Finland in Retrospect

So the groat tragic farce has ended.

Herr Adolf Mannerheim, Sir Montague Ryti, Mr. Ramsay MacTanner, and Hermann Wallonius, after a gallant fight for democracy, have sought peace terms from the Russian aggressors.

We have read of strange things.

The Finn who shot forty Russians from a tree before breakfast.

The Russian soldier with dirty hands and no boots. The invisible ski patrols, which made the Rod Army men turn grey with fear. The Books on How to Ski.

A now species of exerescence has obtruded itself. The Communazi.

The Communazi caused all the trouble in Finland. The 30,000 people slaughtered by Herr Mannerheim in the war (see the radical Encyclopedia Britannica ) -must have been Communazis. Or perhaps we should print it with a small "C" - communazis. The people who resisted the White Guard armies, the Imperial German armies, and the armies of the arch-interventionist; the people who fought the Finnish Lappo movement and prevented Wallenius's attempt at a fascist coup reaching fruition; the people who have fought for a decent living wage and elementary social-democratic rights for the Finnish workers - all these must be communazis. Or rather, must have been, because most of them are dead or in Jail now. Because there are no class distinctions in Finland; there are no labor problems. Isn't Finland a social-democratic country, like New Zealand? Long live the Second International.

Murmansk, 1919, Genoa, 1922; Locarno, 1925, the Zinovieff letter, 1924; the Arcos raid, 1924; the Metro-Vick trial, 1933; Mr. Strang, 1939.

The Soviet Union has no illusions.

Shall it be Baku, 1940?