Has Finland significant pro-Russian politicians? Or at least pro before February 2022?
I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.
The Finnish political system was infiltrated by Russian assets (willing or just useful fools) for decades
[0]. Luckily this has abated in the last decades. The people have deep suspicion of the Russian state but no particular animosity towards russian people in general.
Most finns, especially the young generations, feel most affinity towards west in every sense.
The Finnish language is Finno-Ugric and unrelated to slavic tongues hence there is a huge language gap. Finns don't as a rule undertand russian.
The political and judicial system is based on western principles.
So Russia in general is a very alien entity not only linguistically but culturally as well.
The signal that drove to this was two-fold - first Russia at the end of last year forbade Sweden and Finland joining NATO, clearly signaling it considers these states as "it's property".
Then the war in Ukraine - Bucha and Mariupol - turned the perception of Russia into complete Mordor in a single stroke. It was very easy to replace Bucha and Mariupol with Finnish cities in ones imagination - and we still have people who remember the sound of Russian bombers striking our cities from '40s.
Finns in general do not exacerbate political tensions one way or another and are used to a mostly consensus-seeking political process. So not sure what signals you interpreted as "friendly" and what was just "common politeness".
The relationship with Russia is a bit conflicted - Finland rose from a dirt poor agrarian state to a fledling industrial state when it was a grand dutchy under a personal union with the Russian czar (so "part of Russia" but also "not part of Russia"). Most of the historical goodwill - if any - was destroyed by the russification attempts starting in late 19th century and were more or less eradicated during the second world war as Stalin tried to conquer Finland.
The war in Ukraine has made the Russian state appear twisted, dark, deranged and unpredictable for decades to come.
I hope my country, Poland, could find a way to abate russian fools, that seemingly have their prime time now here. I see similar to russian type of rhetoric in TV and social media and some people support them because they seem to provide easy solutions to big problems. I wished it was more plain to see that it's all russia-driven.
And yes - I write russia with small letter because I don't see their _state_ representing the country anymore, but it is more like criminal organization now.
I know, and I get it that loudest people are a minute fraction of all users. But it seems that people are under their influence as the ruling party keeps acting against the state but they still have majority in the polls.
>Most finns, especially the young generations, feel most affinity towards west in every sense.
It's true that most finns feel affinity towards the west, but same can't be said about the USA. Especially the younger generation sees both Russia and US with somewhat strong dislike.
People consume what's available, and what's available is US media.
Nobody in the west can catch up to the US in media production because the US is the biggest producer of English language media. English language media has the largest market in the west because English is spoken by nearly everyone as a second language, and US media reinforces this English language status, since people pick up the language due to its availability.
tldr: despite watching Friends on Netflix, many people still think the US is a rotten dirty capitalist hellhole.
I can't comment about the specific situation in Finland but generally this does not seem to be true. Due to a EU directive, streaming Providers like Netflix have to offer at least 30% of local content but these are not watched proportionally. The most popular content remains English/international. For example, according to a 2020 Netflix survey 25% of most viewed titles in Spain were local, with the UK (10%), Germany (8%), France (8%) and Italy (8%) following.
As for music, Finland is known for their unusual and thriving Tango, Polka, and Heavy Metal scenes but most consumed music is nevertheless produced in the US and the UK. This doesn't have much to do with what is offered, it's just more popular. Generally speaking, popular culture is global in all Western countries, with English as the lingua franca.
It's possible to respect and share the principles the US is built on and disagree with details and ugly tendencies of the implementation. The West is not just the US.
As for Russia and its empire-serving culture, there's nothing to like and share at all.
> The Finnish political system was infiltrated by Russian assets (willing or just useful fools) for decades [0]
I just read the whole [0] reference, and I could not find anything related to your claim. Can you give specific examples ? Or can you explain how the article supports your claim ?
It's complex and what I write here is open for argumentations.
Briefly put, insidious interactions over decades groomed certain individuals in power to promote agendas pleasing to Moscow and to stop from forwarding agendas that would have been displeasing. Who, exactly? Well, that's the thing - we don't know but can only guess - but this effect was quite visible in Finland for decades. I know this sounds a bit nutty without more context so let me try to provide it.
I am using the term "asset" in the widest possible interpretations - people acting to benefit the agenda of Moscow.
Finlandization included the necessity to get stamp of approval on all foreign policy from Moscow. The journalistic system basically recycled what USSR broadcasted on foreign events up to late 1980's.
Politicians had to get approval from the USSR embassy. How this undermines democracy should be obvious - you can have votes, but it does not matter if big brother vetoes you.
Hence you don't need to explicitly enact nefarious schemes given to you by Kremlin - you simply do not put forward agendas you guess would be displeasing to the Moscow masters. And you things you guess would please them. In this atmosphere the subtlest of hints suffice to direct policy.
