The Wary Neighbor

The Finns, who defended their independence through two gallant, losing wars with Russia, have also found it hard to stand up against their giant neighbor in time of peace. Last year their President Urho Kekkonen shocked many Finns by letting the Russians veto the composition of a Finnish Cabinet. Following an election in which the Communists captured 50 of 200 parliamentary seats and emerged as the strongest single party, the republic's anti-Communist forces banded together to form a five-party coalition government. Flouting its postwar treaty pledge of "noninterference in other states' affairs," Moscow brought economic pressure to bear to destroy the coalition and succeeded in forcing the appointment of a new government from which the ministers Moscow disapproved were excluded. Hungary convinced many Finns that in any open quarrel with Russia, their country would have to fight alone. Besides, Russia got a hammer lock on the Finnish economy, or at least a half nelson, by exacting such heavy reparations after World War II that the Finns, in order to pay them, had to set up industry for which Russia is the only real market.

Last week a grinning Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan was in Helsinki for the signing of the new fiveyear, $1.5 billion trade pact. Terms: Finland will continue to send icebreakers and papermaking machinery to Russia, in return for Soviet wheat, coal, oil, autos. The Soviet-bloc share of Finnish trade will remain a vital 22%. Asked whether Russo-Finnish relations would be hurt if the Finns should join their British and Scandinavian trading partners in the proposed Western "Outer Seven" bloc, Mikoyan returned a wary answer. "That is a matter for the government of Finland," he said, "which will take steps, of course, to see that Finland's interests are not hurt in the building of such blocs. In the Soviet Union, we are opposed to such blocs." Weighing their economic livelihood against their political existence in the way that they must do almost every day of their lives, Finns said just as warily that they had better wait and see about joining their Outer Seven friends.

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