[H&F] "Solidarity and Finlandization”

[rfmcdonald]

History and Futility co-blogger Jussi Jalonen has a post up that takes a look at the decidedly complex internal politics of Finland in the early 1980s vis-a-vis the Solidarity movement.

An important thing to remember is that while the emergence of the Solidarity movement in Poland generated widespread enthusiasm in Western Europe and Scandinavia, Finland was placed in a more difficult position. Although Finland was a member in good standing in the Nordic Council and an associated member in the EFTA, the foreign policy of the country was still guided by the necessity to maintain orderly relations with the USSR. The cornerstone of this foreign policy was the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, signed between Finland and the USSR in 1948. During the subsequent presidencies of J. K. Paasikivi and Urho Kekkonen, the treaty had assumed quasi-canonical status in the bilateral relations between Helsinki and the Kremlin, and this status quo continued also during the presidency of Mauno Koivisto in the 1980s.

These “special relations” between the two neighboring states did not translate in direct Finnish subservience to the USSR. Indeed, president Kekkonen proved to be ready to resist the most unwelcome encroachments, as testified by the well-orchestrated expulsion of the Soviet ambassador Alexis Belyakov from Helsinki in 1971 and the regular refusals to the Soviet suggestions of military cooperation. Meanwhile, covert exchange of military intelligence was taking place between the Finnish Defence Forces and the United States. However, the official Finnish tendency to avoid all public actions which would be likely to antagonize the Soviets was regularly demonstrated in passive self-censorship as well as in the willingness of the aspiring politicians to intrigue with the resident Soviet officials. This tendency had arguably reached its peak in the 1970s, and had an effect also on the formal attitudes towards the Polish Solidarity movement in the early 1980s.

How did the Finlandization-era Finnish government react to the solidarity movement? How did conservative movements in Finland react? What effect did the whole episode have on Finnish politics and society in later decades?

Go, read.