Soviet Union tried to turn Finland into Socialist country
If I didn’t know better, I would have thought they succeeded…
The Soviet Union strived for a Socialist Finland 35 years ago. No coup was in the making, however, as the objective was to be reached peacefully.
An important step was the choice of predecessor for the long-standing President Urho Kekkonen. The left-wing parties were to rally behind a Social Democratic candidate. The Soviet Union wanted Väinö Leskinen for the job; somebody it had earlier loathed, but who had since jumped over the fence politically and become Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1970.
If SDP and the other socialists were able to have their way in Finland - what do you think would be the major changes we would see?
That we’d be speaking Russian.
Comment by Hank W. — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 11:47 am
SDP is a conservative party in my book. No changes therefore. The article shows nothing that I already knew. I only find the conclusion (also the header of this topic) strange.
Comment by Majava — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 11:57 am
Majava, I think you’re reading that book upside down.
Comment by Phil — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 12:01 pm
Major changes? None what so ever. Sdp is just as conservative as Kokoomus these days. Socialism is dead and has been just that for a long while. There is a lot talk about social responsibility and caring but what they actually do is straight out of Kokoomus’ playbook - lower taxes.
Comment by Ayman — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 1:31 pm
There were plans to nationalize banks and even Nokia but the idea of nationalized electronics industry went bankrupt with Kalevi Sorsa’s CRT factory Valco. Nothing special on that time. I think socialist president Mitterand of France nationalized few big corporations, when he came in power and some years later they were again privatized.
The curse and the blessing of the finnish system is that nobody on the left or right (or center) is able to have it all the way his way.
SDP is not a monolith. They have also the left and the right wing, so it is not so clear, what would have happened. Right wingers like Mauno Koivisto were pretty much responsible for opening up the post-war regulated economy and Martti Ahtisaari is joining NATO all the time. I guess the left wing is represented well by Erkki Tuomioja and Tarja Halonen.
There is also a distinction between the western european socialism (which was advocated by even the majority of the finnish communist party) and the “real socialism” of the eastern block. The latter was promoting armed revolution and was allright with the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the former was not and had no “brotherly relationships” with the soviet communist party. You can choose your friends but not your brother, like one polish dissident commented.
The finnish communist party published a program about how to turn to socialism by peaceful means in the 70’s, so that would probably tell what the party majority wanted the socialist Finland to look like. It is possible that “brotherly help” from the soviets would have turned this science fiction into what the real socialist party minority wanted.
Comment by Antti (the red neck one) — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 1:48 pm
SDP is not a monolith. They have a right and a left wing. On left they have “activists” like Erkki Tuomioja, but on the right people like Mauno Koivisto, who was responsible for opening the post-war regulated economy and Martti Ahtisaari, who is advocating NATO membership. This division has been there since the end of the war. The SDP right wingers pretty much inhibited the communists from gaining too much influence in trade unions etc.
There is also a difference between west-european socialism and real socialism of eastern block. The latter was OK with persecuting dissidents, occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and exporting armed revolution, but the former was mainly not. All the left-wing parties, with the minority of the communist party excluded, were more or less into this western version of socialism. Back then it was pretty hefty stuff though. I remember French socialist president Mitterand nationalized some big companies after his election to the office, which would be unthinkable today. They were privatized again after few years. SDP left wingers had also plans to nationalize banks and even Nokia with rest of the electronics industry , but these ideas went bankrupt with Kalevi Sorsa’s CRT factory Valco.
The Soviet Union would probably not have settled for some western version of socialism, if they had been able to have their way all the way. But it was already 70’s. How much damage the polish style peasant- and the workers party coalition, the soviets wanted to put in charge here, would have caused in 10-15 years before collapse of the Soviet Union. We would be still better off today than if we had ended up as a people’s democracy in the 40’s
Comment by antti (the red neck one) — Thu, Mar 31st, 2005 @ 9:09 pm
Yes, SDP is a socialist party…
like Keskusta is liberal party! HAR HAR HAR! Good joke, Phil.
Some are claiming that The Left Alliance is leaning too much to right these days.
Comment by Eino-Kalevi — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 12:17 am
Yeah, I’ve that before taht Keskusta is a “liberal” party - I’m not sure they know the meaning of the word then. I know that a while back, an old Finnish liberal party teamed up with Keskusta, but I believe that was a while ago.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 7:34 am
Keskusta is a country hick party.
Comment by Hank W. — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 8:10 am
Sorry about multiple posts above. I thought the first one went to the bit heaven.
Comment by Antti (the red neck one) — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 8:43 am
“The Centre Party of Finland is a member of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and the Liberal International.”
http://www.keskusta.fi/keskusta/english/?article_id=4903
Another Finnish “liberal” party with those connections is RKP…
maybe the European Liberals don’t know what’s liberal?
But doesn’t “liberal” mean anything not-Republican in the USA?
Comment by Eino-Kalevi — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 10:30 pm
“Liberal” in the U.S. means left-wing. Some people say “progressive liberal” or just “progressive” which means left of the left-wing (in U.S. terms) - progressives are welfare statists and would think the Finnish form of government is heaven.
Comment by Phil — Fri, Apr 1st, 2005 @ 11:04 pm
I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but at least I sometimes get the feeling that if you use the word “liberal” in a discussion with Finnish left-wing supporters, they’ll assume that you’re on the right.
This happened especially often a few years back, when “uusliberalismi” (”neoliberalism”?) was one of the hot topics of discussion. The term was used to scare people about economies without any social security where big business controls everything, or something like that. You can always trust the good old SAK, when you need some hot juicy propaganda, I guess…
But anyways, it’s strange how same words can have totally opposite meanings in different parts of the world.
Comment by keBa — Sun, Apr 3rd, 2005 @ 1:54 am
I don’t like using the word “liberal” because of what you said, the word has so many different meanings around the world. In the states, liberal means left-wing. In the UK, there are the “liberal democrat” party who are socially left but economically left as well. In Finland, there are “liberals” who are just very conservative in economic terms, but also conservative in social terms. So I prefer “libertarian” to accurately describe my political position.
Yeah, that “neo-” prefix is always a nasty one. I think the right-wingers should start using the term on the left. For instance, the Vasemmistolitto are the “neo-left” and in my opinion, so is SDP.
Comment by Phil — Sun, Apr 3rd, 2005 @ 10:23 am
So, uusliberalismi is neoliberalism.
Not to be confused with “new liberialism” though, says Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_liberalism
On the other hand “social liberalism is either a synonym for new liberalism or a label used by progressive liberal parties”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
All these liberalisms!
Comment by Eino-Kalevi — Mon, Apr 4th, 2005 @ 8:57 pm