96833ac9
XPost: soc.culture.baltics, soc.culture.czecho-slovak, soc.culture.russian
From: holman@mappi.helsinki.fi
In article , James A. Donald
wrote:
> Eugene Holman:
> > The Finns were trading as capitalists, with profit in
> > the monetary sense as the ultimate criterion for
> > judging whether what they were doing was rational or
> > not.
>
> Firstly it was not businessmen making these decisions
Yes it was. The industrial infrastructure was privately financed and
privately owned. The businessmen and shareholders were the ones making the
decisions concerning if and how it was to be used after the reprations had
been paid.
> Secondly, if the trade profitable, why only conducted in
> this manner with a country the Soviets could threaten
> and which had previously submitted to threats.
The Soviets were not threatening Finland, quite the opposite. The two
countries had signed an agreement in 1948 according to which their
relationships would enter a new era in which threats were no longer part
of it. The Soviets invested a considerable amount of energy to trumpeting
to the world that it and Finland could peacefully coexist despite their
bitter recent history, different socio-economic systems, and disparity in
size in population.
> If
> profitable to Finland, why could the Soviets not make
> similar deals with countries that did not have Soviet
> troops just across their border that might come in
> unopposed at any moment?
Because, with the exception of Norway and Finland, all the other contries
along the western rim of the USSR had communist governments that were
usually, although not always, ready to dance to the tune played by the
Soviets. As we all know well, the USSR invaded East Germany, Hungary, and
Czechoslovakia, and almost did the same thing to Poland, when those
countries resisted or went foul of Soviet policies. In Romania, Nicolae
Ceasescu regularly told the Soviets to go to hell, but the Soviets were
not imprudent enough to invade, because they knew that such a move would
not be worth the effort.
Although it was a dictatorship, the Soviet Union was ruled by rational,
conservative men whose primary concern uring the 1950s, 1960s, and even
1970s was rebuilding the country after its western part had been
devastated and between 25,000,000 and 30,000,000 of its citizens killed.
Its three invasions of fwllow communist countries were limited joint (with
the Warsaw Pact) operations that were settled by putting a local man in
place (Ulbricht, Kadár, Husak) who would answer to Moscow more than to the
needs of the population.
> > The Soviet were trading as ideologically committed
> > communists trying to make a point to the world:
> > countries with different socio-economic systems can
> > coexist and mutually benefit from their relationship.
>
> If that was the deal, then why not make such a deal with
> countries that they were wooing, and were in no position
> to rape?
They were in no position to rape Finland because that would have pulled
the legs out from under their entire foreign policy and credibility. Their
foreign trade with other non-communist countries was on a far less planned
or comprehensive basis for various reasons. With the countries of COMECON
they had a barter-like system based on absurd and varying exchange rates
for their non-convertible currencies. Oil traded at one ruble exchange
rate, agricultural products for another, etc. The clearing-dollar-based
Finnish-Soviet trade regime was far simpler than anything the Soviets were
running with their allies in COMECON.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
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