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Salient. Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 26, No. 1. Monday, February 25, 1963
Hostility at Red Festival
Hostility at Red Festival
Outright hostility marked the Communist-backed Eighth World Festival of Youth and Students in Helsinki last year. And all Finland joined the scrap.
The Festival was estimated to have cost Moscow at least £1,500.000. But it cost the Communist cause in neutral Finland an incalculable price.
- Finnish Prime Minister Sukselainen pleaded with the organisers to stage the festival elsewhere.
- All non-Communist Finnish student organisations boycotted the festival.
- It was ignored by British Commonwealth students except from Ghana, chopping participants from the expected 18,000 to 11,600.
- The Finnish Press condemned the festival as "a political stunt."
- Student bodies refused to billet delegates, hotels were reluctant to commit their rooms and no caterer was willing to service the festival.
- Almost all available outdoor poster space in Helsinki was bought up In advance to prevent festival advertising.
- Violent demonstrations were staged against the festival.
- One night, police used tear gas and batons to break up 5000 angry demonstrators.
- Youths threw stones at buses carrying delegates and shouted patriotic slogans.
- Festival signs were torn down and a Russian cultural exhibition attacked.
- An attempt to draw Soviet and Finnish students together in a "day of friendship" failed dismally.
A Marxist student was reported as saying: "By such means do the partisans of the West aid in the promotion of peace and understanding between the peoples of the world."
Despite the bitter opposition, the festival was held. Premier Sukselainen was replaced after the general election about the same time. His successor, Mr. Miettunen, consented to the festival after appeals by Soviet officials.
Mr. Miettunen appealed to his people and the wisdom of good manners in a neutral country: "It is in our interest that the festival should proceed without friction," he said, very much aware of the high feeling it would arouse.
The festival was the second to be held outside the Communist bloc. Russia has never really disguised its purpose. An issue of the World Marxist Review said the festival was important, as it facilitated the spread of Communist ideas.
Communist authorities have apparently not abandoned the idea of holding another World Youth Festival—as was expected by many observers after the not overly successful VIII Festival held in Finland last year.
An article on January 18 in Mlada Fronta (Prague), organ of the Czechoslovak Youth Union (CSM), points the way to Communist initiation of plans for another Festival in 1965.
The article reports the opening in Helsinki on January 13 of a trial of young Fins charged with disturbing the peace during the anti-Fesuvnl riots in Helsinki last summer. The article is subtitled "On To 1965—The Year Of The Next Festivul!" It proclaims "great interest in the Festivals" in various countries, deplores the alleged persecution of Festival participants in West Germany. Iraq, and the United States, and concludes on a rallying note with the assertion that "young people are already now eagerly looking forward to and making preparations for their IX World Youth Festival of Peace and Friendship."