Great Britain and the Soviet Threat in Finland, 1944–1951

Abstract

The publication of a documentary collection on British policy towards the Nordic countries from 1944 to 1951 is a good occasion to ponder how and to what extent history is, or can be, rewritten on the basis of new documentary evidence, and in what directions the historiography of the early Cold War seems to be heading at present. To illustrate these issues, some key aspects of British policy towards Finland are addressed, in particular those connected with the distinct change of attitude from 1944, when Finland was self-evidently left in the Soviet sphere of influence, to the late 1940s, when the British gradually saw the chance and the utility of countering Soviet efforts in Finland. Repetition of every familiar issue along the well-trodden path of scholarship on the late 1940s is not deemed necessary here. Particular attention is paid to the need for multi-archival research. The necessity and the utility of well-informed multi-archival commentary on even the best single-archive documentary examination is demonstrated, and the consequences for future research discussed.

Keywords:

• Finland
• Great Britain
• Sweden
• Nordic countries
• Soviet Union
• Cold War

Notes

1 Insall and Salmon, Documents on British Policy Overseas Documents. Most British documents quoted in this article are from this collection.

2 For an excellent recent overview in English, see Kirby, A Concise History of Finland; for a more detailed research with the focus on Sweden, Aunesluoma, Britain, Sweden and the Cold War; for Sweden and Finland, Wahlbäck, Jättens andedräkt; the articles in Aunesluoma, From War to Cold War; for the US policy, Hanhimäki, Containing Coexistence; and the now classic Polvinen, Between East and West.

3 On this issue, Heikkilä, The Questions of European Reparations.

4 The Soviets presented their conditions to their British allies only after the text had already been given to the Government of Finland. So, delivering them to the Foreign Office, Ambassador F. T. Gusev on his own deleted the mention that they had already been given to J. K. Paasikivi in Stockholm, ‘so that the English would not find out that we gave the conditions to the Finns without waiting their amendments’. Ambassador Gusev's telegram to the NKID (the Soviet Foreign Commissariat), 11 March 1944, Copy series of telegrams concerning Finland to and from London, Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (AVP RF, Moscow), fond 0135 (Referentura po Finlyandii), op. 28, papka 155, d. 8. Molotov approved in retrospect of the unusual, rare and risky act by the ambassador – which was futile, since the Intelligence Service and Special Operations Executive in Stockholm were aware of Russian–Finnish contacts in real time and had Soviet conditions verbatim. Memorandum on Finnish situation, 2 March 1944, The National Archives (TNA, Kew), HS 2/125.

5 Gusev's telegram to NKID, 2 April 1944, AVP RF, f. 0135, op. 28, papka 155, d. 8. The British Government expressed this view also in the official memo. Ambassador A. Clark Kerr to Deputy Foreign Minister A. Ya. Vyshinsky, 11 April 1944, AVP RF, f. 0135, op. 28, papka 155, d. 3, ll. 4–9.

6 According to a Soviet foreign trade commissariat memo in June it was still planned that the Finnish economy would become totally dependent on the Soviet Union, where 80–100% of the exports should be directed, including wood and paper products. A memo on Soviet–Finnish trade during the first year after the war, 4 June 1944, quoted by Androsova, ‘Kauppapolitiikka’, 153–4. The original document is in the Russian economic archives, RGAE.

7 The decision was made in the first half of July, when the Soviets prepared to promise to the British that their interest on forest products would ‘undoubtedly’ be taken into account by the Soviet Government. Memo by K. Novikov and P. Orlov to Vyshinsky and Dekanozov, 10 July 1944, attached with a list for Molotov on the British wishes and answers to them, AVP RF, f. 012 (Dekanozov's secretariat), op. 5, papka 67, d. 67, ll. 78–84.

8 See Paavonen, Finnish Foreign Trade Policy.

9 Shepherd to Bevin, 15 February 1947, FO 371/65910, N2330/3/56 (No. 86).

10 P. D. Orlov (political councillor of the Allied control commission) to A. A. Zhdanov, May 1945, AVP RF, f. 07, op. 10, papka 34, d. 460, ll. 2–3. In the quotation, ‘the Soviets’ in Orlov's paper has been replaced here by ‘you’, since Paasikivi rarely used the word ‘Soviet’. His choice was ‘Russian’.

