Compulsory Labor

Last week President Juho K. Paasikivi named his negotiators for the Russian pact. Four were proCommunists, but three had said that they opposed a military alliance with Russia. To those delegates reluctant to make the humiliating Kremlin visit, Paasikivi said: "There is no question of whether you have any desire to do this or that. This is compulsory labor."

Key man in the delegation was Communist Minister of Interior Yrjoe Leino. His wife, lively 44-year-old Hertta Kuusinen (sometimes called Finland's Ana Pauker), is the daughter of Russian stooge Otto Kuusinen, President of the Karelo-Finnish Republic which Russia grabbed from Finland in World War II.

As the negotiators got ready to hear what concession Stalin proposed to extract from the Finns (one guess: bases in Finland), the local Communists grew bolder. Communist "working committees" visited Helsinki newspapers, warned them to stop "anti-Soviet propaganda." Said one editor: "The next move will be an invasion of newspaper offices by hired gangsters and the eviction of our staffs."

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