Juho Kusti Paasikivi

Juho Kusti Paasikivi , 1870-1956, president of Finland (1946-56). He entered the Finnish parliament in 1907 and was minister of finance in 1908-9. After Finland proclaimed full independence from the Soviet Union, Paasikivi was briefly premier (1918), and in 1920 he negotiated the peace treaty with the USSR at Dorpat. In subsequent years he devoted himself mainly to his banking firm. He took part in the unsuccessful negotiations that preceded the Finnish-Russian War of 1939-40 and headed the Finnish peace delegation to the USSR in 1940. He apparently won favor with the Soviet government and with Stalin, and he opposed the Finnish declaration of war on the Soviet Union in 1941. Paasikivi headed the Finnish delegation at the armistice negotiations in 1944. In 1945 he was elected president of Finland after Mannerheim's resignation and took office in 1946. In foreign policy he avoided friction with the USSR. Reelected in 1950 by an anti-Communist coalition, he resigned in 1956 because of poor health and was succeeded as president by Urho Kekkonen.

Paasikivi, Juo Kusti (b. 27 Nov. 1870, d. 14 Dec. 1956). President of Finland 1946–56 Born in Tampere, he was a diplomat and, as Conservative Prime Minister from May to November 1917, guided the country to independence. He was subsequently the main proponent of cooperation and friendship with Russia and the Soviet Union, in contrast to Mannerheim's confrontational stance. Whereas the ebullient Mannerheim led the country through the War of Independence (1917–20), the Winter War of 1939–40, and the Continuation War (1941–4), each time Paasikivi quietly led the negotiations for peace at the end. Ultimately, as Prime Minister (1944–6) and President, he was able to impress upon the country his view that Finland could never maintain its sovereignty if it continued to entertain hostile relations with the USSR. His dogged policy of neutrality formed the cornerstone of Finnish politics until 1991.