11 Paasikivi's diary entry, 12 May 1945, in J. K. Paasikiven päiväkirjat – Paasikivi wrote down what Minister Eero A. Wuori told him about remarks by Eliseev, who was NKGB Foreign Intelligence rezident E. T. Sinitsyn.

12 New information on Zhdanov's post-war position in Gorlizki and Khlevniuk, Cold Peace, 31–43. The British representative in Helsinki observed Zhdanov perceptively. Astonished how such an unimpressive and mediocre man could have such a high position, Shepherd on the other hand noted ‘something of the unworldliness and even of the spiritual force of a high dignitary of the Catholic Church about him’. Shepherd to Eden, 6 February 1945, FO 371/47369, N1600/33/56 (No. 5).

13 Memorandum by Anthony Eden to the War Cabinet, 9 August 1944, quoted by Polvinen, Between East and West, 14–15.

14 Eden to the War Cabinet, 24 September 1944, CAB 121/363 (No. 2).

15 D/S to SOE Stockholm, 29 October 1944, TNA, HS 2/125.

16 Etherington-Smith to Hankey, 28 February 1948, FO 371/71447, N3331/78/42 (No. 116).

17 Shepherd to Eden, 6 February 1945, FO 371/47369, N1600/44/56 (No. 5).

18 Minute from Warr to Warner, 28 July 1945, FO 371/47412, N9686/1743/56, (No. 19). ‘Appeasement’ was a term apparently used by Capt. Howie of the Allied Control Commission.

19 Briefing for Potsdam, 25 July 1945, FO 371/47408, N8592/1131/56 (No. 18).

20 Shepherd to Eden, 8 June 1945, FO 371/47408, N6630/1131/56 (No. 11). On Zhdanov's soundings, for example Paasikivi's diary entry 12 May 1945, [Paasikivi], J. K. Paasikiven päiväkirjat.

21 Jeffery, MI6, 553.

22 Minute from Warr to Warner, 28 July 1945, FO 47412, N9686/1743/56 (No. 19). In the last paragraph, it was suggested that Mr. Shepherd should be asked ‘whether he is receiving adequate reports from Mr. Bosley, and whether the arrangements made for communicating these reports to the Russians are working satisfactorily’. On Western allies’ intelligence cooperation with the Soviet Union, see: Smith, Sharing Secrets with Stalin.

23 Haslam, Russia's Cold War, 64–70.

24 Bevin to Shepherd, 25 September 1945; Shepherd to Bevin, 26 September 1945, FO 371/47370, N13421/33/56 (No. 29) and FO 371/47370, N13353/33/56 (No.31).

25 Minute by Hankey in Shepherd to Sargent, 30 July 1946, FO 371/56786, N10077/140/38 (No. 70).

26 Healey to the Social Democratic Party Secretary Väinö Leskinen, 29 August 1947, FO 371/65910, N10315/3/56 (No. 96).

27 Sargent's letter, 11 November 1946, FO 371/56705, N14905/14905/G (No. 73).

28 Chuev, Molotov Remembers, 9–10.

29 Shepherd to Eden, 24 July 1945; Shepherd to Bevin, 24 November 1945, FO 371/47393, N9908/356/56 (No. 16) and FO 371/47450, N17623/10928/63G (No. 41).

30 Shepherd to Bevin, 17 October 1945, and accompanying Northern Department minutes, FO 371/47408, N14508/1131/56 (No. 35).

31 For example Shepherd to Hankey, 16 July 1946 FO 371/56180, N6750/232/56 (No. 68); Shepherd to Attlee, 12 November 1946, FO 371/56181, N14796/232/56 (No. 74); Shepherd to Attlee, 18 March 1947, FO 371/65926, N5877/365/56 (No. 91).

32 Warner to Shepherd, 26 February 1946, FO 371/47450, N17623/10928/56G (No. 53); Shepherd to Bevin, 15 February 1947, FO 371/65910, N2330/3/56 (No. 86); Report by C. L. Thomas to the Ministry of Labour (Pickford), 20 May 1946, FO 371/47399, N630/550/56 (No. 61). This last report is well-informed, but the labour attaché seems to have been taken in by a mischievous informant who claimed that cats and rats were eaten in Helsinki during the war.

33 Majander, Demokratiaa dollareilla.

34 Memorandum ‘Shvedskaya politika “severnogo sotrudnichestva” v novoi obstanovke posle kontsa voiny v Evrope’, 28 September 1945, signed by envoy I. Chernyshev and attache A. Aleksandrov, AVP RF, f. 0140, op. 31, papka 137, d. 31, ll. 1–17. Aleksandrov-Agentov made a successful career as a foreign policy advisor to the Soviet leaders until to Gorbachev.

