Half-light in Helsinki

The crump of Russian bombs in Helsinki splintered the frozen stillness of the Finnish winter. Over Finland's radio came the numbing news that Cordell Hull had warned the Finns to quit the war at once. It was Hull's third try, but the first to reach the ears of most Finns. In the white forests and around the windswept shores of Finland's myriad icebound lakes, Finns blinked and wondered.

What of the old story that a prolonged war would become a victorious war? What of the assurances that all the world understood how Finland was fighting a private war, only accidentally connected with Hitler's war? What of the newspaper Karjolae, which speaks for the friend; of Baron Mannerheim and only last fortnight had said again: "The collapse of the Soviet Union . . . cannot be put off any longer than March 1944 . . . then the world will be put in order for Finland." Had the Government of Russia-haters and the dreamers of a Greater Finland running all the way to Archangel misled the people?

Rebel's Plan. In Helsinki there was open revolt in Finland's biggest party, the Social Democrats. Former leader Vaino Voionmaa challenged the iron rule of the Party's present boss, Finance Minister Vaino Tanner, admirer of Hitler and strong man of Finnish politics. Elder Statesman Voionmaa demanded peace with Russia on the best terms Russia would give, the resignation of the Government, the appointment of patient old (73) Juho Kusti Paasikivi as Premier. Paasikivi is one Finn who knows how to talk business with Stalin. Voionmaa was present when Paasikivi as Foreign Minister went to Moscow (via Stockholm) to negotiate the peace at the end of the Russian invasion of 1939-40.

The Party paper, Sosialidemokraati, burst the rigid bonds of censorship to publish a bold call for peace. Banker-President Risto Ryti's gloomy cabinet met four times in four days.

Foe's Plan. Finns heard Moscow radio

describe their Government as a crocodile trying to look like a nice old man. "The vipers who are crawling on their bellies before Hitler, saying they wish to defend Finland as far east as Petrozavodsk [capital of the Soviet Karelo-Finnish Republic] may find the Red Army defending the Soviet Union as far west as Helsinki," Moscow added ominously. As the Red Army drove into Estonia, 60 miles away across the Gulf of Finland, Moscow's audible, pointed recollections of Finland's part in the bombardment and siege of Leningrad, in the epic sufferings of Leningrad's citizens, sounded sharply prophetic.

Surrender would not be easy for the Finns. If the occupying Germans chose to fight, they could turn the whole country into a battleground, keep an iron hold on Helsinki until the Red Army drove them out.

At week's tense end, Paasikivi turned up again in Stockholm. So did Eljas Erkko, another onetime Foreign Minister, and Leo Ehrnrooth, Minister of Interior. There were persistent reports that the Russian Ambassador, Mme. Alexandra Kollantai, had given them the terms:

> Russian occupation of Finland until the final peace.

> Restoration of the 1940 frontiers.

> Demobilization of the Finnish Army, reorganization of the Finnish Government to eliminate Russophobes Ryti, Tanner and friends.

> Russian guarantee of Finland's survival after the war.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.