Word: finlandized
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...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...
...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 Väinö Tanner, leader of the orthodox Social Democrats...
...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...
...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...