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From: fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV (Fred Baube)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: UUCP to Russia
Message-ID: <8710271119.aa21258@note.nsf.gov>
Date: Tue, 27-Oct-87 13:57:22 EST
Article-I.D.: note.8710271119.aa21258
Posted: Tue Oct 27 13:57:22 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 30-Oct-87 02:23:54 EST
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>>As I understand it, Finland has something less of a knee-jerk "Commies!
>>Shoot Now!" mentality than elements of the US government --- with rail
>>links, for example, it presumably has a rather more normal "this is my
>>neighbour" policy than the xenophobes might prefer.

>A perusal of your favorite European history book will reveal that during
>its existence Finland has fought something like 40 wars with Russia and
>lost every one.  Their "this is my neighbour" policy, or rather their
>"disinclination to offend my neighbour lest I get my a** kicked yet again"
>policy, is understandable, but not enviable.

Let us not attribute boundless evil to the Soviets. Someone check
me on this, but my impression is that Finland is a (the only ?)
country the Soviets gave a more than fair shake to.  The Soviets
invaded Finland in the thirties, and the Finns made monkeys out
of them.  For whatever reason, after the war the Soviets were not
as greedy as they could have been regarding territory claims,
even though the Finns had been close to the Nazis. The Soviets
kept the Petsamo peninsula, so that they now border Norway, kept
Vyborg (orig. Viipuri) which I read is now a ghost town, and
kept a ring of land around Lake Ladoga, to fend off the Finnish
navy :-).  They could have taken more, but perhaps figured
there's no point in humiliating a rebellious province (1917) that
serves as a window to the West.