In 1905, in the Finnish city of Tampere, Vladimir Lenin met Joseph Stalin for the first time. They and two dozen or so revolutionaries began to map out plans to overthrow the tsar and bring down the Russian empire. The story is vividly chronicled in Tampere’s Lenin Museum, a venue that thousands of Soviet citizens used to descend on each year, in official groups; in these different times, it is seen as something of an embarrassment by the city authorities.
Since the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Finland’s accession to Nato in 2023, the museum has successively changed its exhibits. It still tells the remarkable story of that secret meeting a century ago, when Finland was part of the tsarist Russian empire, but enjoyed a certain autonomy until it gained independence immediately after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
More urgently for now, the museum charts the course of Finland’s relations with Russia. At the end of the second world war, Finland was one of the few European countries neighbouring the USSR that was not forcibly taken over. It was required to cede a tenth of its territory and to pay heavy reparations, but it retained its independence. This came at a price: neutrality tinged with heavy subservience to the Kremlin. In 1970, on the 100th anniversary of Lenin’s birth, events were organised across Finland. The now-derogatory word for all of this is Finlandisation.
Nato’s newest member (Sweden is still waiting), Finland has temporarily closed its border with Russia as tensions have risen sharply. The neighbour as adversary; it is quite the 180-degree turn.
It was against this backdrop that Finns went to the polls last Sunday in the first round of the presidential elections. Although the country has a parliamentary system, the position of head of state is not honorific: the president sets the parameters of foreign policy and is commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that the runoff, on 11 February, will take place between two foreign-policy veterans. Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister, emerged very slightly ahead (with 27% of the vote versus 26%) of Pekka Haavisto, a recent foreign minister. The former may be centre- right, the latter has sat in parliament for the Greens. They may have argued over the economy, the climate crisis and social issues, but on Russia they – and pretty much all politicians in Finland – are of a similar voice.
Indeed, during the election campaign all nine candidates sought to outdo each in their hawkishness towards the Kremlin. That even included Jussi Halla-aho, the present parliamentary speaker from the populist far-right Finns party, who came third with 19% and narrowly missed out.
On 1 March, either Stubb or Haavisto will succeed Sauli Niinistö, who steps down after serving two six-year terms, his poll ratings sky-high. Niinistö is credited with driving forward Finland’s application for Nato membership. In the early period of his tenure, he prided himself on his close ties with Vladimir Putin, regarding their regular meetings as important in trying to persuade the Russian president to moderate his position.
That is all off the agenda. During recent trips to Estonia and Finland I was struck by the clarity of the message of Russia as an existential threat. Amid open talk among politicians and the media about preparing for war, Finland prides itself on having long had a strong system of military service, as do the other Nordics and the Baltics. Indeed, the idea of reinstating it is increasingly mooted in countries that abolished it in recent times, including Germany.
Yet, as Finland, Estonia and other Nordic and Baltic states acknowledge, the election that really matters will not be held in the region, but in the United States. There is barely concealed trepidation about the encouragement that Putin will take if Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Defence and security officials across Europe are increasingly concerned about Trump’s commitment to article 5 of the Nato treaty, the requirement on all members of the alliance to assist any member state if attacked. There is much speculation about the manner and venue for a provokatsiya, a provocation instigated by Putin to test Trump’s mettle, with attention focused on those parts of the three Baltic states with large ethnic Russian populations.
Once the winter snows melt, Finland is preparing for another bout of troublemaking along the 1,340-kilometre (830-mile) border it shares with Russia. From last summer onwards, large numbers of asylum seekers sought to cross Finland’s eastern border. In November, Finland closed its border with Russia – but so porous is the landmass that more tension is expected this spring and summer. Officials recall the violent scenes on Poland’s border that began in 2021 when the Kremlin-loyal dictatorship in Belarus bussed asylum-seekers to the frontier.
“We are in a situation now where Russia, and especially Vladimir Putin, is using humans as a weapon,” Stubb said during the final televised debate of the presidential campaign. “It’s a migrant issue, it’s a ruthless, cynical measure. And in that case, we must put Finland’s security first.”
The pressing issues for Finns, Estonians and their neighbours will be whether, in a year’s time, the partner on whom they have relied for the past three decades to keep them safe – the United States – will still be there for them. For as long as the spectre of Trump looms, and Ukraine remains imperilled, security concerns will dominate the minds of voters.
John Kampfner is a commentator and broadcaster. He is the author of In Search of Berlin and Why the Germans Do It Better
