Evening star., 1948-03-28

This impression grows steadily
on one during even the briefest
visit here. The longer one remains,
the more one feels again that there
is nothing new under the sun, and
that this is one Of the worlds un-
solved and unsolvable problems.
What is happening in Finland
today has been happening for $50
years. Time after time, with per-
suasion, with clubs, and with all
the armed force at its command,
Russians have tried to conquer the
country, physically and intellectu-
ally.
Inspire Nationalism
For more than 100 years they
were in actual possession of Fin
land, vet all they have won has
been harvest of bitter hate.
Without in any way wanting to
do so, the Russians have been re-
sponsible for the growth here of a
stubborn nationalism that would
rather see Finland devastated and
it's peoples scattered to the four
corners Of Siberia than to be a
willing servant of Soviet policy.
The pressures on Finland are tre-
mendous.
Some of them are purely geo.
graphical. Like a powerful magnet,
the bulk and proximity of the Soviet
Union cannot be ignored. Yet again,
like a magnet, it sets up fields that
both attract and repulse.
A corollary of this is Finland's
inability to participate in the Euro
pean Recovery Program. Cut OH
from many of its normal sources
of exports and imports. it has had
to turn more and more to the Soviet
Union for its trade and livelihood.
War reparations, stemming from
the historic reality that Finland lost
one recent war and guessed wrong
in second, are another compelling
factor. The total, as will be seen
later, has been fixed at an arbitrary
and meaningless figure Of $780,
000, 900.
Far more immediate than any Of
these are the facts that Soviet guns
are within 10 miles of Helsinki itself
in the leased naval base at Porkkala,
and that Finland's armed forces, by
treaty, are limited to a corps of
three divisions and so operational
aircraft. se ssa
*. In the face Of all this, however,
there are features that distinguish
the situation here from that in
Czechoslovakia, and which make a
coup like that in Prague unlikely >
One Is the very antipathy that
already exists between Finland and
the Soviet Union. Red Army troops
arrived in Prague as liberators. They
came here as conquerors.
Even deeper is the affinity most
Slavic peoples feel for each other.
Russia always has been the big
brother" of any latent pan-Slavic
movement. There were ties of senti-
ment and languages with Czecho-
slavakia. There are none here.
A second difference is the rela-
lively weaker position of the Com
munist Party in Finland than its
counterpart in Czechoslovakia. Esti-
mates of its actual membership here
vary from a low of $4,000 to a high
of 10000 or ,000-only about /
per cent.
Like elsewhere, the Communists
are organized more highly, and in
clined to be more vocal than other
parties. Their campaign in the
present crisis has been a grass
roots" affair, aimed at the small
farmers who make up the bulk of
Finland's population. Yet small
landholders, here as elsewhere, are
not good party-line material.
Few Reliable Yardsticks
Just recently they have received
important support from a reported
300 travellers" or tourists" whose
activities are difficult to follow.
They are Finnish-speaking Com
munists from Karelia, the south
eastern section that was ceded to
Russia after the war, and became
part Of an autonomous Soviet Re-
public.
Officially. the Communists con-
troll so or 81 of the 200 seats in the
Finnish Parliament. Their vehicle
is the so-called Peoples Democratic
Union.
Like the Socialist Unity Party in
Germany, 1t is an uneasy coalition
Of Communists and left-wing, dissi-
dent Social Democrats. Only 80 are
actual Communists.
One Finnish observer explains it
this way:
"The Communists have provided
the body of the group, and the
left-wing Socialists the head"
Some Of the dissidents are said
now to be having second thoughts
about the wisdom of their course.
Reliable yardsticks are few. But
those that exist suggest that Com
munist strength Is declining rather
than increasing.
As in Czechoslovakia, the Com
munists control the police under a
hard-boiled, 51-year- organizer
named Yrjo Leino. Minister of In
terror and a member OF the dele
cation to Moscow.
Leino's ties with communism are
more than merely formal. His wife
Hertta is the daughter of Otto v.
Kuusinen, the Finnish-born Soviet
leader who became first head Of the
Karelian government when it was
incorporated in the Soviet Union.
Unlike Czechoslovakia, however,
the Communists In Finland do not