Finnish narrative

The Finnish narrative:
Background to the NATO misjudgement
The Finnish government and the president have justified Finland´s application for NATO membership by the Russian military operation in Ukraine. Obviously the present crisis has sped up the final step of applying for NATO membership. It has stoked anti-Russian sentiment both in the political elite and among ordinary citizens. However, the membership option has been in the programmes of all governments, whatever their coalition, for a couple of decades. Furthermore, russophobia among a fairly large part of the population (not a majority I believe) has deep roots in history. This can be traced back to the two wars between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 and 1941-1944, at least in the historical memory and narratives of contemporary Finnish people. After those wars until the collapse of the SU Finland had officially friendly relationships with the SU, but later they were mocked as "Finlandization", meaning submission to Soviet goals. Since the beginning of the 1990's the rightwing parties as well as the social democratic party have changed their orientation towards the west, and now (2024) the Left Coalition as well. After Finland joined the EU, the NATO option was included into government programmes. 

The great narrative that has passed down the generations is the idea of a small heroic nation unified against the mighty Russia in the Winter War, in which Finland ensured its sovereignty almost alone, supported only by a small number of Swedish volunteers. That was the Spirit of the Winter War. One cannot say that it is a total lie, because after the war broke out, Finland would have lost its independence without strong resistance. However, it is not the whole truth either. This is because the outcome of the war was worse than what Finland would have achieved had it come to an agreement with the Soviet Union on the territorial demands the SU had concerning the defence of Leningrad. In the Moscow peace treaty after the war Finland lost more of its territory than the SU had demanded, and the battles and bombings resulted in 29,000 casualties. People were not told about the negotiations, but as the government was convinced that people would not accept the territorial concessions, the official story began from the actual Russian military operations after the negotiations had broken off. This story has been kept alive ever since the war 1941- 1944, in which Finland joined German attack on the Soviet Union in order to regain the lost territories with some extra area in Karelia. The second war ended not well either from the Finnish perspective.

To put the story into a context, let´s get back to the weeks and months preceding the beginning of the Winter War. In 1939 Europe was in chaos. Germany had already annexed Austria and part of Czechoslovakia, and in September it attacked Poland, dividing it with the Soviet Union. The UK and France declared war on Germany. Germany and the Soviet Union then signed a non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact), and Germany, having now tackled the possible second front in the east, was able to turn its attention to western Europe. The Soviet Union, nevertheless, anticipated an attack from the west, probably from Germany despite the peace pact. The tactical purpose of the SU was to prevent a western alliance against it. The SU had first tried to achieve an agreement with the UK and France, but the UK was reluctant, apparently for ideological reasons. It was also confident that it could win Germany alone if needed. All these were miscalculations. The SU then pressed the Baltic states to accept Soviet military bases on their territories. All three countries were too weak to put up military resistance against the SU. The Soviet Union had Germany's permission to its operations, as agreed in a secret appendix to ther Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. In all these events Finland took a neutral position.

One can therefore understand why the Finnish government was concerned about these developments and how it viewed the subsequent proposals of the SU. These included moving the borderline in the Karelian Isthmus further from Leningrad and leasing certain islands in the Gulf of Finland and the Hankoniemi Peninsula to the SU. The government, especially foreign minister Erkko and defence minister Niukkanen, were strictly against any territorial concessions. However, there was a certain amount of understanding for Russian security concerns in the Finnish military. Mannerheim, commander-in-chief at least, expressed these views. While Finland considered the situation from an ideal perspective of the rights of nations, the Soviet Union was concerned about what was really happening in Europe, "realpolitik". Stalin remembered that Finland had allowed the British airforce to make attacks on St. Petersburg from the Finnish territory (Karelia) after the Bolshevik revolution. The Soviet Union sent the Finnish government an invitation to negotiations in Moscow on these issues. The Finnish government sent a delegation of four to Moscow, led by J.K.Paasikivi, with very strict guidelines and a limited mandate to make any concessions to Russian demands.
 
There were seven sessions in these negotiations. Stalin took part in six of them. He was absent only from one discussion on technical matters, which indicates that the Soviet Union took these negotiations very seriously. Finland stubbornly rejected all Russian proposals, especially those concerning the Hanko Peninsula and the borderline in Karelia. In the end Stalin would have accepted some islands on the Finnish coast instead of Hanko with compensating areas, but Erkko was adamant. He thought that the Soviet Union was bluffing and would not start a war about these issues. He also claimed that western governments were backing the Finnish stance, but this was wishful thinking. The negotiations then came to a dead end and Stalin ordered preparations for an attack. Finland made a miscalculation about how serious the Soviet Union was, and Stalin was poorly informed about the capability of the Finnish defence. The war began on the 30th of November 1939 and ended on the 12th of March 1940. The Soviet Union gave up the plan of marching to Helsinki but Finland had to surrender all the areas that the Soviet Union had demanded and a little more. The Finnish army was on the verge of collapse and the Russian army had suffered more casualties than it had expected before the war. In Finland the treaty is called the interim peace (the term was apparently invented soon after the war already).  If the Finnish government had shown more flexibility in the negotiations, the result would have been better (which Paasikivi regretted many times after the war). But in that case the political elite would not have the narrative of a heroic fight against a super power, the narrative that was glorified with the graves of tens of thousands of soldiers. The next war against the Soviet Union alongside with Germany was to add to the count another 60,000 dead heroes. There you have a heroic tale.
 
The NATO application shows that Finland has learned nothing from its history. Two years ago, inspired by the Covid pandemic, I checked how Finland has been prepared for the changing environment in the official risk analysis documents. Pandemics were recognized but the main concern was: "The unity and identity of the nation are mainly based on the jointly acknowleged history and the narrative of who we are. If we ourselves do not tell our narrative, it can be dictated to us by some outsider." The risk analysis considers the military capability as the main means of securing Finland's sovereignty and integrity. There is no mention about diplomatic endeavours to maintain good relations with the neighbouring countries.

Reference:
Pekka Visuri & Eino Murtorinne, Hitler's and Stalin's trading on Finland 1939-1940 (in Finnish)