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The Finnish Communist Party and neutrality
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
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In the summer of 1917, while under the protective wing of Finnish socialists, including Kustaa Rovio – chief of the Helsinki police force and later first secretary of the Communist Party apparatus in the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic – Lenin completed his treatise State and Revolution, rejecting with vehemence the notion that a capitalist nation could be transformed without violence into a higher form of society. The one possible exception was a small country sharing a common frontier with a large country which had already successfully undergone the transition.
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References
1 Rovio, Kustaa ‘Lenin Helsingissä v. 1917’, in SNS/Kansan Sanomat, 23 01 1946 , pp. 7, 10.Google Scholar See also Latukka, J. E. (ed.), Lenin suomalaisten muistelmissa, Leningrad, 1925, pp. 25, 31.Google Scholar
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4 The strengths and weaknesses of Finnish communism are analysed in my book Communism in Finland: A History and Interpretation, Princeton, 1966.
5 Paasikivi, J. K. Toimintani Moskovassa ja Suomessa 1939‐41, Vol. II, Porvoo, 1958, p. 202.Google Scholar
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11 Hugh Seton‐Watson, The East European Revolution, third edition, New York, 1956, p. 185.
12 Toivo Heikkilä, Paasikivi perälsimessä: pääministerin sihteerin muistelmat 1944‐1948, Helsinki, 1965, pp. 300–1.
13 Ibid., p. 319.
14 Ibid., p. 323.
15 Eino S. Repo (ed.), Urho Kekkonen, Helsinki, 1960, p. 162; YrjÖ Leino, Kommunisti sisäministerinä, Helsinki, 1958, pp. 235–7.
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18 Kekkonen, quoted in Leino, op. cit., p. 235.
19 Peitsi, Pekka [Urho Kekkonen], Tässä sits ollaan, Helsinki, 1944, p. 26.Google Scholar
20 Editorial, in Helsingin Sanomat, 11 February 1961. See also Helsingin Sanomat as referred to in Jaakko Nousiainen, Tutkimus eräiden sanomalehtien vaalipropagandasta vuoden 1956 presidentinvaaleissa, Vammala, 1958, p. 23.
21 One source close to Kekkonen has written that the president was one of three members of Parliament who voted against the peace treaty: Repo (ed.), op. cit., p. 240. This appears to be substantiated by Kustaa Vilkuna, who states in Urho Kekkonen, (Helsinki, 1961) that Kekkonen did not vote for the peace treaty (ei äänestanyt maaliskuussa 1940 Moskovan pakkorauhan puolesta.) In an interview with the author, however, Kekkonen stated that he abstained from voting. President Kekkonen to author, 9 January 1963.
22 See a speech by Kekkonen, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 6 November 1961. See also Irwin Ross, ‘Is Finland Playing Russian Roulette ?’ in The Reader's Digest, December 1962, pp. 197–204. At the time of the 1950 presidential election the slogan of social democrats was ‘Neither Czechoslovakia nor “Kekkoslovakia”’. Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, 9 January 1950.
23 Kekkonen speeches, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 5 and 6 January 1962.
24 Quoted in Leino, op. cit., p. 222.
25 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 6 January 1962.
26 President Kekkonen to author, 9 January 1963; Kekkonen, in Uusi Suomi, 30 November 1965; Vilkuna, op. cit.; editorial, in Uusi Suomi, 2 January 1961; editorial, in ibid., 13 April 1965. Like Kekkonen, the Soviet leaders believe that neutral countries must be actively neutral. Izvestiya, 7 September 1965.
27 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 2 January 1961.
28 See Hodgson, John H. ‘Suomen ja Ruotsin liittosuunnitelmat 1940–41’, in Uusi Suomi, 17 08 1961 .Google Scholar
29 For further details, see Hodgson, John H. ‘Postwar Finnish Foreign Policy: Institutions and Personalities’, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. XV, No. 1 (03 1962), pp. 90–2.Google Scholar
30 Report by Werner Wiskari, in The New York Times, 25 July 1964.
31 Izvestiya, 12 June 1959. See also ibid., 18 July 1959; ibid., 14 August 1959.
32 Helsingin Sanomat, 14 June 1959.
33 Izvestiya, 22 July 1959.
34 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 4 December 1963; Hufvudstadsbladet, cited in ibid., 8 December 1963; editorial, in ibid., 31 December 1963.
35 President Kekkonen to author, 9 January 1963. A more recent expression of pessimism can be found in Uusi Suomi, 30 November 1965.
36 Kekkonen speech, quoted in ibid., 29 May 1963.
37 Helsingin Sanomat, 23 and 24 July 1964.
38 See Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 21 June 1963; report by Werner Wiskari, in The New York Times, 25 July 1964; Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 30 November 1965. It may be that the formation of an atom‐free zone in Northern Europe is not beyond the realm of possibility. Support for denuclearized zones in general is growing. See the statements by Paul‐Henri Spaak, former Secretary General of NATO, in Izvestiya, 16 May 1963, and The New York Times, 18 March 1965. Also of interest is the position taken by the Free Democratic Party, the minority group in West Germany's coalition government, referred to in The New York Times, 28 August 1964.
