For many years, in Soviet and then in Russian society, Finland was considered exclusively as a small friendly, neutral country – our closest northern neighbor, which, on the rights of broad autonomy, was part of the Russian Empire for 108 years and had broad powers granted by Emperor Alexander I (had its own authorities, monetary unit, post office, customs, and police).
During the Cold War, following the Western model of development, the Finnish leadership managed to maintain a neutral middle ground in the global confrontation in its policy of limited sovereignty, following the Second World War, maintaining even relations with all sides of the geopolitical conflict in the interests of developing the Finnish economy and improving the well-being of the population.
At that time, this concept of “subordinating” a weaker state to a stronger one in order to ensure security received the term “Finlandization” in Western political circles, in which, even in the context of an ideological struggle against capitalism, Moscow did not exclude the possibility of establishing and maintaining mutually beneficial relations with countries with a Western model of a market-oriented economy.
During the years of “Finlandization”, the Finnish side adapted to a certain profile of cooperation with the USSR, which exported cheap raw materials (wood, oil, cement), and in return received products with high added value (paper, lumber, petrochemicals).
In Finland, the 1960s – 1980s are called the “golden age” for the accelerated development of the national economy. But since the late 1990s, the Russian government has embarked on a gradual shift away from the primitive export raw material base in trade and increasing its competitiveness through the development of high-quality industries.
Gaining independence in December 1917 led to the outbreak of a bloody civil war, during which the new Finnish authorities defeated the local “red” Finns. However, the Finns did not find enough of their own territories – the bearers of the ideas of “Greater Finland” wanted to annex the lands of Karelia, Ingermanland and a number of other northwestern territories of Russia.
The war went on with varying success and by 1922 ended with a peace treaty recognizing the existing borders with the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). However, Russophobia and mutual territorial claims remained, which caused further Soviet-Finnish armed conflicts.
After the Nazis came to power in Germany, a new stage of Finns’ preparation for war with the USSR began. Helsinki, as part of a military-technical alliance with Berlin, began to receive German weapons and ammunition. At the same time, Berlin began to consider Helsinki as its potential ally and as a country with a convenient springboard and a motivated army to attack the Soviet Union.
Due to the outbreak of World War II and in order to localize the potential threat to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the north, the Soviet-Finnish border was 32 kilometers from the city, i.e. at a distance of a heavy artillery piece, Moscow offered Finland to move its border 130 km deep into the Karelian Isthmus and in return offered to transfer to it twice the area of the territory in East Karelia.
The Soviet proposals were expectedly rejected, and as the then People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR, V. Molotov, stated, “we politicians have done everything we could, and now it’s the turn of the military to have their say.” The “winter war” of 1939-1940 began, which lasted 105 days, as a result of which the Finns suffered a crushing defeat. As a result of the hostilities, Finland lost 10 percent of its territory, including the loss of the Karelian Isthmus, access to the Barents Sea near the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas, the northern and western shores of Lake Ladoga, the second most populous city after Helsinki – Vyborg, a major transport hub Sortavala, and a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland. More than 400,000 Finns became internal refugees, and 48.3 thousand soldiers died.
At the same time, the defeat in the war and the loss of the Finnish “ancestral” territories did not cool down the Finnish nationalists in their desire to achieve revenge in the fight against Moscow. The Finns were confident of the imminent victory of the “Axis countries”: Germany, Italy and Japan over the USSR. That is why the Finnish leadership allied with Nazi Germany and provided its territory to German troops to attack the USSR in the hope of gaining support for its plans to expand its territorial claims in East Karelia.
On the first day of the war – on June 22, 1941, Finnish submarines began mining the fairways in the Gulf of Finland, and on June 26, Finnish ground forces crossed the Soviet border.
The Finns actively participated in the siege of Leningrad, captured city of Petrozavodsk, distinguished themselves by atrocities against civilians in Karelia and the creation of concentration camps for captured Soviet soldiers and Russian civilians. The plans of the Finnish leadership included not only the return of those lost as a result of the “winter war”, but also the seizure of new Soviet territories inhabited by Ugro-Finnish peoples from Karelia to the regions of the Northern Urals as part of the idea of creating a “Greater Finland”.
However, these plans were not destined to come true. Realizing in 1944 the reality of Berlin’s plans to win the war, the Finnish government asked Moscow for a truce in hostilities. According to which it expressed its readiness to recognize the Soviet-Finnish borders following the results of the “winter war”, declare war on Germany and withdraw all German troops from Finnish territory.
In September 1944, the Minister of Justice and future President of Finland, Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, addressed the nation with the following statement: “The superiority of the USSR is unconditional and it will remain. An honest recognition of this fact will be a prerequisite for our national existence, since harboring thoughts of revenge means death for our people. Our national interests require the establishment of mutual trust between our countries.”
