The Land of Sad Songs – Stories From Protect and Survive Finland

Welcome to yet another spin-off to Macragge1's amazing timeline, Protect and Survive.

My intention in this TL is to detail the international crisis of 1983-84, the nuclear war of 1984 and the following events as I imagine they might have affected my home nation of Finland. I have chosen an (for me) experimental format, so please do comment and offer your thoughs on the text and the events.

The TL's title is not merely for effect. I intend to use Finnish music and bits of lyrics as part of the story. Many of these will be classic songs from the late 70s and early 80s, ones I could imagine
the people in the TL would have listened in their everyday lives. But some will be from the 90s and 00s, added because I feel they suit the feel and events of the TL. All translations (such as they are) of the lyrics are by yours truly.

Here is a song from 1994. It is not contemporary with the TLs events, but I think it captures what I intend this TL to be in both its general feel and the story perfectly.


CMX - Talvipäivänseisaus


snow in every direction
no road anywhere
I am returning
to where I started
a silver moon shines
lights the cold skies
I am looking for the way
trying to estimate the distance

(chorus)
did I finally begin my journey
towards that fabled North
which is always far away
which you won't meet on the road

this year the crops are failing
the cattle bears no offspring
children freeze in wombs
and the love for life dies
on the riverbank, its eastern side
I will suffocate to my cough
embracing the cold for warmth

now past the steps and the well
through the park and if there's frost
past the observatory
and through the woods over the hill
to the springs
where the water is running black

there lies a pale boy
from whose mouth a child's life
pours to the water

(chorus)
did I finally begin my journey
towards that fabled North
which is always far away
which you wont meet on the road


Consider this an introduction to


sadsongslogo3.png



The Land of Sad Songs – Stories From Protect and Survive Finland


The story begins in the next post. I hope you enjoy the timeline.

-DF-

(filler)
 
Last edited:
Editor's note: The following material has been collected and created as a part of the Minne 1984 project, conducted under the auspices of Swedish Royal Academy of Letters and funded by the Government of Sweden.

The project was started after fears were raised among the KVHAA and the general community of historians that due to the conditions within the Provisional Province of Ostrobothnia and the Finnish National Authority (from hereon PPO and FNA) , there was a grave danger of altogether losing the historical sources, eyewitness information and war-time recollections still extant in these areas. After a series of discussions within the KVHAA and the government, as well as between several universities, a plan was agreed on to collect appropriate sources and information, to interview local people and to generally gain a more complete understanding of the events that took place in Finland during the winter of 1983-1984 and the following years.

Altogether more than thirty volunteer researchers were sent to the PPO and the FNA, accompanied by Swedish security personnel between the years 2007-2012. A preliminary report of the results was submitted to the KVHAA and the government in 2014. While parts of the report have been declared secret under the Security of the Realm Act, the public results of the project will be published in their entirety during early 2015.

In the meanwhile, anyone interested in the project and the wartime conditions in Finland is welcome to peruse this preliminary collection of interviews, recollections and sources. Also some public parts of the project's report have been included, with the approval of its several authors.

In Uppsala on Remembrance Day 2014,

Jan Holmén

Project Secretary
Researcher in Nordic History, Uppsala University

....


koivisto.jpg


President Mauno Koivisto prepares for his New Year's Speech on January 1st, 1984. FNA archives.

...

Even if things look bad now, they will be even worse in the future.

Attributed to President Mauno Koivisto, early 1980s.



I. Diplomatic Manouvres in the Dark

During the latter part of 1983 the escalating crisis between the main Cold War players was also reflected to the political conditions in the Nordic area. In Finland, President Koivisto and Prime Minister Sorsa's wide-based coalition government were walking a tightrope of maintaining a facáde of Nordic-model neutrality and at the same time appeasing a Soviet government bent on upholding the contractual obligations bestowed on Finland in the 1948 Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance.

