The value of compromise

National heroes often become people who decisively and sometimes irreconcilably implement their own ideas towards their opponents. It is enough to recall the characters most revered by modern Russians - Peter I, Suvorov, Lenin, Stalin. Tyrants and generals. However, in France they treat Napoleon with no less reverence, despite the rivers of blood shed by the great conqueror and the sad outcome of his military campaigns.

Statesmen who achieve success through careful compromise are not so popular among posterity. In Finland, for example, a recognized national hero is Marshal Carl Gustav Mannerheim, who saved the country from the dictatorship of the proletariat in 1918, led the resistance against the Red Army invasion during the “Winter War” and led Finland out of World War II with minimal losses in 1944. m. In recent years, he has gained significant popularity in Russia - a lot of books about the Finnish marshal have already been published, including even the adventure novel “The Mannerheim Code”, written, of course, after “The Da Vinci Code”. Indeed, he is a romantic personality - an aristocrat, a guardsman, a military intelligence officer, a general in the Russian service, who distinguished himself in two wars even before the declaration of Finnish independence.

Against the background of this brilliant military leader, another outstanding figure in Finland of the twentieth century - Juho Kusti Paasikivi, who replaced Mannerheim as president and led the country for ten years (1946-1956) - does not look so impressive. In Soviet times, unlike Mannerheim, he enjoyed the favor of official historiography as a friend of the USSR, who stood at the origins of the so-called “Paasikivi-Kekkonen line” in Soviet-Finnish relations.

However, here too the figure of Paasikivi was overshadowed by Kekkonen, who led the country for a quarter of a century and invariably remained a reliable partner of the Kremlin. This role of Kekkonen made it possible to forget that he was not always a friend of Moscow and in 1940 opposed concluding peace with the USSR.

Paasikivi was in many ways the antipode of Mannerheim. The marshal was a Finnish Swede, Paasikivi came from a Finnish family. The first was a cavalryman, the second a lawyer. While Mannerheim was serving in the Russian army far from Finland, Paasikivi was pursuing a political and administrative career in Helsingfors (present-day Helsinki). He became one of the leaders of the Old Finns party - conservatives who recognized the possibility of cooperation with the tsarist government, despite the restrictions on freedoms practiced by Nicholas II and his ministers in relation to Finland. For many years he was the chief director of the Finnish State Treasury, and then successfully engaged in banking.

Paasikivi's ability to compromise was clearly demonstrated in 1717, when he achieved an agreement between various political forces in the country - from Social Democrats to Conservatives - on the formation of a new Senate (government) of Finland. However, the compromise did not last long - civil war began at the beginning of the next year. However, this time was enough for Finnish society to come to an agreement on the need for maximum independence from Russia. In 1918, Paasikivi headed the government of the now independent Finland, advocating the proclamation of a monarchy and inviting a German prince to the throne. However, Mannerheim, who was also a monarchist, was more cautious and objected to the young state becoming too close to Germany. Unlike the purely civilian Paasikivi, General Mannerheim was skeptical about the chances of victory of the German army in the First World War - and his forecasts turned out to be more accurate. After the defeat of the Germans and, as a consequence, the failure of the monarchical project, Paasikivi left the post of prime minister, to which he returned only in 1944, already during the Second World War. However, he, of course, did not leave the establishment, successively being a banker, leader of the Conservative (National Coalition) Party and diplomat.

It was Paasikivi’s diplomatic skills that were in demand in 1939, when, after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the USSR presented territorial claims to Finland. Then he was sent to Moscow in order to try to come to an agreement with the Soviet authorities - a clearly impossible task, given Stalin’s ambitions. Paasikivi was a supporter of some territorial concessions, which was at odds with the tough position of the Finnish authorities. Of course, he could not achieve success, but he was remembered by Soviet leaders for his penchant for compromise. It is not surprising that when it was necessary to sign a peace treaty after the end of the “winter war”, Paasikivi again arrived in Moscow, who then became an envoy to the USSR. Historians still debate whether Paasikivi’s “soft line” could have prevented the war—the example of the Baltic countries suggests that concessions only provoked Stalin’s further appetites. Compromises also have their limits.

During World War II, the cautious Paasikivi was one of the few opponents of Finland entering the war on the side of Germany in order to regain lost territories. When it became clear that the Nazis were being defeated, he began his usual business - negotiations with the Soviet government on the terms of peace. And after Finland left the war, he headed the country’s government - this happened in November 1944. His return to the post of prime minister was a predictable phenomenon - the Finnish political class needed a person who would enjoy trust both in his own country and in Moscow. There simply was no other such figure in Finland at that time, capable of achieving compromises with the Kremlin. After Mannerheim's resignation as president, Paasikivi became his successor.

As the leader of the country, Paasikivi was able to achieve a lot. In particular, the relatively soft conditions of the Soviet-Finnish Treaty of 1948, thanks to which political democracy and a market economy were preserved in Finland. The communists and their closest allies, included in the government at the request of the USSR even before the end of the war, were already removed from the cabinet in 1948. At the same time, they lost influence on the police and radio broadcasting, which led to a further weakening of their position. Moderate and prone to compromise, Paasikivi showed considerable firmness on this issue. During his lifetime, communists were no longer part of the government.

Paasikivi was able to ensure that the politicians who led the country during the war and were brought to trial at the request of the Soviet leadership were convicted in Finland itself. Not a single death sentence was imposed (remember that in Bulgaria dozens of ministers and deputies were shot, not to mention lesser-known figures). The longest prison sentence - 10 years - was received by former President Risto Ryti, but already in 1949 he was free. The rest were released even earlier.

As a long-time businessman, Paasikivi was a proponent of free market economics. In 1953, he initiated the creation of a government that finally abandoned the system of economic regulation that existed during the war. During his presidency, a number of events occurred that increased Finland's international profile - from hosting the Summer Olympics in Helsinki in 1952 to the country's admission to the UN three years later. Now such membership is something common, but let's not forget that the UN was created as a "club" of the victors in the war, and the vanquished faced problems when they wanted to join it.

A conservative who had long been a supporter of the monarchy, Paasikivi in ​​his later years was awarded the Order of Lenin “for his great contribution to the development of friendly relations between Finland and the Soviet Union.” How to evaluate his activities? He made compromises in particulars, showing integrity in the main things. Of course, he was no less a patriot of his country than the reckless supporters of radical measures. His activities demonstrate the value of reasonable compromises in practical politics - of course, in the case when they are not absolutized as a way out of any situation and are not unprincipled in nature.