9c336773   
   XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian   
   From: ddfr@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com   
      
   I've enjoyed the long thread on Finno-Russian relations in the post-war   
   period--it's a refreshing demonstration that cross posting can sometimes   
   have desirable consequences--and thought it might be worth trying to   
   write a summary of the argument as I see it.   
      
   The central issues are the economic relationship and the political   
   relationship and the consequences of each. James argues that the barter   
   trade between Finland and the USSR was disguised tribute. Eugene, and   
   several other people, argue that the trade was actually favorable to   
   Finland--that it was getting Soviet natural resources at below the   
   market price, selling manufactured goods at above the market price.   
   Since the transactions were (I gather) pretty much entirely government   
   to government, however, I expect it would have been reasonably easy to   
   misrepresent the real terms. Unless I've missed it, nobody has provided   
   any actual evidence.   
      
   In defense of James' view, Finland did pay tribute to the USSR at the   
   beginning of the period in the form of large scale reparations. And the   
   USSR was arguably in a position to threaten Finland, hence to extort   
   tribute.   
      
   The alternative view requires more explanation. One possibility is that   
   the Russians traded at a loss because the Finns were smarter than they   
   were, or at least better at trading. Given that the loss was, on that   
   account, entirely obvious, and the transactions went on for decades,   
   that strikes me as unlikely.   
      
   A second explanation is that the USSR was somehow a captive market--that   
   it had nobody else to sell its raw materials to or buy manufactured   
   goods from. That again is implausible, since the western allies never   
   attempted a trade embargo. The least implausible version of it has the   
   Soviets imposing an embargo on themselves, refusing to trade with evil   
   capitalists other than their Finnish friends. I can't see any particular   
   reason why they would have done so, or evidence that they did.   
      
   A third explanation is that the USSR couldn't trade with anyone else   
   because they didn't have hard currency to do it with. That makes sense   
   if we accept James' "worthless rubles" account of the exchange. But   
   various Finnish posters have assured us that that wasn't happening--and   
   if it was, that gets us back to the tribute version. If what was going   
   on was barter exchange on terms favorable to the Finns, as Eugene   
   assures us, then the Soviets could have sold their raw materials   
   elsewhere at a higher price, used the money to buy manufactured goods   
   elsewhere at a lower price, and so done better without the Finns than   
   with them.   
      
   Which leaves us with the fourth explanation, and the only one that seems   
   to me to make any sense--that the Soviets were bribing the Finns to   
   support them in international politics. Finland was a much smaller   
   economy than the Soviet Union, so a bribe that would be significant to   
   the Finns might not cost too much to the Soviets--and a free,   
   democratic, developed society  might have been seen by the Soviets as a   
   very useful almost-ally. How better to persuade other states out of the   
   anti-Soviet alliance than by offering the example of one such that got   
   along well with the Soviets, thus demonstrating their peaceful and   
   benevolent nature?   
      
   The one puzzle here is why the Soviets, having demonstrated their   
   ability to coerce the Finns at the beginning of the period, would find   
   it necessary later to bribe them. A possible answer is that as the   
   Second World War--in which the Finns had ended up on the losing   
   side--receded into the distance, the political costs of another Russian   
   attack on Finland increased to the point where it was no longer a   
   credible threat.   
      
   The second issue is the political relationship. James' view is that, at   
   the individual level, Finns avoided offending the Soviets for fear of an   
   eventual Soviet takeover followed by a purge of anti-Soviet elements,   
   while at the national level the Finnish government lets its foreign   
   policy be heavily influenced by the USSR for fear of another Russian   
   attack.   
      
   Here the disagreement is less striking. So far as I can tell, everyone   
   agrees that Finnish policy was deliberately slanted in a pro-Soviet   
   direction, whether from fear of invasion or as a payoff for favorable   
   trade. Eugene et. al. think that James exaggerates the degree to which   
   Finns self-censored, but everyone seems to agree that at least some of   
   that was happening (if I'm wrong, I assume Eugene or someone will say   
   so). Eugene seems to find the idea that individual Finns were afraid of   
   the Soviets on a personal level implausible, but an obvious alternative   
   is that individual Finns avoided anti-Soviet activity that might cause   
   troubles between the two countries either out of patriotism or out of   
   concern that their own government might find ways of punishing such   
   activity. Or perhaps Finnish firms avoided offending the Soviets in   
   order not to imperil their chances of sharing in the benefits of trade   
   with them.   
      
   The interesting question is the effects of the political relationship.   
   Eugene seems to think that the USSR lost by it--that the contacts   
   between the two countries helped bring down the Soviet Union by exposing   
   individual soviet citizens to the wonders of a developed capitalist   
   society and by providing a channel for pressure on the Soviet government   
   with regard to civil liberties and the like. That's possible. One reason   
   I don't find it very persuasive is that if the Soviets were not dealing   
   with Finland they might have had to deal with France, or West Germany,   
   or Switzerland, or ..., in which case their citizens would be exposed to   
   societies which were not only free and capitalist but more willing to   
   openly criticize the communist system. Another is that, if the Soviets   
   had chosen to cut themselves off even more from western economies, they   
   would have reduced the problem of ideological corruption but increased   
   the problem of economic and technological backwardness. A third is that   
   I have no reason to think the Soviet rulers were politically   
   incompetent--if they paid for Finnish friendship, they must have thought   
   it was on net worth having, and they were probably better informed on   
   the subject than any of us.   
      
   The obvious alternative view is that the Soviets got valuable   
   advantages, whether by bribes or threats, from the relationship. Finland   
   provided a channel for spreading communist influence in the west, for   
   promoting the idea of non-alignment, in a variety of ways helped support   
   Soviet policy.   
      
   This brings us to a point that has not been discussed but is, arguably,   
   the elephant in the living room in this thread: Should the Finns feel   
   ashamed of Finnish policy over the period? If we assume the Russians   
   knew what they were doing in the relationship, then, arguably, the Finns   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)