39 Ahti Karjalainen, in Uusi Suomi, 2 June 1966.
40 Izvestiya, 19 September 1954.
41 Not until 1949 did the Soviet Union explode an atomic bomb, although a Finnish delegation was told in November 1947 by Molotov that the Soviets already possessed the weapon. Heikkila, op. cit., pp. 301–2.
42 The New York Times, 29 May 1965.
43 This is the impression also conveyed to the author by a prominent Yugoslav who negotiated with the Russians at this time.
44 Zhdanov's speech to the founding congress of the Cominform, in Strategy and Tactics of World Communism, supplement I, Washington, D.C., 1956.
45 Lauri Hyvämäki, Vaaran vuodet 1944–48, Helsinki, 1957, pp. 141–4.
46 Leino, op. cit., p. 242.
47 Ibid., pp. 249–51.
48 Aarne Sihvo interview, in Helsingin Sanomat, 16 March 1958. See also Leino, op. Cit., p. 254.
49 Leino, op. cit., pp. 254–5; Hodgson, ‘The Paasikivi Line’, p. 160. An account of the 1948 events based on dispatches in The New York Times has been written by Hans Peter Krosby, ‘The Communist Power Bid in Finland in 1948’, Political Science Quarterly, June 1960, pp. 229–43.
50 Hyvämäki, op. cit., p. 177. This may be the committee which, according to Ralf Torngren, was set up in 1948 and included himself, Mauno Pekkala, and a third member.
51 Tuominen, Arvo Kremlin kellot, Helsinki, 1957, pp. 326–7.Google Scholar An excellent article on the Comintern schools has been written by Branko Lazitch, ‘Les bcoles de cadres du Comintern’, in Jacques Freymond (ed.), Contributions à l’Histoire du Comintern, Geneva, 1965, pp. 231–55.
52 See Vapaa Sana, 25 and 30 March 1948.
53 Helsingin Sanomat, 28 April 1948.
54 Leino, op. cit., p. 188.
55 That this is a possible interpretation is even admitted by an author who views Finnish politics in terms of illegal power bids by the communists at ten year intervals, James H. Billington, ‘Finland’, in Cyril E. Black and Thomas P. Thornton (eds.), Communism and Revolution: The Strategic Uses of Political Violence, Princeton, 1964, p. 129.
56 Leino, op. cit., p. 221; Paasikivi, Paasikiven Jinja, Vol. I, p. 99.
57 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 5 January 1962.
58 Ralf TÖrngren, in Repo (ed.), op. cit., p. 163.
59 This is indicated by the Soviet sassertion that the Chinese ‘want to achieve the revolution sooner, by other, what seem to them shorter, routes’. See ‘Open Letter from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to Party Organizations, to All Communists of the Soviet Union’, in The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 7 August 1963, p. 25. See also Marshall D. Shulman, Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappaised, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, p. 266.
60 Junnila, Tuure Noottikriisi tuoreeltaan tulkittuna, Porvoo, 1962, p. 127.Google Scholar See also ‘Tarkkailija’, in Uusi Suomi, 26 May 1963.
61 In the seven postwar parliamentary elections, the SKDL has received the following number of seats and percentage of the popular vote: 1945 (49, 23–5%), 1948 (38, 20–0%), 1951 (43, 21–6%), 1954 (43, 21–6%), 1958 (50, 23–2%), 1962 (47, 22–0%), 1966 (41, 21.2%).
62 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 16 February 1962.
63 Junnila, Tuure Jäädytetty demokratia, Jyväskylä, 1960, pp. 51–2.Google Scholar
64 In 1953‐4 members of the National Coalition Party were in a caretaker government appointed by the president and headed by Sakari Tuomioja.
65 VäinÖ Leskinen, in Kauko Kare (ed.), J. K. Paasikivi, Forssa, 1956, pp. 62, 66.
66 See, for example Izvestiya, 29 August 1958. Tanner's political life is well‐covered in Marvin Rintala, ‘VäinÖ Tanner in Finnish Politics’, The American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. XX, No. 1(February 1961), pp. 84–98.
67 Izvestiya, 24 January 1959; also quoted in Helsingin Sanomat, 25 January 1959. Fagerholm recently stated that in 1958 he lacked a free hand in forming a cabinet and that for reasons of foreign policy he, too, was not satisfied with its composition. K.‐A. Fagerholm, in Uusi Suomi, 17 January 1966.
