many Finns who suffered under the depressed economic
conditions
of postwar Finland voted for the SKDL as a protest
gesture.
Finally, the SKDL proved adept at electoral politics, de-
emphasizing its communist ties and emphasizing its
devotion to
democracy, to full employment, and to a peaceful foreign
policy.
The SKDL played a large role in Finnish politics during
the
immediate postwar years. By November 1944, President
Mannerheim
recognized the growing power of the communists when he
appointed
to the cabinet the first communist, Yrjö Leino, ever to
hold such
a position. Following the election of March 1945, Leino
was
appointed to the important post of minister of interior, a
position from which he controlled, among other things, the
state
security police and a large mobile police detachment. The
power
of the communists was at its greatest from 1946 to 1948,
when the
SKDL held, or shared, as many as eight of twelve cabinet
posts.
These included that of prime minister, which was held by
Mauno
Pekkala, who also served as co-minister of defense.
Pressures on Finland reached a peak in early 1948. In
February the communists took Czechoslovakia by coup, an
act that
heightened international tensions considerably. The
Soviets then
requested that Finland sign a treaty nearly identical to
those
forced on some of their satellite states in Eastern
Europe. By
March there were rumors of a possible communist coup in
Finland.
Although it is not clear that a coup was imminent,
President
Paasikivi took precautionary measures. The Finnish armed
forces
were under his control, and he summoned them in strength
to
Helsinki, where they would have proved more than a match
for the
police units of the ministry of interior that were
suspected of
involvement in the coup.
In negotiating the requested treaty, meanwhile, the
Soviets
showed a willingness to accept a neutralized Finland.
Paasikivi
secured significant changes in the treaty that gave
Finland
substantially more independence with respect to the Soviet
Union
than was enjoyed by the East European states under Soviet
domination. Paasikivi had served notice on the Soviets
that they
would not get their way through pressure, but rather would
have
to use military force. This they were reluctant to do in
the
tense international atmosphere of early 1948.
The Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual
Assistance
(FCMA--see Appendix B), which was signed on April 6, 1948,
has
since then provided the foundation for Soviet-Finnish
relations.
The key provision of the treaty, in Article 1, calls for
military
cooperation between Finland and the Soviet Union if
Germany, or a
country allied with it, attempts to invade Finland or the
Soviet
Union by way of Finnish territory. Article 2 of the treaty
calls
for military consultations to precede actual cooperation.
Finland's sovereignty is safeguarded, however, because
mutual
assistance is not automatic but must be negotiated. The
treaty
helped to stabilize Soviet-Finnish relations by giving the
Soviet
Union guarantees that it would not face a military threat
from
the direction of Finland. The Soviets have been pleased
with the
treaty, and before expiration its original ten-year term
has been
extended to twenty years on three occasions--1955, 1970,
and
1983.
When new elections were held in July 1948, the SKDL
suffered
a sharp drop in support, falling from fifty-one to
thirty-eight
seats in the Eduskunta. Communists were not included in
the new
government formed under the Social Democrat Karl-August
Fagerholm, and there was no communist participation in
Finland's
government again until 1966.
The end of World War II had found Finland in a
thoroughly
weakened state economically. In addition to its human and
physical losses, Finland had to deal with more than
400,000
refugees from the territories seized by the Soviets. In an
attempt to resolve the refugee problem through a program
of
resettlement, the parliament adopted the Land Act of 1945.
Through the program thus established, the state bought up
farmland through compulsory purchases and redistributed it
to
refugees and to ex-servicemen, creating in the process
142,000
new holdings. Finland's large class of independent farmers
was
thereby expanded considerably. Although many of the
resulting
holdings were too small to be economically viable, they
speeded
the integration of the refugees into the social and
economic
fabric of the country.
Reparations were another burden for Finland. From the
failure
of the reparations demands imposed by the Treaty of
Versailles,
the Soviets had drawn the lesson that, to be effective,
reparations should take the form of deliveries of goods in
kind,
rather than of financial payments. As a result, the Finns
were
obligated to make deliveries of products, mainly machine
goods,
cable products, merchant ships, paper, wood pulp, and
other wood
products. About one-third of the goods included as
reparations
came from Finland's traditionally strong forest
industries, and
the remainder came from the shipbuilding and the
metallurgical
industries, which were as yet only partially developed in
Finland. The reparations paid from 1944 to 1952 amounted
to an
annual average of more than 2 percent of Finland's gross
national product
(GNP--see Glossary).
The reparations were
delivered
according to a strict schedule, with penalties for late
shipments. As the earnestness of the Finns in complying
with the
Soviet demands became apparent, the Soviets relented
somewhat by
extending the payment deadline from 1950 to 1952, but they
still
prevented Finland from participating in the Marshall Plan
(European Recovery Program). The United States played an
important role, nonetheless, by mediating the extension of
financial credits of more than US$100 million from its
Export-
Import Bank to help Finland rebuild its economy and meet
its
reparations obligations punctually.
The Finns turned adversity into advantage by using the
industrial capacities created to meet the reparations
obligations
as the basis for thriving export trades in those products.
As a
result, Finland's industrial base acquired greater balance
than
before, between, on the one hand, Finland's traditional
industries of lumber, wood pulp, and paper products, and
on the
other hand, the relatively new industries of shipbuilding
and
machine production. Finland's growing integration into the
world
economy was demonstrated by its joining the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT--see Glossary)
in 1949.
Data as of December 1988
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