35 In recent Finnish historiography, Mikko Majander has been the strongest and most convincing advocate of the significance of the Nordic factor for the fate of Finland. His major book is available only in Finnish, but the English abstract gives the general idea, Majander, ‘A Nordic Country or a People's Democracy?’

36 The resourceful Americans became important later, in the latter half of the 1950s, and their level varied.

37 Shepherd to Bevin, 7 November 1945, FO 371/47368, N15863/21/56 (No. 38). On Magill in SOE correspondence, ADP to A/CD, 7 March 1944, TNA, HS 2/125.

38 Zhdanov to Stalin and Molotov (distributed to Beria, Malenkov, Mikoian, Vyshinski, Dekanozov), 20 November 1945, AVP RF, f. 07, op. 10, papka 34, d. 460, ll. 4–17, on Leino ll. 12–14. It is clear that Zhdanov knew about Leino's escapades, because the latter's wife, Hertta Kuusinen, brought them to the attention of the Communist Party politburo.

39 Gorlizki and Khlevniuk, Cold Peace, 19–22. The basis for Stalin's suspicions was thin: a newspaper article by Karl Evang in Arbejderbladet on 19 October 1945 and then a similar speculation in the Daily Mail on Molotov's strengthening positions.

40 Duly recorded by Shepherd to Bevin, 4 May 1946, FO 371/56179, N6144/232/56 (No. 60); Shepherd to Bevin, 21 May 1946, FO 371/56180, N6750/232/56 (No. 62).

41 Hankey to Scott, 9 May 1949, FO 371/77363, N4240/10338/56G (No. 194); Etherington-Smith to Harrison, 8 May 1950, FO 371/86437, NF10338/34 (No. 203). According to the Venona decrypts, Wuori was contacted as Tsilindr in Stockholm in February 1944; at that time, he was probably unaware that his contact worked for the Soviet intelligence. Later his cover name was Moses – because Moses is connected a mountain (vuori). Details in Rentola, ‘Stalin, Mannerheim’; Apunen and Wolff, Pettureita ja patriootteja, 314–6.

42 Kolpakidi, Entsiklopedia sekretnykh, 687.

43 Memorandum by Gen. Lt. Aatos Maunula on two meetings with F (Frank Friberg, CIA chief of station in Helsinki), 2 and 5 February 1962, Central Archives of the Finnish Defence Forces, T 22595/2. Golitsyn's report to the CIA included a very good definition of ‘agent of influence’, Memorandum about the KGB, translation into Finnish, no author, no date, 110 pages, The Archives of Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (Supo), amp XXII L.

44 Kekkonen's diary entry, 5 November 1975, in [Kekkonen], Urho Kekkosen päiväkirjat, vol. 4. Reginald ‘Rex’ Bosley told Kekkonen that ‘his service (whatever that is) had rejected the accusation by saying that UKK [Kekkonen] was their spy’. The President was content, although he suspected that his British friend probably also talked through his hat. On ‘Art dealer’, author's interview with Gen. Urpo Levo, former aide-de-camp of the President. For his British colleagues, Bosley was ‘the Ferret’. There is one document on the sensitive things told by Kekkonen during the ‘Note crisis’ to the British, Memorandum on the discussion on 6 November 1961 between President Urho Kekkonen and his friend (probably Bosley), 8 November 1961, noted by hand: from the British, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 84, Helsinki Embassy, Classified General Records 1959–1961, Finland–USSR, folder 320, box 7, published in Aunesluoma, ‘Takaovi länteen’, 134–6.

45 Royal dinner guest list, 17 July 1969, TNA, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) 33/724.

46 Hankey's minute in Scott to Bevin, 24 November 1947, FO 371/65931, N13817/640/56 (No. 102). The best British source was the pacifist social democratic Minister of Defence, Yrjö Kallinen, acting on the orders of President Paasikivi, who wanted to use a channel which the Russians would not be able to see. Another good source for the British was the Swedes, who had accurate information, on the basis of which London had to inform British representatives in Helsinki what was going on under their nose. Bevin to Scott, 16 December 1947, FO 371/65931, N14297/640/56 (No. 104).

