FINLAND.

In retrospect, the history of Finland in the twentieth century may seem, in almost every sense, like an incredible success story. Within three generations the country located on Europe's northeastern periphery developed from a poor and in many ways backward province affiliated with the Russian Empire into one of the most modern industrial welfare states. This evolution did not proceed in a straight line and was expected by hardly anyone at the beginning of the century; it resulted from a combination of favorable external circumstances, policies displaying farsightedness at the right junctures, and a number of historical coincidences.

The country had been part of the Swedish Empire for more than six centuries before becoming joined to Russia as an autonomous grand duchy in 1809 (Peace of Hamina). With the special linguistic position of Finnish as a starting point and under the autonomy guaranteed by the tsar, a Finnish national identity evolved in the course of the nineteenth century that was directed as much against Swedish cultural dominance as against any political tutelage by Russia. However, in 1899 a policy of russification was instituted with the aim of removing Finland's autonomous status, and this was met with widespread—though largely passive—resistance. To be sure, the Finns' traditionally strong loyalty to the person of the Russian tsar, who was also grand duke of Finland, remained unbroken for the time being. But russification spurred political participation in wide sections of the Finnish population, leading to the constitutional reform passed in 1905–1906 that, among other things, introduced for the first time anywhere in the world women's unqualified active and passive voting rights. Finland thus turned away from the corporatist diet toward a modern unicameral system, which would remain the foundation of Finnish parliamentarism throughout the entire twentieth century. In doing so, the country suddenly catapulted itself into the ranks of the Continent's politically most advanced polities, despite continuing economic backwardness.

WORLD WAR I AND INDEPENDENCE

Nevertheless, at the outbreak of World War I, Finland's eventual emergence from the conflict as an independent republic along democratic-parliamentary lines was by no means foreseeable. Only the revolutionary changes in Russia in 1917 provided the conditions necessary for that outcome. The fall of the tsar during the February Revolution of 1917 shook the constitutional foundations in Finland too, in that it was unclear who should take over supreme state authority at the time. Thus Russia's destabilization created a power vacuum in Finland as well; as it turned out, the dissolution of the Finnish parliament (Eduskunta), ordered by the provisional government in St. Petersburg in July 1917, was the last significant show of power in Finland by the Russian central authority. At this point the political forces quickly began to reorganize and polarize. The backdrop to these developments was the war-related escalation of economic and social problems in Finland, which temporarily led to hunger crises even in Finnish cities. Between 1913 and 1917 the cost of living rose approximately fourfold, while at the same time the Finnish mark dramatically decreased in value. Industry also sustained heavy losses. A wave of labor disputes, growing unemployment, and mass impoverishment provided the setting for political conflicts that were gradually shifting to the extra-parliamentary realm. The presence of a growing number of politicized Russian soldiers—close to one hundred thousand by the fall of 1917—exacerbated the situation.

On 15 November the newly elected Eduskunta, now dominated by bourgeois forces, declared itself the supreme authority in Finland. Three weeks later, on 6 December (today's national holiday), the parliament approved a declaration of independence introduced by the new senate under the leadership of Pehr Evind Svinhufvud. Against the backdrop of the October Revolution, which had meanwhile erupted in Russia, the bourgeois parties were attempting to create a fait accompli as quickly as possible. The Socialists also favored the country's independence, striving in the process for a reorganization along socialist lines but without Lenin's proletarian dictatorship. They denied the legitimacy of the bourgeois government as much as the legality of the armed Defense Corps raised by the government to disarm the Russian troops still remaining within Finnish territory. Instead the Socialists banked on contractual agreements with the new Russian government, which indeed formally recognized the independence of Finland on 31 December 1917. A revolutionary government formed in late January 1918 in Helsinki, led by Kullervo Akilles Manner and supported by armed forces of its own (Red Guards), quickly gained control over large parts of southern Finland, especially the urban centers of Helsinki and Tampere. Nonetheless, within weeks the White Guards concentrated in the area of Vaasa (Ostrobothnia) managed to turn the tide, and at the beginning of May resistance by Red forces broke down completely. The outcome of the war reflected the military-professional superiority of the White troops, who had a well-trained and experienced commander in chief in the person of Carl Gustav Mannerheim, a former tsarist general. In addition, starting in 1915 numerous volunteers had already obtained secret military training in Germany and gained combat experience as members of the Königlich-Preußisches Jägerbatallion (Royal Prussian Riflemen Battalion) 27. This Jäger movement, comprising close to two thousand men overall, would become a cornerstone of the Finnish army in subsequent decades.

