Finnish pseudo-neutrality

The issue[]

Finnish Minelayer Hameenmaa (ex-Riga-Class) in 1982 — Finnish Minelayer Hameenmaa in 1982.

Valmet L-70 Miltrainer — A Finnish Valmet L-70 Vinka trainer aircraft.

Mi-8 kuljetushelikopteri — A Finnish Mi-8 helicopter. They are made and used by Russia. The Soviets and Fins used them in the Cold War.

Finland was terrified of a repeat of the Winter War of 1939-1940. It was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–1940. It began with the Soviet invasion of Finland on 30 November 1939, and ended with the Moscow Peace Treaty on 13 March 1940. Finland joined forces Nazi Germany in 1941 as a bid to regain lost territory like Petsamo, only to find it's self on the losing side.

Finland rejected Marshall aid, in apparent deference to Soviet desires. After the reparations had been paid off Finland continued to trade with the Soviet Union bilateral for stuff such as iron and oil. Despite close relations with the Soviet Union and favouring Soviet business dealings Finland remained a Western European market economy.

President Urho Kekkonen used this it heavily against against his opponents. He maintained an effective political monopoly on Soviet relations from 1956 to 1982. His regime often avoided any policies, non-Nordic treaties and political statements that could have be interpreted as anti-Soviet. German press called this phenomenon "Finlandization". Finland got cheep raw materials from the USSR and gradually built up it's economy, which finally entered an era of unparalleled growth in the mid 1970's. Dicro Oy was founded in 1986 and Procond Oy was created in 2006.

The Soviet Union had leased the port of Porkkala from Finland for the Soviet to use between 1940 and 1955. The Finnish secret police, the Suojelupoliisi, helped the KGB track down anti-Russian elements in Scandinavia, whilst Norway and Sweden intermittently spied on Finland.

A Soviet/NATO invasion of Finland wasan unlikely it was still a possibility if Finland fell out with the USSR. Finland survived the cold war as a pseudo-neutral nation that was covertly in the pay of the USSR. They were allowed to be freer that the offical Soviet satellite states like Poland and could help their fellow Scandinavian nations in non-NATO/Warsaw Pact related affairs. Finnish pseudo-neutrality enraged America.

After the USSR fell in 1991, Finland moved clearly into the Western geopolitical sphere by joining both the European Union and the Eurozone, but it has never made any attempts to get into NATO so far due to Russian fears over NATO.

Finnish–Estonian defence cooperation was the mainstay of defence Estonia's plans in the 1930s and 1990s.

Finnish firms created after WW2[]

In 1950, 46% of Finnish workers worked in agriculture and a third lived in urban areas. Industry was starting up in the towns, but many emigrated to Sweden between 1955 and 1975 to find jobs.

Over the years Finland saw the rise of many technical, electrical and online firms. Finland only had beer, rubber procesing, quarrying, logging, furntiure, folk crafts, agriculture, fishing and papper making before 1945. Stone, gravel, sand, logs, paper and paper pulp were major exsports untill the early 1980s. Nokia's mobile phones got a major publicity boost in 1987, when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was pictured using a Nokia Mobira Cityman moblie phone to call from Helsinki to his communications minister in Moscow. This led to the phone being nicknamed of the "Gorba", which was there nickname for him, like "Gorby" was in English.

Here is a selection of Finnish firms created after 1945.

Neste Oil-1948
Kemppi-1949
Hesburger-1966
Elektrobit-1985
Dicro Oy-1986
Verkkokauppa.com-1992
Posiva-1995
Patria-1997
Fortum-1998
Metso-1999
Sanoma-1999
Procond Oy-2006.

Finland is the largest producer of wood in Europe and among the largest in the world and a leader in chipboard, paper and cardboard production. They now make other things like electrical components, mobile phones, gravel, steel and chemicals.

Also see[]

1951 Anglo-Irish air defence treaty
Operation Square Leg (1980) and Exercise Hard Rock (1982)
Germany's Fulda Gap
Swedish pseudo-neutrality
Seven days to the River Rhine (1979)
French nuclear plans and the Force de Dissuasion
The Swiss National Redoubt (1880-2010)
North German Plain
Operation Northern Norway
Soviet/NATO invasion of Finland
The week of war policy
Operation Gladio
Nicaraguan Civil War
Korean Demilitarized Zone
Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie
Greece, Turkey and southern Italy
The southern Danube route

Finnish pseudo-neutrality

Contents

The issue[]

Finnish firms created after WW2[]

Also see[]

Links[]

Fan Feed