Study: Soviet Union wanted to promote gradual revolution in Finland in 1970
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Finnish political historian Kimmo Rentola has concluded in his extensive new book that Soviet Ambassador Aleksei Belyakov, who was stationed in Helsinki in the summer of 1970, did not try to instigate a rapid socialist revolution or coup in Finland.
Although speculation for the past 35 years has been that Belyakov had hopes of promoting a sudden change, Rentola concludes that his real aim was to advance a more gradual transition through legal means. One of the means to this end would have been the election of Foreign Minister Väinö Leskinen (SDP) to the Finnish Presidency in 1974.
A few years earlier Leskinen had made a 180-degree turn in his thinking on foreign policy; formerly a strong adherent of the right wing of the Social Democratic Party with a very critical view of Soviet socialism, he suddenly took a friendlier attitude toward the USSR, and became a leading proponent of the policies of President Urho Kekkonen.
Although he lost his Parliamentary seat in the elections of 1970, Kekkonen saw to it that Leskinen got the Foreign minister's portfolio, over the objections of the leaders of Leskinen's own Social Democratic Party.
Leskinen's ambitions for the Presidency were well known, but now, in his new book Vallankumouksen aave ("The Ghost of Revolution"), Rentola links those ambitions with Soviet hopes to push Finland onto the road to socialism.
To promote those aims, the Soviet leaders named Aleksei Belyakov, the deputy head of the international section of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as Ambassador to Finland.
Ever since Belyakov's arrival in Finland in the summer of 1970 there have been rumours and suspicions that the Soviet Union wanted to promote a revolution or coup in Finland.
Rentola, who works as a researcher at Finland's Security Police (SUPO), has examined all relevant material to discern what the ultimate purpose for Belyakov's activities might have been.
In his 500-page book, Rentola concludes that the Soviet Union was not trying to promote a sudden or violent change in Finland, as had been the case in the 1940s.
Belyakov's minimum task was to keep the Finnish Communist Party which was racked with bitter internal disputes, from splitting up, and to maintain its position as a government party. He was also instructed to help keep the political right out of the Finnish government, as this would prevent Finland from taking a further Western orientation.
The failure of promoting a creeping revolution became apparent already in the autumn of 1970.
The KGB arranged for Belyakov's departure from Finland in February 1971. Leskinen, who had taken to drinking too much, lost his Foreign Minister's post the following autumn. He died during a skiing trip near Helsinki on his 55th birthday in March 1972.
We will have a full review of Kimmo Rentola's new book among our weekly features on Tuesday, April 5th.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 31.3.2005 - TODAY |
 Study: Soviet Union wanted to promote gradual revolution in Finland in 1970
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