Conspiracy Is Not Enough

The news from two countries in Russia's orbit made a point which too often escapes notice--even under the Hammer & Sickle, subject peoples have something to do with their own fates, and Moscow invariably takes that fact into account.

Finland. The Finns had their first general election since 1939, their first national vote since the Red Army defeated them and their German ally in Finland last year. The issue was equally clear to the Finns and to watchful Moscow: was Finnish friendship with the Finns' old enemy, Russia, to be sincere and permanent, or tactical and temporary?

Under the noses of a Soviet Control Commission, six political parties ran 580 candidates for 200 seats in the new Eduskunta (Parliament). U.S. correspondents in Helsinki reported that all parties and candidates had complete freedom of speech and action; Finnish voters enjoyed absolute privacy at the polls.

Best known pro-Russian was aging (74), independent Premier Juho Paasikivi, who said in a pre-election speech: "Our policy must never again be directed against the Soviet Union." Moscow's most ardent advocate was thirtyish, fiery-eyed Hertta Kuusinen, daughter of oldtime Comintern functionary, now high Soviet official Otto Kuusinen (who stayed in Russia). Hertta Kuusinen's instrument was that familiar Communist device, a Democratic Front--composed in Finland of Communists, small farmers and a splinter of the old Social Democratic Party, once the country's biggest. Chief anti-Russian was tough Vaeinoe Tanner, leader of the orthodox Social Democrats.

The result was less than a triumph for Finland's Communists. Their "Democratic Union" made tremendous strides but (on incomplete returns) got considerably less than a majority of the record 1,800,000 votes and 200 Eduskunta seats. A large proportion of the vote was still divided among the old-line, conservative parties.

This showing did not mean that either Moscow or Communism had gone democratic. What it did mean was that Moscow, as usual, had too much sense to ignore or override the internal forces at work in Finland. Stronger than ever before, but still a minority, Finland's Communists will keep on, trying.

Rumania. Anthony Eden in London, the State Department in Washington confirmed the news that the U.S. and Britain were "in consultation" with Moscow over the new Government in Bucharest (TIME, March 19). But London and Washington clearly did not intend to let the Rumanian issue make or break Big Three relations. One reason was that neither Britain nor the U.S. had any practical alternative to offer. Premier Peter Groza and his Communist instrument, the National Democratic Front, had undoubtedly been raised to power by Moscow for Moscow's purposes. The ousted premier, General Nicolai Radescu, undoubtedly had good reason to seek haven in the British Legation, where he prudently remained last week. But critical British and U.S. diplomats had to admit that General Radescu was at best an honest weakling. They similarly had to face the fact that the Groza program, fashioned by a makeshift minority, nevertheless fitted the majority's desire for land and other reforms. In Rumania, as in Finland, conspiracy would not be enough to fulfill Russian aims. Moscow went after what it wanted by offering the Rumanian people a good deal of what they wanted.

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