47 Scott to Bevin, 27 February 1948, FO 371/71405, N2258/83/56 (No. 115); Etherington-Smith to Hankey, 28 February 1948, FO 371/71447, N3331/78/42 (No. 116); Scott to Hankey, 2 March 1948, FO 371/71406, N2850/83/56 (No. 117).

48 Etherington-Smith to Hankey, 4 March 1948, FO 371/71405, N2524/83/56 (No. 118).

49 Stalin's letter so described by Lord Pakenham in the House of Lords, quoted by Hanhimäki, Scandinavia and the United States, 26–7. ‘Khozyain’, the master or the boss, was Soviet leadership slang for Stalin.

50 Etherington-Smith to Hankey, 28 February 1948, FO 371/71447, N3331/78/42 (No. 116); Bevin to Scott, 5 March 1948, FO 371/71406, N2851/83/56G (No. 119).

51 Minutes of the 17th meeting of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 27 February 1948, TNA, Records of the Cabinet Office (CAB) 159/3.

52 Details in Rentola, ‘1948: Which Way Finland?’ Zhdanov mentioned Hungary as an example, which is interesting to note, since the Economist and then Shepherd in Helsinki considered that the Hungarian model (arrest of political opponents on trumped up charges of conspiracy) could be applied even in Finland. Shepherd to Bevin, 25 June 1947, FO 371/65917, N7625/158/56) (No. 95).

53 Minute by Etherington-Smith in Scott to Bevin, 9 April 1948, FO 371/71407, N4241/83/56 (No. 133).

54 Jeffery, MI6, 684. In other directions, the success was so good that ‘very few matters of any importance in this country escape our knowledge’, as Bosley reported in January 1948.

55 Scott to Bevin, 5 April 1948, with enclosure, FO 371/71409, N4233/100/56 (No. 130); Scott to Bevin, 27 April 1948, FO 1110/8, PR276/1/913G (No. 137).

56 Attachment in Scott to Bevin, 4 April 1948, FO 1110/3, PR97/1/913G (No. 140).

57 Scott to Hankey, 2 March 1948, FO 371/71406, N2850/83/56 (No. 117); Scott to Bevin, 27 February 1948, FO 371/71405, N2258/83/56 (No. 115).

58 Peterson (Moscow) to Bevin, 7 April 1948, FO 371/71407, N4153/83/56 (No. 131); Cabinet conclusions on 8 April 1948, CAB 128/12, CM (48)27 (No. 132); Scott to Bevin, 9 April 1948, FO 371/71407, N4241/83/56 (No. 133). Cf. Paasikivi's self-censored diary entry on his discussion with Scott: ‘I asked him to examine the treaty and look himself, what is included in it’. That's all, nothing about his directives to the delegation in Moscow or about the threat of a communist coup. Paasikivi's diary entry, 7 April 1948, [Paasikivi], J. K. Paasikiven päiväkirjat.

59 Everybody had lost somebody in the Stalinist terror, which destroyed the Finnish Red refugees, so the idea of a seizure of power might arouse dark forebodings.

60 Farquhar (Stockholm) to Bevin, 1 February 1949, FO 371/77403, N1098/1076/ 63G (No. 176); minute by Etherington-Smith to Hankey, 3 March 1949, FO 371/77357, N2174/1015/56 (No.186).

61 Scott to Bevin, 15 December 1948, FO 371/71412, N13450/100/56 (No. 160).

62 Minute by G. Jebb, 9 February 1949, FO 371/77398, N1473/1073/63G (No. 182).

63 Memorandums of conversations with Churchill in October 1939 published in Dokumenty vneshnei politiki, XXII: 2, and in more detailed form in Maisky's diaries: Maisky, Dnevnik diplomata.

64 Scott to Younger, 12 April 1950, FO 371/86446, NF1121/13 (No. 205).

65 Gorlizki and Khlevniuk, Cold Peace, 98–9, based on two recollections, by Hungarian party leader Rákosi and Czech Minister of Defence Chepichka; Agosti, Palmiro Togliatti, 384–8.

66 Soviet Helsinki Mission memorandum by V. Bondarenko, 1 February 1952, no. 60/s, Russian State Archives for Social and Political History (RGASPI), f. 17, op. 137, d. 939, this point on pp. 20, 23; Rudolf Sykiäinen, ‘Miksi ujostella?’, Karjalan Sanomat (Petrozavodsk), 27 December 1995.

67 For a recent analysis, see for example Roberts, Stalin's Wars, 217–25.