Letter FromnFinlandnby Arnold BeichmannNo Miracles This TimenLast year, when I was in Helsinki, Inmade a great discovery:, probably thenbest informed people on Soviet affairsnare the Finns, whose Russian-watchingngoes back almost two centuries, longnbefore the Bolshevik coup of 1917.nI was in Finland talking with veterannanalysts, official and unofficial, aboutnthe overpowering Soviet military presencenthat has Norway, Denmark, Finland,nand especially Sweden deeplynworried. In Finland, where they havenlearned to take a cultivatedly relaxednattitude about the Soviet Union, thenfocus of interest was Gorbachev’s reformnprogram. One Finnish diplomat,nwith years of residence in the USSR,nsummed it up best: “All that Gorbachevnis doing is trying to reform the systemnwithin the system. It simply can’t bendone.”nThat sentence said it all: the problemsnof the Soviet people won’t bensolved by de-Stalinization or some newngimmick, like re-Trotskyization. Thencountry’s socioeconomic problems cannonly be solved by de-Leninization — innother words, an end to the CommunistnParty’s monopoly of everything.nThe Finns are so expert about theirnsuperpower neighbor because their lessonsnhave been learned the hard way.nFinland was a czarist colony for morenthan a century. Its national hero, MarshalnMannerheim, who fought the Sovietsnto a standstill in the Winter Warn(1939-40), was, until Finland achievednits independence in 1917, a czaristngeneral with an irrepressible Finnishnnationalism.nFinland has a long land frontier withnthe USSR. She’s fought two bitter andnunsuccessful wars against the USSRnsince 1939, and there was a civil warnduring and after the Bolshevik Revolution.nAfter these defeats (and pyrrhicnSoviet victories), Finnish territorial lossesnto the Soviet Union were huge.n46/CHRONlCLESnCORRESPONDENCEnnotably the loss of the Karelian Isthmus.nThere is, however, no irredentist movementnin Finland. Yet as I talked to FinnsnI was reminded of the motto of thenFrench military after the loss of Alsace-nLorraine to the Prussian Army in 1870:nToujours en penser, jamais en parler,nor “Always think about it; never talknabout it.”nFinland is a small country with bignclout. Although its population is barelynfive million, it is ninth among thenworld’s wealthiest nations. It hasnachieved this by pulling itself up by itsnown bootstraps after the war and innspite of heavy reparations paid to thenSoviet Union until 1952. In short,nFinland reached the top with no foreignneconomic assistance and, as oldernAmericans may recall, Finland paid itsnWorld War I war debts to the US rightnon time (with no complaints), whilenthe other European debtors defaulted.nUnlike other noncommunist Europeanncountries, Finland benefited littlenfrom US largess. This may explain whynFinnish public opinion, compared tonother democratic countries, is low onnthe hate-America scale. President Reagannwas warmly received when henrested up in Helsinki before going onnto Moscow for his fourth meeting withnGorbachev. There were no “Yankee,ngo home” posters in Helsinki streetsnand no anti-Reagan demos.nFinland is a constitutional democracynwith an efficient market economy.nIn 1985, it was seventh in per capitanGNP, ahead of Japan, although itsninflation rate is more than double thatnof Japan (dinner for two in a good hotelncosts $75 or more). Like its Scandinaviannneighbors, Finland cherishes itsnpolitical freedoms. OfliGially, it is anbilingual country; Swedish is the secondnlanguage. English, however, is thenreal second language. It is spoken bynnearly everybody except, perhaps, thenreindeer. Given a choice of foreignnlanguages in high school, 95 percent ofnthe students pick English, while only anhandful choose Russian.nAs far as the Soviet Union is concerned,nFinland is officially neutral.nThe Russians know, however, that itsnheart belongs — unreservedly — to thennnWestern democracies, especially thenUnited States. Neutral as it may be,nFinland worries quietly but openly (asndo Norway and Sweden) about Sovietnintentions in the far north at the Kolanpeninsula. There, in nuclear bombproofnsolid rock submarine pens arendocked six ICBM-armed nuclear submarines.nSo much for glasnost.nThere are two Communist partiesnin Finland, one of them pro-Moscownand the other “Euro-Communist,” butnthey have little importance evennthough in the March 1988 electionsntogether they won almost 14 percent ofnthe vote. They represent no significantnintellectual force in a country wherenelite intellectual opinion is quite influential.nInterestingly, while there havenbeen serious KGB penetrations intonthe highest diplomatic and militaryncircles in Norway and Sweden, Finlandnhas been singularly free of suchnembarrassments.nWhat irritates the Finns as much asnanything is the term “Finlandization,”npopularized some years ago by thenhistorian Walter Laqueur. The epithetnpurports to describe postwar Finnish-nSoviet relations that incrementally lednto the loss of Finland’s autonomy innforeign affairs, and that illustrate, bynanalogy, a danger posed to WesternnEurope by the Soviet Union.nYet Finland is one country to whichnthe term “Finlandization” does notnapply — certainly not today in the aftermathnof the fourth Reagan-nGorbachev summit. It is peculiar, saynthe Finns, that nobody ever talks aboutn”Austrianization,” i.e., the neutralizationnof Austria by the 1955 AustriannState Treaty underwritten by the thenoccupyingnpowers, the US, the UK,nand the Soviet Union.nWhat cannot be overlooked, however,nis that Finland has a distastefulnUnited Nations voting record as far asnthe US is concerned. On a number ofnkey resolutions, such as Afghanistan,nFinland has abstained, even though thenAfghanistan resolution didn’t evenndare cite the Soviet aggressor by name.nSimilarly, Finland abstained on a resolutionncondemning Vietnam’s occupationnof Cambodia. A third Finnishn