Death in an Empty Room

Last week the Finnish Government rejected Moscow's peace terms, enraged the Russians, and made all the world wonder. Just out of Helsinki, TIME Correspondent John Scott cabled from Stockholm:

"Already the Finns' hard-earned high living standard has largely disappeared. But still they are determined to fight on with a grimness and single-mindedness which left me, after a fortnight in Finland, with increased respect for Finnish fortitude and brass, awe at Finnish political obtuseness, but increasing pessimism regarding Finland's future."

At the top, among Finnish politicos and businessmen, Scott found a single-minded determination to fight to the last Finn. "Their attitude towards the Russians is summed up in an old Finnish 'magic song': Just this much they will get from me: what an ax gets from a stone, a stump from slippery ice, or death from an empty room"

Scott discovered the same determination among Finnish peasants--but with a difference. The top men knew how little chance Finland has to win, but did not tell the country; the peasants, all unknowing, confidently believed not only that Finland was winning but that she would continue to win. The Germans? Finland would come out all right, anyway. Only among Finnish workers did Scott find a strong desire for peace, a strong disagreement with government policy. But they could not speak out.

Save or Destroy? Last week's hullabaloo from Moscow obscured the fact that Soviet Russia had lost a studied effort to settle the Finnish campaign without having to beat the Finns. Cabled Scott:

"Soviet Russia, like most countries, would like to have friendly neighbors. Finland, run by Ryti, Mannerheim, Tanner, and Linkomies, is irrevocably hostile to Soviet Russia. A relationship between Soviet Russia and Finland as ruled today, along the lines outlined by the Soviet-Czech pact, is out of the question. What can Moscow do about it?

"First possibility: go in and throw out the hostile Government, then lay the basis for cooperation. This the Russians tried to do in Finland in 1939, but were thwarted. Second possibility: let the country have whatever government it has or seems to want, but weaken the country strategically and economically to the point where it could not possibly harm Russia. This the Russians did to Finland in March 1940, when the taking of Viipuri, Hango and the Saimaa Canal placed Finland in a dependent position. But the 1941 world situation interrupted Russian plans and Finland became just that place d'armes which Russia did not desire.

"Now again Russia may choose between these two methods. Moscow's proposals in February and March followed the second line of action. These terms--the 1940 frontiers, the harbor of Petsamo lost to Russia, and a heavy indemnity--would have reduced Finland to a position of economic dependency and more or less permanent military impotence. There probably would have been internal difficulties in Finland besides, as few governments in history have survived a lost war and Russia's conditions would have meant to most Finns that Finland had lost the war. Moreover the Germans would probably have made a coup and provoked civil war.

"But the Finns refused. So the Kremlin must switch to force and try to follow it through. It will be hard to do now after so much blood spilt, plus what will be spilt before the Russians accomplish their military aims. The Finns, fighting in their own country, will be nasty partisans to deal with.

"I believe therefore that the Russians will do one of two things if and after they have cracked Finland militarily: either ship all Finns to Kazakstan and Yakutiya [in Siberia] and move Russians into Finland, or else give Finland a very special privileged position after a friendly government has been established. Machiavelli said that one should either be nice to people or destroy them. Russian leaders are familiar with Machiavelli."

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