FINLAND: Too Little & Too Late

Signs of panic multiplied in Helsinki.

As the Red Army surged to the Dnieper, the fears of the summer grew to certainties: Finland had blundered again. No longer could Banker-President Risto Ryti and his Cabinet tell each other that Russia would so weaken herself against the Wehrmacht that she would have to listen to Finnish demands for the old frontiers, plus a good slice of Soviet Karelia. No longer could the men who run Finland ignore the pointed hints from London and Washington that Finland would have to find her own way out of the war.

To her crashing boner in teaming up with Hitler was now added inescapable evidence that Finland had waited too long to open negotiations with her big neighbor and old enemy. Yet Ryti & Co. could not bring themselves to talk hard peace sense; Finland’s-innate distrust of Russia was still powerful. Fortnight ago Premier Edwin Linkomies let it be known that Finland would like peace—if she could have her 1939 frontiers. Last week Russophobe Finance Minister Vaino Tanner said Finland would be glad to resume normal relations with Russia, provided “we could get a guarantee that we will not be threatened by permanent danger from that direction.”

The trial balloons fell flat. Moscow said nothing; her terms were still the 1940 frontiers established by the Russo-Finnish War, plus a base at Hango. Berlin said nothing, and the estimated 80,000 German troops in Finland remained at their posts. London and Washington said nothing, meaning that Finland could still expect no intercession with Moscow.

In Helsinki there was talk that the barrier to peace was Baron Mannerheim and the General Staff, who insisted on keeping Soviet Karelia as a “practical guarantee.” Others said that Ryti & Co. might have to step down before peace negotiations could begin. Said Tanner sadly:

“The Soviet Union is much stronger than the world had thought.”

The one big Finn who has known all along that Finland would have to meet Russia’s terms, not set her own, is 73-year-old ex-Foreign Minister Kuho Justi Paasikivi ,(TIME, Aug. 30). Last week he still sat at home, waiting a call to visit Stalin and get down to business.