Forgetting the Past

Finland has kept its independence as a nation by carefully avoiding any internal or external policy that would rile the neighboring Russians. Since 1958, the Finns' readiness to please has even extended to excluding from the Cabinet all Social Democrats, against whom the Russians developed a grudge after World War II. But in last week's elections, Finnish voters were plainly unbothered by Moscow's traditional veto. In the biggest postwar gain in a Finnish election, the Social Democrats won 18 new seats, jumped ahead of the Center (formerly Agrarian) Party and the Communists to become the strongest party, with 56 seats in the 200-seat unicameral Diet.

In a sense, the vote was a rebuke to President Urho K. Kekkonen, 65' two-time chief executive and five-time Premier, whose open courting of Soviet good will rankles many Finns, who remember two bitter wars against the Russians. But more important, the vote was an indication of the country's changing voting pattern: as more people leave farm and forest for jobs in Finland's burgeoning factories, they are switching to the urban-oriented Social Democrats, who rank as a middle-of-the-road party and promise to do something about inflation (up 4% last year) and better housing.

The Soviet Union's leaders showed no signs of particular unhappiness about the outcome; many of the bitter anti-Communists the Russians objected to have stepped down from party leadership, and the new leader, Rafael Paasio, 63, emphasizes that his party wants good relations with Russia. President Kekkonen was clearly trying to keep everyone happy by calling on the Social Democrats to explore the possibility of forming a coalition government from Finland's seven parties, including the Communists.