68 Helsingin Sanomat, 29 June 1958. For the communist response, see ibid., 2 July 1958; Izvestiya, 2 and 4 July 1958. After his trip to Leningrad and a lengthy conversation with Khrushchev, President Kekkonen urged the Finnish press to act responsibly and to exercise restraint. Helsingin Sanomat, 26 January 1959. Kekkonen, like his immediate predecessor, may have had in mind a statement once made by Bismarck: ‘Every country must answer for the windows that its newspapers break; some day the bill will be presented.’ Quoted in Paasikivi, Toimintani, Vol. II, PP. 133–4.
69 Izvestiya, 29 April 1959.
70 Helsingin Sanomat, 31 August 1958.
71 The Khrushchev‐Kennedy exchange can be found in Hartmann, Frederick H. Germany between East and West: The Reunification Problem, Englewood Cliffs, NJ., pp. 119–21.Google Scholar
72 Saikowski, Charlotte and Gruliow, Leo (eds.), Current Soviet Policies, Vol. IV New York, 1962, p. 49.Google Scholar
73 A Finnish text of the note can be found in Junnila, Noottikriisi, pp. 143–50.
74 A complete English text of the treaty is reproduced in Mazour, Anatole G. Finland between East and West, Princeton, 1956, pp. 280–2.Google Scholar
75 Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 27 November 1961.
76 Kekkonen speech, quoted in ibid., 20 November 1961.
77 Kekkonen speech, quoted in ibid., 27 November 1961.
78 The communiqué can be found in Kustaa Vilkuna (ed.), N. S. Hruššev: Neuvostoliitto ja Pohjola, Puheita ja lausuntoja vuosilta 1956–63, Helsinki, 1964, PP. 154–156. The final sentence of the communique has led President Kekkonen to the conclusion that it is now the responsibility of Finland, not the Soviet Union, to decide whether at some future date the question of military negotiations should be put on the agenda. Kekkonen speech, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 27 November 1961; Kekkonen speech, quoted in ibid., 8 January 1962.
79 See Junnila, Noottikriisi, pp. 70–1;Google Scholar Holsti, Kalevi J. ‘Strategy and Techniques of Influence in Soviet‐Finnish Relations’, The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. XVII, No. (03 1964), pp. 77–79.Google Scholar
80 A fact which in the 1961 crisis did not go unnoticed in Moscow was the prominent role played by two outspoken critics of the Soviet Union, Vaind Tanner and Tuure Junnila, in the initial talks leading to the candidacy of Honka. Also of significance is the apparent deference which Honka showed to those who had tossed his hat into the presidential ring. Junnila, Noottikriisi, pp. 46–9, 67, 84.
81 See Hufvudstadsbladet, cited in Uusi Suomi, 6 August 1961; Hufvudstadsbladet and Vaasa, cited in ibid., 7 June 1966; Lapinkansa, cited in ibid., 21 July 1966; Etela‐Suomi, 22 July 1966.
82 The two communists are Leo Suonpää (Minister of Communications and Public Works) and Matti Koivunen (Minister for Social Affairs). Alenius, who holds a doctorate in political science and is the youngest of the three SKDL cabinet members, is deputy Minister of Finance.
83 Päivän Sanomat, cited in Uusi Suomi, 7 April 1961.
84 Discussing the difficulties which arose at the Fourteenth Congress, the party chairman stated that they ‘were limited to certain questions of personnel ‐ which was not unexpected ‐ after mutual understanding had been reached on putting off until the next congress any reform of the party programme and statutes.’ Saarinen, quoted in Uusi Suomi, 4 January 1966. See also ‘Vaakamies’, in ibid., 29 January 1966. It appears likely that either before or during the next congress the general secretary of the party, Ville Pessi, will be forced to step down. Already he has come under sharp fire from younger members of the party; after the removal of Khrushchev, Pessi was attacked by the editor of Aikalainen (a journal set up to counter the views of another group of dissenting intellectuals) for accepting without question the explanation offered by the Soviet leaders for the ‘resignation’ of Khrushchev. See Helsingin Sanomat, 24 October 1964; ‘Vaakamies’, in Uusi Suomi, 29 October 1964; and Kansan Uutiset, 24 October 1964.
85 In the summer of 1965 this question was openly debated, although in the autumn, several months before the party congress, the Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party halted public discussion with its ‘October Manifesto’. See Kansan Uutiset, 21 October 1965, pp. 8–9. [JPRS Translations, Vol. IV, No. 5 (July 1965–June 1966), ID 34, No. 32961, pp. 24–3.]
86 Tidsignal, No. 8, Stockholm, 23 February–l March 1966, p. 6. [JPRS Translations, Vol. IV, No. 9 (July 1965–June 1966), ID41, No. 34599, p. 66.]
87 Kansan Lehti, cited in Uusi Suomi, 9 September 1966.
88 See ibid., 24–25 August 1966.
89 Kansan Uutiset, quoted in ibid., 24 August 1966.
90 Suonpää, quoted in ibid., 14 September 1966.