In other respects too Germany contributed to the victory of the Whites in the civil war. On 3 April 1918 the German Baltic Sea Division commanded by General Rüdiger von der Goltz landed in Finland and managed to enter Helsinki ten days later. With this event German influence in Finland appeared to have reached its climax—much against Mannerheim's will. According to the wishes of the Finnish parliament, the country's army was to be built up by German officers, and a Hessian prince, the brother-in-law of the German kaiser, was to be crowned king of Finland. However, by fall 1918 the collapse of Imperial Germany had already eliminated the basis for any pro-German policy in Finland. Instead, following new parliamentary elections in March 1919, passage of the constitution (21 July 1919), and the election of a committed republican (Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg) as first president, the new polity began consolidating into a durable democratic republic.

The events of 1917–1918 represent one of the great turning points of Finnish history and have been subject to widely differing interpretations. It is certain that the conflicts of that period represented the convergence of efforts toward national sovereignty, the struggle for a reorganization of society, and interventionist interests from abroad. As a result the young republic incurred a difficult legacy: the war had cost about 29,000 deaths overall, for the most part victims of terror and inhuman internment conditions, and for at least two decades Finnish society remained internally divided. It is all the more remarkable that among the countless new states arisen from the "disposable assets" left by World War I, Finland was one of the few that managed to retain its democratic form of government throughout. One essential reason for this was that during the constitutional struggles of the previous decades, the beginnings of a party system had already formed, which now underwent rapid consolidation. In addition to the already existing Agrarian Party (Maalaisliitto) and the party of the Swedish-speaking minority (Swedish People's Party), the National Progressive Party (Edistys), which had grown out of the liberal movement of Young Finns, was now emerging as the main party in support of the republic; by contrast, the political Right saw the hitherto mainly pro-monarchical "old Finns" join forces in the National Coalition Party (Kokoomus). On the left, the outcome of the war resulted in a split of the workers' movement. Whereas the Social Democratic Party (SDP) under Väinö Tanner oriented itself programmatically toward its West European sister parties and reassumed the responsibility of government as early as 1926, the Communist Party of Finland, founded in Moscow in 1918, was forced to work underground; thousands of Finnish Communists who emigrated to the Soviet Union subsequently fell victim to the Stalinist purges.

INTERWAR PERIOD

Despite political normalization and societal modernization, Finland remained a "White" republic during the interwar years. Ideological anticommunism among large parts of the bourgeoisie, the rekindled language controversy between the Finnish majority and the Swedish minority, and the effects of the world economic crisis felt in Finland by the late 1920s encouraged the development of extraparliamentary and extreme right-wing protest movements. Temporary influence was exerted above all by the Lapua movement, the Academic Karelia Society (AKS), and the Patriotic People's Movement (IKL), which also participated in the parliamentary elections during the 1930s, albeit with moderate success. That in the end none of these organizations succeeded in making a breakthrough as a mass movement was primarily due to three reasons: first, the deep-rootedness of democratic traditions among the Finnish people; second, determined government intervention against public attempts to instigate turmoil (the Mäntsälä revolt in 1932); and finally, the fact that, despite numerous linkages, the antidemocratic Right among the country's conservatives and among the associated paramilitary Defense Corps (Suojeluskunta) received only halfhearted support.

Finland also faced major foreign policy problems. On the western frontier, relations with Sweden initially suffered from the quarrel over possession of the Åland Islands; in 1921 the League of Nations decided that the islands would remain with Finland but that the purely Swedish-speaking population be granted far-reaching autonomy. The situation in the east was more threatening. Though on 14 October 1920 Finland had managed to conclude the Peace Treaty of Tartu (Dorpat) with the Soviet Union, the situation along the East Karelian frontier remained uneasy. Under these circumstances Helsinki initially worked toward a defense alliance with other neighboring states of the Soviet Union (Poland, Estonia, and Latvia). After the failure of this so-called border states policy Finland decided on a nonalignment policy combined with close affiliation with the League of Nations. In the 1930s the foreign political situation at first appeared to ease off. Following the nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union signed in January 1932 there was intensified cooperation with the Scandinavian countries along the lines of a "Nordic neutrality." By sheer lack of realistic alternatives, Helsinki adhered to this policy even though its fragility became increasingly apparent as international tensions mounted in 1938.

