When Finland began to turn to the West, away from the East

Juhani Suomi examines Mauno Koivisto presidency through glasses of Kekkonen era

print this

By Esko Aho
     
      In the introduction of the first part of his series of works on the life work of President Urho Kekkonen, Juhani Suomi quotes Aapo, a character in the classic Finnish novel The Seven Brothers by Aleksis Kivi: "If you carefully consider which seeds you have sown in your past days yielded beneficial fruit, and which fruit was harmful, and if you set your life, work, and activities accordingly, then you are indeed a wise man."
      Suomi would have done well to carefully ponder the significance of that sentence also in his latest book, when he decided to move forward with his task by moving from the age of Kekkonen to that of President Mauno Koivisto.
      Suomi's book Pysähtyneisyyden vuodet ("The Years of Stagnation"), which covered the period from the autumn of 1981 to the early summer of 1984, sparked a storm of protest. The criticism reached unreasonable proportions from Suomi's point of view, but he should have been prepared for it, when sowing his seeds.
     
The question is not in the details, but rather in the setup, which suffers from two basic weaknesses.
      When writing about Kekkonen, Suomi concentrates on the beneficial fruit; when he studied them, Suomi demonstrated the wisdom and far-sightedness of the subject matter of his biography. Shifting to Koivisto, Suomi takes a different angle. He brings forth phenomena that he considers harmful or dangerous, and portrays the activities of his protagonist accordingly.
      The first book concerning the time of Koivisto, and the most recently published Epävarmuuden vuodet ("The Years of Uncertainty"), focusing on the years 1984-1986, are a mirror image in another respect as well.
      Whereas Lasse Lehtinen and the people of his type have taken to second-guessing the period of Kekkonen on the basis of today's world view, Suomi does the same with Koivisto from a historical perspective. He gauges and interprets the events and actions of the 1980s according to how they would fit in the mould of the Kekkonen era.
      A few times this point of view pops into the actual text, when Suomi divides speeches and speakers according to the degree to which they resembled Kekkonen, or differed from him. The value judgements that he is making become crystal clear to the reader.
      The methods of both Lehtinen and Suomi lead to the same flaw: the writers of history are participants, not outside observers.
     
Suomi's work has undeniable merit.
      The writer has gonen to great amounts of trouble in compiling chains of events from the mid 1980s. This has led to the establishment of a network, which will certainly be of great benefit to later history writing.
      Especially interesting are all of the things that Suomi writes about how Finland's leaders and political parties handled relations with the Soviet Union. Nowadays it is not the custom to bring up how all political parties would curry for the favour of the Soviet Union just 20 years ago.
      The Centre Party guarded its reputation with the help of annual seminars on the Treaty on Friendship and Mutual Assistance - events which were more reminiscent of religious revival meetings than actual seminars. The SDP got a feather in its cap in 1985 by being the only Finnish political party to celebrate Victory Day with the Soviets.
      Suomi reveals that SDP Party Secretary Erkki Liikanen had said that the Social Democrats had gained "widespread sympathy and appreciation" as a result.
     
Suomi is at his best - and at his worst - when dealing with his own speciality - communiques signed by Finland and the Soviet Union, and the interpretation of those communiques. For him, they represent the forces of law and order in relations with the Soviet Union.
      Juhani Suomi continues to refuse to accept that Koivisto consciously sought to define matters in speeches and at different times in different ways. He believes that the view of the line taken of official Finnish policy by foreign countries emerges specifically from official turns of phrase. In this he uses Max Jakobson himself to back him up.
      The great weakness of the structure built by Juhani Suomi is that he refuses to see the real powers that influence relations between states. The greatest forces that affect relations between great powers, or those between Finland and the Soviet Union, were not heads of state, foreign ministers, or the diplomats or speech writers that operated behind the scenes. They all had a role, but what was much more significant was what happened in the economy and in technology.
     
The Soviet Union of the mid-1980s changed leaders often - from Andropov to Chernenko, and then to Gorbachov. Everything else is shown to be tough, absolute, and unchanged, and since the Soviet Union will not change, then why should Finland - that is, Finland's official policy - change either?
      We were driven to the Western trend by the inescapable fact that our economic and industrial success, and the well-being of our citizens, depended on it.
      On the other hand, the basis of the problems with trade with the Soviet Union were the fall in the price of raw materials and energy. As the Soviet economy was unable to produce hardly anything else that would be useful for Finland to import, the barter trade system went into crisis mode.
      Suomi examines these matters purely through politics, diplomacy, and people. The result is interesting, but superficial.
     
In this respect he lacks the Kekkonen vision in the best sense of the world. The great secret of Kekkonen's success was in his brilliant ability to read the prevailing conditions, and to adapt his own actions accordingly.
      In spite of everything, under the circumstances, Juhani Suomi succeeds fairly well in what he set as his goal at the beginning of the book: "My purpose is to lay a foundation for future research on this period in time, and at the same time, to open debate on the so-called age of Koivisto".
     
Suomi says that this book will be the last in this series, at least for now. The reason that he gives is the difficulty of getting access to source material.
      The narrowness of the source material is clearly reflected in this work as well. In far too many things, Suomi is forced to resort exclusively to communiques, speeches, or newspaper articles. When a book of nearly 500 pages is built on such a foundation, the reader is left with much to ponder.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 22.9.2006
     
The writer served as MP for the Centre Party from 1983 to 2003, and as Prime Minister from 1991 to 1995. Now he is the head of the Finnish National Fund for Research and Development (SITRA)


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Juhani Suomi puts series of Koivisto books on hold after two volumes (22.9.2006)
  Lipponen launches attack on new book about former President Koivisto (30.9.2005)
  Crowded road to Moscow - Juhani Suomi writes critical book of early Koivisto presidency (28.9.2005)
  President Kekkonen and his successful balancing act (28.9.2004)
  Professor Juhani Suomi to switch from President Kekkonen to Koivisto (24.9.2003)

Helsingin Sanomat