Image of President Kekkonen not shaken by new biography

Jukka Seppinen

Urho Kekkonen

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By Unto Hämäläinen
     
      Dr. Jukka Seppinen has previously published biographies of Ahti Karjalainen (601 pages) and Johannes Virolainen (634 pages). Both are massive tomes, but they seem thin alongside the biography of Urho Kekkonen. Seppinen is a very busy man by nature.
      Whereas Jari Tervo uses his novelist’s licence to fill gaps with the help of his imagination in his new book Myyrä ("Mole"), Seppinen relies on documents that he has dug up in archives both in Finland and abroad. Urho Kekkonen - Suomen johtaja ("Urho Kekkonen - Leader of Finland") is mainly a triumph of hard work.
     
When we talk about as controversial a figure as Urho Kekkonen, we must evaluate the attitude that the writer has. Is he critical toward Kekkonen like Lasse Lehtinen and Hannu Rautkallio, or is he understanding, like Juhani Suomi?
      Seppinen does not fit into either category. He has much to say about what Kekkonen did, but he still gives him high marks.
      The final sentence of the book reads: "He was ultimately a very patriotic man". The biography does not shake the already quite well-established image of President Urho Kekkonen with his good and bad sides.
     
However, Seppinen’s favourite among politicians of the Kekkonen era was Johannes Virolainen. Seppinen never tires of singing his praises. It would seem that Seppinen looks at Kekkonen in the same way that Virolainen did in his day: with respect and appreciation on the outside, and with rebellion on the inside.
      Virolainen’s real thoughts emerged only after Kekkonen’s resignation and death.
     
Seppinen has used his personal observations as a Foreign Ministry civil servant in the 1970s and 1980s in a manner reminiscent of Virolainen.
      Seppinen praises the Kekkonen who supported his civil servants in their struggle on behalf of Finnish neutrality. At that time Soviet Ambassador Vladimir Stepanov and his cronies tried to remove any mention of neutrality from the countries’ joint communiqué.
      "Kekkonen did not buckle under in 1977, any more than he did in 1970 or 1971", Seppinen says. He even takes the view that after the events of the spring of 1977 there was a change in Soviet policy toward Finland. Until then the Soviet Union had tried to foment a revolution here, but from then on, it settled for peaceful coexistence.
     
In January 1981 Seppinen was assisting Kekkonen during a visit to the Presidential residence of Tamminiemi by a French delegation.
      "Kekkonen was in poor shape, and was practically leaning on his aide for support. Suddenly President Kekkonen lapsed into memories of his childhood; while answering a question concerning Finnish affairs, he started talking about the beginning of the century. The French delegation did not (hopefully) notice anything strange, except for the poor shape that the President was in."
      The condition of the elderly President came as a shock to Seppinen.
     
So much has been written about Urho Kekkonen that after a new book it is necessary to ask oneself what new things were learned.
      To the very end, Kekkonen had a strange relationship with Germany. He feared West Germany, and predicted that if there was to be a Third World War, that is where it would start.
      Kekkonen looked askance at East Germany, but took a strained and friendly attitude, because he understood the importance of East Germany for the Soviet Union.
      Kekkonen’s outlook led to a curious pattern in Finnish-German relations.
      Attitudes toward West Germany were very cautious, and good relations were maintained with East Germany. This could be seen even in the arrangements of official state visits: Kekkonen went to East Germany in 1977 and only a couple of years later to West Germany. Both Germanies naturally made note of the sequence.
     
Seppinen’s book brings out material from the archives of both Germanies. It reveals that in East Germany, Finland was considered a weak link of capitalism, which could be influenced. Even the smallest of "victories in the Finnish direction" were seen as huge steps forward. East Germany was also completely under Soviet control in its policies toward Finland.
      Attitudes in West Germany toward Kekkonen were somewhat suspicious, but the West Germans managed to assess Kekkonen’s policies more accurately than their Eastern counterparts did. Trade was more important than politics in the long term. Economic cooperation with West Germany grew all the time because Kekkonen kept the trade routes open towards the West.
      No wonder then, that in his discussions with his East German colleagues, Soviet diplomat Yuri Deryabin suspected that Kekkonen was being two-faced in the "strategic choices and implementations of Finnish integration policy".
     
Deryabin believed that Kekkonen was ultimately pro-Western and "on the side of the monopoly capitalists", even though he presented himself as being progressive, and insisted that he understood the policies of the Soviet Union.
      "So this is the real Kekkonen", Deryabin told the East Germans in 1971, after Kekkonen initiated preparations for Finland’s free trade agreement with the EEC. After reading this biography, I am inclined to believe that Deryabin was right.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 4.9.2004

More on this subject:
 COMMENT: Kekkonen used Security Police to infiltrate Finnish Communist Party

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Jari Tervo tackles Kekkonen era in new novel (31.8.2004)
  New book: Soviets tried to instigate revolution in Finland twice in 1970s (3.9.2004)

UNTO HÄMÄLÄINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
unto.hamalainen@hs.fi