Finlandization: A Selection from Jared Diamond’s Upheaval (2019)
“When the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in Russia in late 1917, Finland declared its independence. The result was a bitter Finnish Civil War, in which conservative Finns called Whites, consisting of Finnish troops trained in Germany and assisted by German troops who landed in Finland, fought against communist Finns called Reds, as well as against Russian troops still stationed in Finland. When the Whites consolidated their victory in May 1918, they shot about 8,000 Reds, and a further 20,000 Reds died of starvation and disease while rounded up in concentration camps. As measured by percentage of a national population killed per month, the Finnish Civil War remained the world’s most deadly civil conflict until the Rwandan genocide of 1994. That could have poisoned and divided the new country—except that there was quick reconciliation, the surviving leftists received back their full political rights, and by 1926 a leftist had become Finland’s prime minister. . . .
Finland’s total losses against the Soviets and the Germans in the two wars, the Winter War and the Continuation War, were about 100,000 men killed. In proportion to Finland’s population then, that’s as if 9 million Americans were killed in a war today. . . . The Soviet Union’s much heavier combat losses against Finland were estimated at about half-a-million dead and a quarter-of-a-million wounded. That Soviet death toll includes the 5,000 Soviet soldiers taken prisoner by the Finns and repatriated after the armistice to the Soviet Union, where they were immediately shot for having surrendered. . . .
When I visited Finland in 1959, knowing almost nothing about the history of Finland’s two wars with the Soviet Union, I asked my Finnish hosts why Finland deferred to the Soviet Union in so many ways, imported those inferior Moskvich cars, and was so afraid about the possibility of a Soviet attack on Finland. I told my Finnish hosts that the United States would surely defend Finland if the Soviet Union attacked. In retrospect, there was nothing more cruel, ignorant, and tactless that I could have said to a Finn. Finland had bitter memories that, when it actually was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1939, it had not been helped by the U.S., Sweden, Germany, Britain, or France. Finland had to learn from its history that its survival and independence depended on itself, and that Finland would be safe only if the Soviet Union felt safe and trusting towards Finland.
My ignorant attitude has been shared by many non-Finns who should have known better, but who instead labeled Finnish policy by the derogatory term ‘Finlandization.’ As a definition of Finlandization, here is one from the New York Times in 1979: ‘A deplorable state of affairs in which a small and weak neighbor, awed by the might and political ruthlessness of a totalitarian superpower, makes shameless and embarrassing concessions of its sovereign liberties.’ Those who decry Finlandization consider Finland’s policy to be cowardly.
Many Finnish actions do indeed horrify Western European and American observers. It could never happen in the U.S. or Germany that a presidential election would be postponed, a presidential candidate would withdraw his or her candidacy, a publisher would cancel a book, or the press would censor itself, just to avoid inflaming Soviet sensitivities. Such actions seem to violate a democracy’s right to freedom of action.
But the sensitivities of other countries are a problem for every country. To quote President Kekkonen again, ‘A country’s independence is not usually absolute… there was not a single state in existence that did not have to bow to historical inevitabilities.’ There are obvious reasons why Finland has to bow much more to historical inevitabilities than does the U.S. or Germany: Finland is small and borders on Russia, while the U.S. and Germany do not. What do the critics who decry Finlandization think that Finland should instead have been doing?—risk still another Soviet invasion, by not considering Soviet reactions?
Part of the fear behind non-Finnish critics’ objections to Finlandization stemmed from their concern that the communist Soviet Union might lull their own countries into deference to the Soviet Union. But other Western European countries and the U.S. exist in an entirely different geopolitical situation and don’t have to deal with Finland’s geopolitical problems. Kekkonen’s defense of Finland’s policy was summarized in the phrase ‘Finlandization is not for export.’
In fact, Finland’s foreign policy towards the Soviet Union has of necessity been Byzantinely complex. The end result is that, in the 70 years since the end of World War Two, Finland has come no closer to becoming a Soviet or (now) a Russian satellite. Instead, it has succeeded in steadily increasing its ties with the West while still maintaining good ties with Russia. At the same time, Finns know that life is uncertain, and so military service is still compulsory for Finnish men and voluntary for Finnish women. Training lasts up to a year and is rigorous, because Finland expects that its soldiers must really be able to fight. After that year of training, Finns are called up for reserve duty every few years until age 30–35 or older. The reserve army constitutes 15% of Finland’s population—as if the U.S. maintained a reserve army of 50 million. . . .”—Jared Diamond, Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (2019)
