А. А. Komarov. The Soviet Union and Finland’s aspirations for neutrality // Petersburg historical journal, no. 3, 2022, pp. 136–152

Abstract:
The article examines the history of Soviet attitudes towards Finland’s desire to position itself as a neutral country. After World War II Finland started to promote actively the idea of its neutrality. In this way the Finnish political class tried to enhance its profile on the international arena and distance itself from the military clauses of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual assistance signed by the USSR and Finland on April 6, 1948. Moscow refrained from recognizing Finland’s neutral status officially, preferring to define Helsinki’s foreign policy line in bilateral documents as “Finland’s peace-loving neutral policy”, emphasizing the term “peace-loving”. Also, Soviet-Finnish communiqués always contained a mention of the 1948 Treaty. Both Moscow and Helsinki understood that neutrality can be an important foreign policy instrument. The Finns tried to use it to weaken Soviet influence on the country, to facilitate rapprochement with other Nordic countries and the West as a whole. The Soviet leadership regarded these efforts negatively and tried to contain them. However, as a result of general deconstruction of the previous foreign policy priorities’ system in the “Soviet-Finnish Declaration — The New Thinking at Work”, signed during M. S. Gorbachev’s visit to Finland in October 1989, the USSR finally recognized Finland’s neutrality. After the collapse of the USSR the 1948 Treaty was substituted by the Treaty on the Foundations of Relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Finland signed on January 20, 1992. During the elaboration of the new agreement the Russians would have liked to recognize Finland as a neutral state, but Helsinki, considering the transition from the bipolar system of international relations to the unipolar one, showed no interest to this. In the new geopolitical reality Finland moved out from its eastern neighbor’s influence and had no need to promote its neutrality idea any more.

Keywords:
J. K. Paasikivi, U. K. Kekkonen, Soviet-Finnish relations, Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line, Finland’s neutrality.

Author:
Komarov, Alexey Alekseevich — PhD in History, Leading Research Fellow, Head of the Centre for Nordic and Baltic History, Institute of World History, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow, Russia).

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