WORLD WAR II

Whereas Finland was involved only indirectly in the Great Power conflicts of World War I, it became embroiled in World War II very early on and repeatedly in the most ominous way. Under circumstances varying in each case, the country experienced three wars in those years: in 1939–1940 the so-called Winter War, waged with the Soviet Union without any foreign assistance; in 1941–1944 the Continuation War, once again waged with the Soviet Union but now side by side with Germany; and finally, the Lapland War against Germany, beginning after the armistice with the Soviet Union in the fall of 1944. Each of the three wars had its own significance for Finland's internal and external development. In the Winter War, Finland fell victim to the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact concluded in August 1939, whose secret accompanying protocol had ceded the country to the Soviet sphere of influence. During the negotiations about redrawing borders and about military bases, which the Soviet Union demanded shortly afterward, Helsinki had proved intransigent—in contrast to the Baltic republics—and as a result faced military attack by the Soviets on 30 November. The unexpected defensive successes of the greatly outnumbered Finnish army excited worldwide admiration; they failed, however, to spare Helsinki from having to accept a peace treaty on 12 March 1940. The agreement not only granted the Soviet Union a naval base in southern Finland (Hanko) but also afforded Moscow territorial gains in East Karelia and, on the Karelian Isthmus, Viipuri (Vyborg). Despite heavy losses (approximately 25,000 war dead), in domestic politics the Winter War contributed substantially to Finnish national unity and to overcoming the trauma of the civil war. In terms of foreign policy it strengthened the general belief that lasting security vis-à-vis the Soviet Union could only be achieved at the side of a strong military ally.

This conviction led the Finnish government in 1941 to cooperate with Germany. Within the framework of a "loose comradeship in arms" without further contractual commitments, the leaders in Helsinki hoped to recapture the territories lost by the Treaty of Moscow and move the country to a strategically stronger position in relation to the eastern neighbor. Great initial military successes during the Continuation War beginning in late June 1941 stirred up hopes among nationalist circles of a substantially expanded "Greater Finland." However, following the British declaration of war (5 December 1941) and the first German setbacks in the winter of 1941, the Finnish government adopted a policy of wait-and-see, and the military campaign became defensive. By February 1943—after the German defeat in Stalingrad and the reverses in front of Leningrad—politicians in Helsinki began looking for ways to get out of the war. These efforts were made difficult by two circumstances: on the one hand by the heavy economic and military dependence on Germany, which had stationed an army of its own (20. Gebirgsarmee) in northern Finland; and on the other by the fact that neither the United States nor Great Britain was in a position to guarantee Finnish independence in the face of Soviet demands. Considering this situation, in retrospect it appears as a particular success of Finnish politics to have been able to withdraw from the war on 2 September 1944 by means of an armistice with the Soviet Union, without having to undergo the experience of a German or Soviet occupation. The Lapland War between German and Finnish troops, resulting from the terms of the armistice, represented a short though bloody end to the "comradeship in arms" of previous years and led to the large-scale devastation of northern Finland by withdrawing German troops.

POSTWAR YEARS AND COLD WAR FOREIGN POLICY

The Lapland War marked the final chapter of a policy seeking to secure Finnish independence through political dependence on Germany. It cleared the way for a fundamental reorientation of Finnish foreign and security policy, which now for the first time relied consistently on reconciliation of interests with Moscow to serve as reinsurance for the country's own sovereignty. This policy, subsequently named the "Paasikivi-Kekkonen line" (for Juho Kusti Paasikivi and Urho Kekkonen, the successive presidents who shaped it) was set down contractually in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 and above all in the Moscow Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance concluded in 1948. Finnish foreign policy, based on this agreement from then on until the collapse of the Soviet Union, was by no means undisputed in the West. In fact, the pact of cooperation, in conjunction with the limitations on Finnish armaments stipulated in the peace treaty and a naval base in Porkkala (near Helsinki) granted to the USSR (returned to Finland in 1955), represented a considerable strain on Finland's claim to a policy of neutrality. There is also no doubt that Finnish postwar policies—both with respect to foreign policy and security issues and in terms of domestic and economic questions—was geared toward making far-reaching concessions to Soviet demands in order to defuse potential conflicts with Moscow before they arose. Not without good reason, commentators sometimes spoke of a "Second Republic" to differentiate this political culture from that of the prewar era. Nevertheless, the characterization by some analysts of the Finnish-Soviet relationship as, in John P. Vloyantes's words, "silk-glove hegemony," misses the crux of the matter insofar as Finland was the only European neighbor of the Soviet Union that managed to retain its sovereignty as a parliamentary democracy. Moreover, despite a number of serious crises (the "Night-Frost" crisis in 1958; the "Note" crisis in 1961), Finnish foreign policy managed to play an increasingly independent role in international affairs, as demonstrated by diverse activities under the auspices of the United Nations, participation in the Nordic Cooperation organization (Nordic Council), and in relation to the policy of détente (the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975, which produced the broad-based international agreement that came to be known as the Helsinki Accords).

