Finland: Forgetting the Past

Finland has kept its independence as a nation by carefully avoiding any internal or external policy that would rile the neighboring Russians. Since 1958, the Finns' readiness to please has even extended to excluding from the Cabinet all Social Democrats, against whom the Russians developed a grudge after World War II. But in last week's elections, Finnish voters were plainly unbothered by Moscow's traditional veto. In the biggest postwar gain in a Finnish election, the Social Democrats won 18 new seats, jumped ahead of the Center (formerly Agrarian) Party and the Communists...

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