Over decades, this creates a psychology of implicit submission - similar to what happens in totalitarian countries in press self-censoring and so fort. You start to guess from weak signals what the dominating party wants and impose this control. You promote those that forward your pro Moscow agenda. You chastise those too pro-western. Sometimes you promote your protege to Moscow as a steady hand and so on.
There are visible signals of this and I can enumerate few:
0)
Finland had one person as president, Urho Kekkonen for 26 years
His reign was linked to very good relations with Moscow. He probably played both sides, but was in fact many ways enacting policies that were pleasing to Moscow. In the 50's this probably helped to stop explicit invasion.
The president of Finland Tarja Halonen supported the ratification of the Ottawa treaty banning all use of landmines in Finland in 2011. This was promoted as a benevolent act by many parties. Given that Russia had invaded Geoergia 2008 this can be in retrospect considered suicidally deluded or treasonous position.
The latter one is perhaps the most egregious example of the actions of parties one would at bare minimum describe as "usefull fools". The only party that would ever benefit from Finland banning landmines is Moscow.
3)
Finland was planning a new nuclear plant starting from 2010. The tendering was won by Rosatom in circumstances that implied high favoritism toward the Russian state actor.
In 2014 after Russia invaded Crimea several municipalities pooled in extra capital to the process.
Luckily this plant project has been stopped and will never be built.
Things like this could go on and on. But the whole point of clandestine subversion is that it's clandestine and KGB archives are probably sadly not available for academic study for decades if ever.
Not a lot of material about him written in English though. But he is a member of parliament and has been openly pro Russia recently. He was expelled from his party already earlier and now runs his own party. I don't think people take him seriously.
He is basically anti everything mainstream including Russia, US, EU (yes all 3), vaccines, any covid measures, etc while being pro almost any conspiracy theory you have ever heard of. And all of this changes week by week. Basically your standard populist politician turned conspiracy nut.
For readers not versed in Finnish politics, the only party with a majority opposed is Vasemmistoliitto (Left Alliance), the rebranded former Finnish Communist/Socialist party.
The original Left Alliance was like that, but the current party has very little to do with that heritage. The younger generation started a slow coup in the late 90s and eventually pivoted the party to a completely new direction. In the process, they lost many of their old supporters. The left-wing conservatives who had traditionally voted communists didn't really feel at home in a party of liberal environmentalists.
> The left-wing conservatives who had traditionally voted communists...
As a person with US-oriented political definitions, I find that phrase almost impossible to parse. I can put "left-wing" and "traditionally voted communist" together, but in what sense are they "conservatives"?
I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just saying that I don't understand how the terms are used over there.
Economically hard left, socially conservative. There are often no good English terms for political positions that never existed as mainstream options in English-speaking countries.
This is not a neutral characterization. They are not communists in the sense that they would oppose capitalism. A real communist party exists as well. They are left of US democrats, and major driver seems to be identity politics.
The Left Alliance is the successor of SKDL, which started out as a thin disguise for the banned Finnish Communist Party after the Soviets arm-twisted the Finnish government into allowing it. Obviously their politics have been diluted since the early days, but older folk recall their heritage well.
Anyway, it is about definition. For you communism appears to be about heritage. For me, it is about observed behavior. Communism means advocating for communistic world order.
Left Alliance is consistently voting pro-market, pro-EU, pro-globalization, anti-government etc., all of which are goals of the economic right, i.e. the opposite of communism.
Their former chair-woman (Suvi-Anne Siimes) even moved directly to become Director General of Pharma Industry Finland, and was promoting right-wing coalition party member in 2009 EU elections.
Sure, there still exists hard core left wing, even communist members within that party (taistolaiset).
> Most Russians don't seem to want to invade other countries.
This is true for basically every people every time in history. People care about food, family, a house, medical care. All is well until some government starts pushing them into a warring state of mind.
Examples from the previous generation of European wars, when Italy invented fascism, Germany followed suit ten years later and both countries started to think about land grabs in Europe and Africa. We got WW2 first but only 12 years after the end of it France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux started the process [1] that led to the current EU. All friends again.
My bet: without the current leadership and their propaganda very few Russians would think about invading other countries so be ready to reach out to them when it will be all over. What we don't have to do is to start a process like the one that led Germany from the defeat in WW1 to desires of revenge and WW2, or Russia from the defeat in the Cold War to the current attempt to create its empire again.
> What we don't have to do is to start a process like the one that led Germany from the defeat in WW1 to desires of revenge and WW2, or Russia from the defeat in the Cold War to the current attempt to create its empire again.
I note, grimly, that your positive example (Germany and Italy post-WW2) was precipitated by the total defeat, occupation and renovation of those two states by the victors of the war. That is not possible in the current situation, where the best case outcome is that Russia retreats to pre-2014 borders with Ukraine.
Invasions end governments sometimes. There are many processes that can result into a change of leadership. Ultimately it will be up to the Russians because nobody will ever invade them (the nuclear deterrent), no matter their fears.