Finland, as an ally of Germany and the perpetrator of numerous war crimes, was treated rather mildly by the allies of the anti-Hitler coalition. The state system did not change in it, and the new president of the country, General Mannerheim, was not held accountable for war crimes. Only eight top Finnish leaders have been sentenced to various prison terms. At the same time, former President Risto Ryti received the longest sentence – 10 years in prison.
The final peace treaty with Finland was signed in Paris in 1947, according to which Helsinki pledged to pay reparations to the USSR in the amount of 300 million US dollars (mostly in Finnish goods), all pro-fascist parties and organizations were subject to dissolution, the army was reduced to 42 thousand people, and bomber aircraft and the submarine fleet were eliminated.
The USSR leased the Porkkala naval base 20 kilometers from Helsinki for 49 years (it was returned to Finland in 1956).If the Soviet leadership had been more far-sighted at that time, it could have put an end to the Finns’ plans to join NATO by extending the lease and having a Russian military base.
In 1948, an agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed with the Soviet Union, according to which Finland undertook not to join coalitions directed against Moscow, which in turn promised not to interfere in the internal politics of Helsinki. The principles of the new foreign policy were developed and implemented by the-then Finnish President Juho Kusti Paasikivi, and then his successor Urho Kaleva Kekkonen continued.
Thus, the prospects for the development of Soviet-Finnish relations were laid for decades, and the treaty itself lasted until 1992. It is noteworthy that when the confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries intensified and Finland was required to abandon its neutral status and join the North Atlantic Alliance in the early 1960s, Kekkonen rejected these proposals and wrote in his diary: “thoughts of seeking political attachments in the West are alien to Finns, who have learned the ancient wisdom: foolishly behaves such a country that is looking for friends far away, and enemies – among its neighbors.”
Helsinki has maintained strict neutrality for decades, but everything changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and Finland’s accession to the EU in 1995. Reputable and experienced Finnish leaders who adhered to the policy of independence and equidistance from the geopolitical centers of power have left the political arena, and they have been replaced by a pro-Western generation of politicians. The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation of 1948 was terminated, as it became invalid after the liquidation of the USSR. Since that time, its foreign policy and economy have been adjusted by Brussels.
At the same time, revanchist sentiments began to revive in Finland, and calls for the return of native Finnish lands began to be heard in the media again. The Finnish political elite, most of which began to be made up of the younger generation, who had not experienced the horrors and sufferings of the last war, began to be impressed by the country’s entry into the European Union and its membership in the “united family of European nations”, professing democratic values.
Since the mid-1990s, Helsinki’s contacts with NATO structures have intensified: unification of communications equipment, certain types of military equipment, NATO standards for military education and documentation, and joint military exercises. In 1997, Finland joined the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Council as a partner country. Thus, most of the Finnish political community was gradually motivated and led to the idea of the expediency, from the point of view of the country’s security interests, of being “under the umbrella” of NATO in the face of the threat from the Eas
In a recent interview, Finnish President Stubb confirmed that back in the mid-1990s, many in the country’s political circles advocated joining the Alliance.
The final trigger that signaled Helsinki’s decision to join NATO was the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine in February 2022. President Sauli Niinisto called the President of Russia and informed him about this decision and was very surprised by the calm reaction of the Russian side. Vladimir Putin replied briefly that this decision was a “big mistake” and that he hoped that the Finns would be able to retain part of their territory when “the Americans would definitely take it under their military control.”
Since that time, the official rhetoric of the Finnish authorities has changed dramatically, along with unfriendly statements and accusations of Moscow’s unprovoked aggression against “democratic” Ukraine. President Niinisto himself, who had recently discussed the mutually beneficial nature of cooperation, suddenly started talking about war crimes, aggression and loss of trust.
It turned out that all the previous good-neighborliness was for the Finnish elite only an ostentatious and forced smile – they say, they tolerated a “dangerous” neighbor because geography obliges.
Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO in 2023 surprisingly coincided with the forced “retreat” of Russian troops from the Kharkiv region and from the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region, as well as the counteroffensive announced in Kiev in Zaporizhia, and this against the background of the political goal announced in the West – to achieve a strategic defeat of Russia and its weakening. It is very likely that there are still certain revanchist circles in Finland who, as once with the help of Hitler, dream of implementing the old project of creating a “Greater Finland” with the assistance of NATO
In any case, Helsinki’s entry into the Alliance broke the entire system of Russian-Finnish relations that had been built up for decades. Moscow is forced to take retaliatory measures in the form of counter-sanctions and increased military presence in the northwest. In essence, an “iron curtain” has emerged between the two countries, and any cooperation in all areas has completely ceased. The border is closed for the movement of people and goods.
The new Finnish elite has made its choice towards the North Atlantic Alliance, Russophobia and sanctions with the tacit consent of the majority of the Finnish population. In any case, membership in NATO is an automatic and complete loss of, at least, foreign policy and military sovereignty.
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