Finland: In the Giant's Shadow

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Finland's major achievement in the 20th century is that it still exists. It is thus little wonder that the 4,600,000 Finns intend to mark the 50th anniversary of their country's independence this year with a series of national celebrations. The festivities began this week with a parade of Finland's modest armed forces through the capital of Helsinki, whose distinction is that it is the world's second northernmost capital (after Iceland's Reykjavik). While the navy's Russian-built destroyers rode at anchor in the harbor, the army's British tanks and French artillery rolled through the streets toward Senate Square, where officials honored the memory of Field Marshal Baron Carl Gustaf Mannerheim, who half a century ago led the force that established Finland's democratic regime.

For more than seven centuries, both freedom and democracy eluded Finland, which silently submitted to the rule of its giant neighbors—first Sweden and then, after 1809, Czarist Russia. After revolution toppled the Czar in 1917, the Bolsheviks repudiated imperialism and granted Finland its demand for independence. Civil war broke out when Bolshevik followers tried to seize power in the newly independent state, and ended only when Mannerheim defeated the Communists and installed a democratic regime that excluded them—a victory that left a legacy of left-right hostility that still plagues the country.

After two decades of peace, Finland had to fight not one but three wars during World War II: first the famed Winter War of 1939-40, in which it stalemated the invading Russians; then in 1941, when it fought the Russians again as a reluctant German ally; then again in 1944, when, having sued for peace with the Allies, it had to drive the Germans from its soil in a gory cleanup operation that took seven months.

Sub-Zero Treks. The war took a heavy toll. Finland lost 115,000 men (nearly 3% of its population), also had to pay Russia huge reparations and cede part of its land. The losses taught Finland a lesson. President Urho Kekkonen, now serving his eleventh year in that post, realized that his country must retain the favor of its Soviet neighbor. While this has not meant alliance with the Soviets, it has led to a neutrality that slightly favors them. Kekkonen keeps up his ties with the Russians; few men can boast of having established personal relationships with Stalin, Khrushchev, Kosygin and Brezhnev.