Actually I wonder if the Kremlin really fears an invasion. We were happy to pay for anything we wanted from Russia.
Italian and German fascism lasted relatively short period of time. Generation that "invented" it had a chance to change their mind.
Russian fascism runs for multiple generations. Russia never was democratic. Russian mentality is to have an aggressive leader ("бьёт - значит любит").
Navalny is perceived as an alternative to Putin, but he supported Crimean annexation and Georgian war. There is no evidence the remedies that worked for Nazi Germany will work for Russia.
This seems to show strong support for the Russian government and this analysis seems to suggest that few Russians are concerned about Russians crimes and as many as half are very supportive of horrific violence against people they see as nonhuman.
When looking at things like this you always need to consider a rally around the flag effect. When a country is threatened by outsiders, it tends to result in a dramatic increase in support for government and its leaders. After 9/11, Bush's approval rating hit 90%, the highest ever recorded for any US president. And it stayed inflated (though not to such insane highs) for years, including through at least the start of our invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Russians now feel as though they're under attack by the West with an ends of destroying them not only economically and politically but also culturally. That is going to send support soaring with the perceived threat there is orders of magnitude greater than something like Bin Laden. So you're not going to be able to get level-headed responses until [likely many] years after this ends - similar to how if you polled the average American circa 2001 you'd get dramatically different views on the actions we took than you would if you asked them a decade later, even beyond the countless discoveries outside the "fog of war".
This is one reason I also think our ongoing response is not the right path forward for any outcome other than escalation. The more we arbitrarily attack anything "Russian", the more we frame ourselves not as an enemy of the war but as an enemy of the Russian people and even the Russian culture. And far from achieving a de-escalation, this just seems it will inevitably march us that much closer to WW3.
Even sociologists/antropologist who put emphasis on "rally around the flag effect" claim that support for war in Russia is actually high right now. And that hate toward Ukrainians is high too. Your explanation completely disregards the distate and hate toward Ukraine/Ukrainians that was hyped up for years.
Can we please learn the difference between fascism, nationalism and nazism?
Putin nor his supporters haven't gone full nazi. Full fascist, perhaps. Nationalist, definitely.
He used the "denazify Ukraine" slogan when Zelenskyy is actually Jewish not because of deep seated racial or religious motivations, but just to get more of the populace to buy his belligerent cause. Putin just cares about Crimea, Sevastopol, and the strategic importance of the Black Sea (oil and military).
What is the difference between the Nazis and Putin's Russia today? A fascist State organized around one man organizing the genocide of an ethnicity to further his geopolitical aims and restore his nation to a position of prominence and prestige in world affairs who destroys not only others but his own people as well.
He's just using Ukrainians instead of Jewish folks seems more like an implimentation detail. Even hating them is completely optional.
People aren't just using Nazi as a purjorative the regime literally fits a template.
Glad you asked. Nazis ideology was based on strong genetic/biological definition of race. It was all about who your grand-parents were. It believed in struggle for survival for races and whole pyramid of races. Aryans on top (not whites), Jews as main enemies/bottom and dangerous, Slavic people low on hierarchy but not dangerous. It also believed Germans need more "living space" as Germany is too small. The place to colonize was East.
They also believed in "survival of fittest" and competition. That influenced the way they build institutions and how they treated sick etc. They liked to have two institutions with same goal and have them compete. Russia is different in all three points. It does not care much about own disabled, but they are not seen as threat the way Germans seen disabled. Russian parents with sick kid dont have to be afraid to go to see doctor for example.
> He's just using Ukrainians instead of Jewish folks seems more like an implementation detail. Even hating them is completely optional.
Both ideologies are very very different in how they treat subjects, actually. For instance, Ukrainians became subject of genocide after they refused Russia domination - Jews had no such option. Russians claim Ukrainians are Russia by blood and deserve punishment for considering themselves apart. Meanwhile, many many German Jews considered themselves Germans. That is underappreciated point - but a lot of them were German patriots, veterans of WWI, married ethnical Germans and were atheists.
Edited to add: Russia is also significantly less totalitarian them Germany was back then. It is autocracy/dictatorship, but it is not nearly as oppressive internally as Nazi Germany was. Timing is different too, its move toward complete lock of press happened only after invasion of Ukraine - contrast with German who did that long before military moves.
Don't mistake of thinking that the educated or political elite in Saint Petersburg or Moscow are not mostly in favor Russian supremacy over Ukraine. A lot of them truly do think that Ukraine is just a part of Russia and killing anyone there who thinks othewise is just fine. A lot of them look back at the Soviet or imperial times with rose tinted glasses and say "this was when Russia was at its best".
I visited there a while ago and there was a feel of Russian friendliness at the least with significant independence on the streets. But that's just my feelings and I wasn't paying attention back then.