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Finlandization?

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Balthagor said:
It's certainly not "from Vic2", we develop our own engine.

Please explain Finlandization. (or I'll just Google it after breakfast...)
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Essentially, in the cold war Finland remained a capitalist democracy but was very much in the Soviet SoI (it had a quasi-defence pact with them among other things). At the early stages of the cold war some westerners were worried that a neutral West Germany could become similar.

It was once described as 'Bowing to the East without mooning the West', which is a pretty good way of seeing it IMO.
 
Finland was constantly politically balancing between the West and East for the duration of the cold war, relations were generally good with both sides, but only if certain conditions desired by these sides (mainly the USSR) remained, which is, western democracy, and the desire by the USSR that Finland keeps the Soviet-friendly (yet centrist ideologically) Urho Kekkonen as president, or an equivalent. The Soviet Union kept a close eye on Finland to try and ensure the Finnish distance from the west remained at a certain degree, and that the very special and highly beneficial (for the USSR as well) trade relationship would remain, this trade relationship was one of few reliable sources for the entire East Bloc of various quality prouducts that were in shortage due to the planned economy, while for Finland it was a safe source of cheap raw materials and cheap goods overall that cannot be produced in Finland, not to mention it made Finland much less dependent on market fluctuations or the economic situation in the Capitalist parts of the world, as the trade with the East was an exchange of goods instead of currency. Despite the tense situation for Finnish independence, Finland continued to pay very limited attention to the conditions and limitation imposed against it after the Paris peace treaty, apart from the war reparations, with no punitive action by the USSR in response, in fact the USSR aided Finland in militarizing beyond the limits of the Paris peace treaty, and Finland did not hesitate to unilaterally cancel the conditions of the peace treaty, with exception of the ban against Nuclear Weapons, after the fall of the Soviet Union, and purchase significant amounts of German military equipment.
 
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In the game engine, a region can be in the Red sphere, Blue sphere or neutral. If a neutral region trades a lot with blue nations it will drift blue. If it signs agreements with red nations it will drift red. Do both and you should be able to hold a neutral stance. That seems to be a close representation of what you've described here.

There may also be some Finland specific scripted events, I'm not sure, not an area I'm working on.
 
Some suggestions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCMA_treaty

And (my own translation of http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_under_efterkrigstiden#Nattfrostkrisen ):

Night Frost Crisis: After the parliamentary elections of 1958, where the Conservatives and the Democratic League for the People of Finland (Communist Party) made progress, the Conservatives and Social Democrats under Väinö Tanner, Swedish People's (Swedish speaking Liberals) Party and the Finnish People's Party (Finnish-speaking Liberals) mutually agreed on a government program. Kekkonen was very skeptical to the Coalition considering the the relation to the Soviet Union, but in the lack of a realistic option, K.A Fagerholm was allowed to form the government in the 29th of August 1958 with this composition. The Soviet reaction to the new government came with no delay, the Soviet ambassador Viktor Lebedev was withdrawn and the negotiations of a renewed trade agreement was cancelled. According to the Soviet side the Coalition could not be regarded as supportive to the way Kekkonen managed the Eastern relation, and considered Fagerholm a threat to Kekkonen's chances to win the Presidential elections of 1962. Kekkonen was told by the Soviet Embassy that Moscow may eventually suggest military consultations in line with the Friendship and Mutual Agreement Treaty of 1948 (my note: activating the military alliance, thus destroying Finnish relations with the west). Initially this made the Agrarian League (Center) leave the government and later on caused the entire government to resign in December 1958.

As Kekkonen as a consequence of this course of events visited Leningrad, Kruschev held a speech where he declared that a Finnish government that respected Soviet interests was not sufficient, but was only to have governments composed of parties that genuinely supported such a policy.

However Kekkonen's cautiousness was to be rewarded by Moscow. When the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) was founded in the spring of 1959, many feared that Finnish export products would be unable to compete due to high tariffs without a membership in the Agreement. Kekkonen guaranteed the USSR that a membership in EFTA would not strain relations with the USSR, and in September 1960, Moscow permitted Finland to become an associate member of the EFTA.

