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Prices have risen, but wages have risen much faster. A characteristically Scandinavian form of socialism (social security and worker welfare rather than nationalization) has eased the worker's lot everywhere. In Valkeakoski, one privately owned staple fiber factory provides lakeside homes for its workers, helpers for their wives when ill, fresh meat and vegetables from its own farms for their tables, a steamer for excursions, a hall for their drama society, an orchestra, a chess-club and an 89-bed hospital.
Against such competition, Finland's Communist Party, counting 16% of the national vote but virtually leaderless except for a spinsterish, twice-divorced Nordic Ana Pauker named Hertta Kuusinen,* has only barely held its own. Nevertheless, along 800 miles of Russo-Finnish frontier, the Russian bear still lurks, all set to pounce. Why doesn't he? "Why kill the cow you are milking?" say some sardonic Finns, but that is not the whole answer. Alone of all Russia's next-door neighbors, Finland has stayed outside the Iron Curtain.
"All of Finland," said a Finn last week, "can be found in three S's—the sauna, the schnapps and sisu." The sauna is the hardy Finn's favorite form of relaxation: a bath in superheated steam followed by a brisk beating with sharp twigs and a plunge into icy water. Schnapps is the national drink, a potent pick-me-up that can turn a stolid Scandinavian into a feral dervish. Sisu, a word old in the Finnish language, is mystic and untranslatable; roughly it means guts. It denotes the Finn's ability to pay his debts, to rout his enemies, to beat the odds on any bet without fuss or furor. Sisu is Finland's answer to Communism.
*Whose Finland-born father, Oato Kuusinen, is deputy chairman of the Presidium of Russians Supreme Soviet.