FINLAND: Swing to the Right

Riding a back-country protest against unemployment and spiraling prices, the Communists emerged from last summer’s elections as Finland’s biggest party, holding 50 out of 200 parliamentary seats. Last week, after nearly two months of delicate dickering, all but one of Finland’s six non-Communist parties banded together to form a government that will give the Communists even less influence over Finnish affairs than they had before their triumph at the polls.

The new Cabinet—the first in more than a year to command a clear majority in Parliament—is headed by 57-year-old Socialist Karl August Fagerholm, a former barber and longtime boss of the Finnish State Alcohol Monopoly. Scarcely had Fagerholm been sworn in when he 1) stepped up negotiations for a $50 million World Bank loan, and 2) insisted that Moscow call off the projected visit to Finland of Old Bolshevik Otto Kuusinen, Helsinki-born member of the Russian Party Presidium and father of Finnish Communist Party Leader Hertta Kuusinen. From across the Russian border that runs just 40 miles from Helsinki came a growl of disappointment. “Reactionary . . .” snapped Moscow’s Izvestia. “The most right-wing of all Finnish governments since the war.”