With respect to domestic policy, the end of World War II brought new challenges, particularly in the initial postwar years. Monitored by a Soviet-dominated Allied Control Commission, Finland's army (which had incurred losses of some ninety thousand during the war years) had to be demobilized completely in very short order, and the leading politicians of the war years (except Mannerheim) were tried in court. About 420,000 refugees from the areas ceded to the Soviet Union—about 12 percent of the total Finnish territory, mainly Karelia and the Petsamo region—had to be resettled and integrated into Finland. Reconstruction was also hampered by reparations payable to the USSR and the fact that, out of consideration for Moscow, Finland abstained from participating in the Marshall Plan. The resulting economic and social problems, election successes of the Left, and the temporarily dominant role of the Moscow-oriented Communist Party (allowed again since 1944) caused many observers to perceive the early postwar period as "years of danger," during which the transformation of the country into a Soviet-style "people's democracy" did not seem completely out of the question. Nonetheless, several factors contributed to the country's economic recovery. As opposed to other Soviet adversaries, Finland had withdrawn from the war early on and remained unoccupied; there had been few civilian casualties; and, with the exception of Lapland, the material war damages had been relatively small. Thus economic output recovered to prewar levels as early as 1948.

ECONOMY AND SOCIETY SINCE 1970

In subsequent decades the Finnish economy and society underwent the type of modernization process experienced much earlier on by most central and Western European countries. Between 1910 and 1970 the population of Finland grew from 3 million to 4.6 million (4 million in 1950); at the same time, the share of the workforce employed in agriculture and forestry declined from 80 percent to 20 percent (47 percent in 1950). The breakthrough into a modern industrial and service economy was accompanied by a rural exodus, urbanization, and growing economic involvement abroad. The standard of living rose significantly (per capita gross national product in 1975 was $5,100), even though it continued to lag considerably behind the country's major Nordic neighbors. Free-trade agreements with the European Community, its key economic partner, and with the European Free Trade Association, which Finland joined later on, secured Finland's international competitiveness; at times, the Soviet Union's share in Finnish foreign trade reached close to 20 percent.

The 1980s and 1990s brought Finland fundamental change both in domestic and foreign politics. The end of the "Kekkonen era" (Urho Kekkonen held the office of president from 1956 to 1981) brought a loosening of the country's party political designations and cautious modifications of the domestic balance of power, which culminated in the constitutional reform of 1999. For Finland, the limitation of presidential jurisdiction prescribed in this reform in favor of expanded parliamentary and governmental prerogatives marked the transition from a semi-presidential to a full-fledged parliamentary system of government. The breakup of the Soviet Union had an even more important effect, substantially extending the scope of Finnish politics. To be sure, the collapse of trade to the east in the early 1990s initially led to an escalation of the country's economic recession, but successful countermeasures laid the groundwork for an economic boom unprecedented in Finnish history.

Despite Finland's continuing claim to neutrality in the realm of security policy, the country's accession to the European Union in 1995 and to the European Economic and Monetary Union in 1999 fundamentally changed the framework of Finnish politics. With good reason, one may refer to the beginning of a "Third Republic." Thanks to a society largely pacified politically and socially, major investments in education and infrastructure, and specific promotion of high-tech industries (especially Nokia), Finland appears to be succeeding better than most other European countries in combining the prerequisites of international competitiveness with the continuously high social standards of a Scandinavian-style welfare society. In spite of some ongoing structural problems, mainly due to its geographic location, Finland appears to be as well prepared as any European country for the new challenges of the twenty-first century.

See alsoGermany; Helsinki Accords; Sweden; World War I; World War II.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jussila, Osmo, Seppo Hentilä, and Jukka Nevakivi. From Grand Duchy to a Modern State: A Political History of Finland since 1809. London, 1999.

Kirby, D. G. Finland in the Twentieth Century. London, 1979.

Paasivirta, Juhani. Finland and Europe: The Early Years of Independence, 1917–1939. Edited and translated by Peter Herring. Helsinki, 1988.

Ruddy, T. Michael, ed. Charting an Independent Course: Finland's Place in the Cold War and in U.S. Foreign Policy. Claremont, Calif., 1998.

Screen, J. E. O. Mannerheim: The Finnish Years. London, 2000.

Upton, Anthony F. The Finnish Revolution, 1917–1918. Minneapolis, Minn., 1980.

Vehviläinen, Olli. Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia. Translated by Gerard McAlester. Houndmills, U.K., 2002.

Bernd Wegner