Anyway. Urho Kaleva Kekkonen was the eight and longest-serving president of Finland from 1956 to 1982. He was an extremely divisive president. Some claim that he managed to succesfully balance Finland between the Soviet Union and the West, and his contributions to maintaining positive trade relations with the Soviet Union can't be denied. On the other hand, he was a ruthless president who stamped out nearly all opposition and effectively ruled as a dictator during his final terms by forcing the Parliament to pass a bill that gave him another term, in direct violation of the Finnish constitution. He also ruthlessly used his connections with the Soviet Union to discredit his opponents and was the orchestrator of the greatest miscarriage of justice in Finnish history, the war-responsibility trials.
So, what's your opinion on Kekkonen? Was the a good or a bad president?
..and in response to New Chalcedon's post in another thread.
New Chalcedon wrote:And it appears that, as per usual, you are living in a different reality from the rest of the world. Kekkonen (leader of the Centrist Party, not the Communist, Socialist or even Social-Democratic Parties) pursued a policy of neutrality in the Cold War (inherited from his predecessor, President Paasikivi), encouraging trade with both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, which was a key factor in Finland's three decades of sustained economic growth from 1956-1986.
It appears that you're getting your information from Wikipedia.
As I mentioned earlier, Kekkonen despised democracy: he voiced disapproval when someone dared to run against him in presidential elections, and he forced the Parliament to pass a bill that granted him an extra term in office without democratic elections; a direct violation of the Finnish constitution.
Kekkonen only managed to stay in power because of blatantly obvious support from the Soviet Union; when it seemed that Kekkonen would lose the presidential elections, he asked the Soviet Union to send a note to Finland demanding joint military excersises. He then "heroically" negotiated with the Soviet leadership so Finland wouldn't have to participate, thus meaning winning the presidential elections.
Kekkonen was also the orchestrator of greatest miscarriage of justice in Finnish history: the war-responsibility trials in which innocent men were punished simply to satisfy Soviet bloodlust.
Kekkonen destroyed Finnish democracy. By the 1970s, there was no true opposition in Finland. All opposition to Kekkonen was been stamped and destroyed, and Finland remained in a stagnated, "Kekkoslovakian" state until the old bastard finally died in 1982.
New Chalcedon wrote:It appears that, according to the World As Pronounced By Hippostania, anything other than unwavering devotion to the dictates of the United States was "licking the Soviet ass.
I've done quite a bit of research on the Kekkonen-era stagnation, thank you. Finland was by no means "neutral" during the Cold War, we were just a slightly more democratic Eastern Bloc country. Kekkonen was a ruthless dictator who only managed to win his first elections with Soviet support and later by stamping out all opposition.