Might and Mercy

It's encouraging to see that the autumn's discussions of Finland's political past seem to be gathering momentum there. After Professor Juhani Suomi's critical assessment of Mauno Koivisto's 1981-84 presidency comes another book that examines the actions of Finnish politicians during the Cold War.

In 2003 the prestigious Tieto-Finlandia Prize for the best Finnish non-fiction book of the year went to Finnish author and researcher Elina Sana, for her book Luovutetut [The Returnees] (WSOY, 2003), which revealed that the number of prisoners and refugees handed over by Finland to the German Gestapo during the war was much greater than previously acknowledged. In her research Sana found that Finland sent more than 500 political and Jewish prisoners of war to Germany: previous accounts put the number of deported Jews at just eight. The Wiesenthal Centre requested that an investigation into the matter be carried out, and the request was implemented by the Finnish government. Now Finnish researchers Jussi Pekkarinen and Juhani Pohjonen have published a study of another aspect of Finland's wartime and postwar history that has so far escaped public discussion.

After the end of the Second World War some 100,000 people were expelled from Finland over the eastern border into the Soviet Union - thus, a considerably larger number than was deported to Nazi Gemany. The terms of the peace agreement required that Finland had to return to the Soviet Union some 56,000 Ingrian, 44,000 Soviet and over 2,500 German prisoners of war. If these terms were not met, the Soviet government would refuse to return the many Finnish prisoners of war to their own country. The return of the Ingrians was not spoken about in postwar Finland. One Finnish commentator has remarked: "During the whole time the Soviet Union existed, people didn't speak about those Ingrians that had been sent back. This return of the ethnic Finns after the war didn't exist. Not until the end of the 80s did the matter attract attention when books and memoirs were published. "

The new book by Pekkarinen and Pohjonen - Ei armoa Suomen selkänahasta [Literally: "No Mercy at Finland's Expense"] (Otava)- makes a thorough examination - probably the first to be made in Finland - of the whole issue. which did not end with World War 2 but continued to be a problem throughout the Cold War. Marius Labentowicz has drawn my attention to an article/interview in the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza which reviews and discusses the work, and he has sent me some translated excerpts from Polish:

Moral hangover from Finnish realpolitik during the Cold War?

From a book published in Finland it can be concluded that between 1945-1981 Finnish authorities were sending back a majority of political refugees from the USSR, who were trying to flee to the West through Finland, this was done by the authorities of their own free will, and was not forced on them.

However, there weren't many of those kind of of cases. Juha Pohjonen, author of recently published book "Ei armoa Suomen selkänahasta" ("No Mercy At Finland's Expense ") dug through the archives and counted 117 persons who were sent back to the USSR. Pohjonen told Gazeta that a majority of them got harsh sentences of 10-15 years of prison or gulag. In one instance a death sentence was executed, some people who were sent back committed suicide.

"It's not the scale of this behaviour that's important - what matters is acquiring a moral perspective on the Finnish politics of those days," Pohjonen asserts. He believes that his book will cause lively discussion.


Finlandization after two wars

After World War II Finland became a neutral state.

[passage omitted]


The price for Finnish "neutrality" was the 1948 friendship treaty with the USSR. The Finns were assured that they would not be a target of Soviet attack, and Moscow could sleep in peace because she knew that no NATO attack awaited her from Finnish territory. Unlike Norway, Finland could not enter NATO at the time it was created, as there was a Soviet base on her territory until 1956.

East Imperative

"After the war, the Soviet Union was a big danger with which we were left alone. Good relations with the USRR became an imperative of Finnish politics," asserts Klaus Törnudd, an expert on Finnish foreign affairs and former diplomat. In exchange for
their submission, the Finns were able to develop a market economy and build prosperity.

From Pohjonen's book it can be concluded that this imperative influenced policy towards refugees from the USSR. Shortly after the war, the Finnish authorities sent back to USSR around 100,000 people within the framework of repatriation. These were Soviet citizens who were on Finnish territory because of military actions Some of them had Ugro-Finnish ethnicity and fought on the side of the Finns against the USSR. The Finnish archives do not tell what happened to them. Historians are waiting for the Russian archives to be opened.

"This policy of sending back Soviet refugees was continued by President Urho Kekkonen, who took office in 1956. Kekkonen sent refugees back to the USSR refugees because he was convinced that good relations with USSR were more important that the fate of those people," Pohjonen tell us. "Despite what has been suggested for many years by different Western historians there was no secret agreement between Kekkonen and Moscow. Finland had, of course, signed border agreement with the USSR, but that agreement made no mention of readmission."

According to Pohjonen's book not all refugees were handed over to the Russians. 36 of 153, who wanted to flee obtained the right to stay, and some of them went on to the West through Sweden. But the Finns mainly helped persons Finno-Ugric ethnicity.

"The policy of sending refugees back to the USSR was continued by subequent presidents, until Mauno Koivisto, when during his rule we had the collapse of the USSR. In my book I descibe the facts and don't judge the Finnish politics of those days," says Juha Pohjonen. "Today we can wonder if it was right from a moral point of view, but in those days that was the realpolitik that prevailed."

Jussi Pekkarinen and Juhani Pohjonen will be taking part in a live discussion of their new book at the Helsinki Book Fair on Sunday October 30 at 11 am (Kullervo Room).