TOO SMALL

This week, after dawdling 14 days, the Finns cautiously accepted Stalin's handwritten summons to a talk about a proposed pact of mutual assistance which might end Finland's freedom. Last week from Helsinki TIME'S John Walker cabled:

Spring came to northern Europe nearly a month ahead of time, and Helsinki had an unbroken succession of lovely sunlit days. They formed an oddly unsuitable background for glum apprehension and nervous political maneuverings.

It took five hours to fly from Moscow to Helsinki in a Soviet DC-3. But I found myself in an atmosphere so hauntingly reminiscent of Europe in 1939 that I had the weird feeling that what I had really climbed into at Moscow's airfield was a Wellsian time machine which whisked me back nine years. There is the same excitement, of alternate pessimism and hopefulness, the same underlying feeling of a great overall drifting into disaster.

Helsinki has virtually no foreign merchandise. All foreign exchange has been hoarded to buy machinery and raw materials. The people, who are perhaps Europe's hardest working, have been knocking themselves out trying to keep ahead of the Soviet reparations program, to give the Russians no excuse for interfering.

"The Poor Swedes." Politically the week opened in confusion bordering on panic among the parliamentary blocs. The Communists alone promptly embraced the treaty proposal. The others looked at it with despairing distaste. The Social Democrats, as usual, pretty much held the key to the situation and, as usual, did not seem to know what to do about it.

Other parties felt bewildered and let down; hence the week's real surprise came Friday when they stuck to their guns, and Agrarians, Liberals and Conservatives, controlling 86 of the 200 parliamentary votes, notified President Paasikivi that they opposed treaty negotiations with Russia. Considering Finland's geographical and political position, these 86 showed plenty of courage.

Of the political leaders the most interesting--because they hold the greatest potential influence--are Social Democrats Karl-August Fagerholm, speaker of Parliament, and Onni Peltonen, locomotive engineer by trade, who is chief of the Social Democrat parliamentary bloc and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Peltonen has led the fight for a firm policy, while the softening influence is attributed to Fagerholm, who was in Stockholm the first of the week and returned with a roaring case of jitters.

The Swedes are apparently in a worse flap over this than the Finns, and view the whole thing as a Swedish problem. The Finns derive a certain sour satisfaction from this. A Finnish Liberal rolled his eyes heavenward and said: "Oh, the poor Swedes! I don't know how they'll be able to bear this."

The most sinister figure around Helsinki is that of Lieut. General Grigory Savonenkov, the Soviet minister, a bullyragging, bellowing, table-pounding type. Savonenkov's arrival in Helsinki in mid-January was the first tip-off to the Finns that trouble was brewing. At that time I filed you a brief piece about his arrival, and the Moscow censor deleted his military title and all reference to his general's uniform. This time I inquired whether he was still wearing the uniform. The reply from a competent Finnish observer: "I think he sleeps in it."

"We Aren't Czechs." If the Finns prove stiffnecked, the Soviet chiefs will have to decide whether to use direct high-pressure methods or try to take over the country with an inside job. Finland has no real defense against direct pressure, but might try an open appeal to the U.N. If an inside job is to be tried, then look for the familiar pattern. Whether it would work in Finland as well as in Czechoslovakia and elsewhere is a question. Three Communist-organized demonstrations at factories flopped last week. At a railway repair shop an impassioned speaker said: "Two hands are being offered you. Will you grasp the hand of capitalism or the hand of Stalin?" Dutiful stooges started yelling: "Stalin," but were drowned out by hearty shouts of "Neither!"

A high officer of the Social Democratic Party said: "The Communists may try their tricks, but you will see, here we can control the workers." One of his colleagues said: "You think we'll weaken, but you don't know Finlanders." And then he added an echo of pure 1939: "We aren't Czechs!"

The echoes of 1939 followed me even to the airfield on the way out. There a kindly senior customs officer chalked my bags and remarked that I had a beautiful day for flying. I agreed, and added that I hadn't expected to see Finland looking so lovely this early in the year. He looked around through the big glass window for a moment, then half smiled and said: "Oh, it's a nice country! But too small."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.