And

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_Crisis


Obviously there are more than this though.
 
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Yea,

Finland spent the cold war decades firmly in the soviet sphere of influence.

The beginning is intresting. The brits made some geopolitical analysis (some time around 1944 - 1946), where they thought that they can't help Finland. The US adopted this policy in 1947. Finland was left in the soviet sphere.

Finland never became a communist country. The communists first got some ministers in the government in 1945. Soviet support to the finnish communists was rather mild. The americans supported the social democrats, because they opposed communists. They got candy and cigarets from the americans in the forties ;) The rumoured revolution never came...

Finlandization is a state somewhere between neutral and allied. Finland was officially a neutral country, but heavily influenced by the soviet union.

Kekkonen admitted finlandization. He explained it was wisdom.

In Germany becoming "finlandized" was seen as a potential threat in the 1970ies. The polish dictator Jaruzelski once said in an interview, that he wished that polish-soviet relations could have been arranged in the same way as finnish-soviet relation. But for Poland the Soviet union never gave the same option as for Finland? (Why? We like to think it was because the Soviet union wasn't able to occupy Finland in 1944).

A country on a sphere of influece in Vicky II trades with its master (only? I'm not quite sure). Finland slowly built trade with the west also. Finland had a strange position. A free market economy trading with the Soviet union with a special arrangement called bilateral trade, at the same time building up foreign trade with other capitalist countries.

Finnish neutrality was both admitted and challenged by the Soviet union many times during the cold war.
 
Balthagor said:
In the game engine, a region can be in the Red sphere, Blue sphere or neutral. If a neutral region trades a lot with blue nations it will drift blue. If it signs agreements with red nations it will drift red. Do both and you should be able to hold a neutral stance. That seems to be a close representation of what you've described here.

There may also be some Finland specific scripted events, I'm not sure, not an area I'm working on.
Click to expand...

What if you trade a lot with the Red sphere, then?
 
Balthagor said:
Then Finland would drift red. However you'll find better trades with members of your own sphere. Though sometimes you'll pay the extra trying to affect their sphere.
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Does "drifting red" always mean a change in government type ? (i.e Finland becoming a communist dictatorship). If not (so if Finland remains a democracy while also being "red"), then it looks like you guys have a very adequate representation of Finlandization:)
 
Finland was kinda in the middle of West and East. I.e Finland procured weapons 'equally' from both East and West. Finland's economy was also not completely 'capitalist', the government had monopolies(still have some, like alcohol, gambling) and had elements of a social economy, but still a 'free' market(except agriculture, farmers where not/aren't allowed to sell their goods above a certain price). Finland had/have also different kinds of social benefits like free healthcare and other socialistic befits, Finlands largest trading partner was Soviet Union and the fall of SU hit the Finnish economy hard. Politically, Finland was balanced between East and West. Finland did also deploy some censorship of media that could hurt Finno-Soviet relations.

There is also something called "winter war syndrome"(not a official term), in finnish "Talvisota sundrooma" and in swedish "Vinterkrigs syndromet". The Winter war syndrome can still today bee seen, as many politican, citizens, people in finland have a hatred/dislike against Russians and Russia, plus predjudes. the maybe most common trait is that everyone automatically assumes Russia is going to be the enemy and if an war is going to be fought in the future it is automatically Russia. One other trait is that the word "Ryssä"(slang for Russian) is negativally loaded. This "syndrome" can be traced back to the winter war, and was much censored and not spoken out loud, and there was a slight hostility among the population against Russia and a feeling of being back-stabbed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paasikivi–Kekkonen_line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finlandization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_in_the_Finnish_Air_Force (Look at the 60' and 70', Finland was using both Migs(Mig-21) and Saabs(eg. J-35).

EDIT this might help http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Finland_–_Soviet_Union_relations
 
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