The international consensus at the time was that if a war broke out between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the Agreement would give Finland no other option than to be joined to the defensive apparatus of the Eastern bloc, never mind the Finnish government's protests of neutrality. This is why in western war plans Finland was usually written off in advance as the nation was expected to be taken over in short order by the Red Army. To counter this, the US war plans had since the 1960s included a number of nuclear targets in Finland, to be obliterated to deny the Warsaw Pact the opportunity to use the Finnish soil as a springboard for operations against Norway and Sweden.

As soon as the international situation started to deteriorate towards war, the Soviet government begun to push the Finns to take steps that would integrate Finnish national defense with that of the Rodina. In Soviet planning, Finland was a part of the defensive ring around the greater Leningrad area, whether willingly or through the application of military force. Already in the late summer of 1983 the Finnish government received news through the Soviet ambassador, Vladimir Sobolev, that Moscow wanted to conduct military exercises with Finnish forces ”in the immediate future”. This was just a precursor of things to come. In early November with nary a few days' warning, a surprise delegation arrived in Helsinki, led by Marshal Dmitri Ustinov and including, amongs others, the second-in-command of the Soviet forces in the Leningrad Military District.


...News at 8.30. President Koivisto's planned state visit to the United States of America has been cancelled. A spokesman for the President's Office said that the decision was made due to security concerns...


Koivisto and Sorsa were duly alarmed, especially as the latter had just returned from Stockholm where he had talked in length with that fellow Social Democrat, Olof Palme, about the need to maintain ”real neutrality” as long as possible during the crisis. The two had released a joint statement proposing an international conference in to be held Stockholm to act as a venue for dialogue to defuse the situation. With hindsight, their October discussions show a surprisingly naive belief (or perhaps a desperate hope) that a war is still to be averted and that Nordic nations could act as doctors to cure the great powers from their near-terminal brinkmanship...


...has dispersed a large pro-Soviet ”peace” demonstration in central Helsinki, sparked by the events in East Berlin. At least fifty demonstrators have been arrested. After several popular protests in the capital during the last weeks, the Helsinki police commissioner promised yesterday to step up efforts to maintain order in the capital region. The Soviet Embassy has condemned the actions of the police, saying that the Finnish government ”has taken an anti-Soviet political stand by interfering with the recent protests”...


The ad hoc Finno-Soviet negotiations that ensued in November-December were tense and despite the Soviets' constant pressure on the Finnish side, Koivisto and the commander of the Defence Forces, General Lauri Sutela, managed to rebuff most of the Soviet demands about deepening military co-operation or allowing the Red Army or the Soviet air or naval assets to use bases in Finland. A ”Finno-Soviet Bilateral Defense Commission” was however created, to include high political and military figures from both sides (as well as a permanent staff), to ”facilitate concrete cooperation based on the FCMA Treaty” as the Soviet side officially phrased the matter. Unofficially, on the Finnish side it soon became known as the Control Commission, as a reference to the group of Soviet military figures who lorded over Helsinki in 1944-1947. To those in the know the Soviet members of the commission (as well as those Finns deemed politically suspect) were likened to champignon mushrooms, according to the old adage to be ”kept constantly in the dark and fed shit regularly”...

The Finnish mobilization was begun during these talks, partly as a way to alleviate Soviet fears of Finland being unprepared for possible NATO incursions in the Baltic Sea area. It was decided by the government before the Soviets demanded such a move, as a way of showing initiative and independent thought to both Moscow and the Western governments. The last thing Koivisto wanted was to act only as a reaction to Soviet demands, in any circumstances. This is also why in the media he vehemently professed Finnish neutrality even as it was agreed that the Soviets start emergency deliveries of military materiel and oil to Finland by January, as a way of propping up Finnish defensive capabilities. The first shipment of new AA missiles crossed the border in already on the last week of December.


...in parliament today. Sorsa's coalition cabinet defeated SKDL's vote of no confidence by a margin of 152-28. The heated discussion continued well into the night, as...


By January 1984 the Finno-Soviet Defence Commission had become an arena of Finnish politico-diplomatic delaying action against any and all Soviet demands. The action on the Finnish side was led by General Sutela, who had been due to retire just before the crisis broke out but had agreed to extend his commission at the top of the Defence Forces as a personal favour to the president. As the weeks progressed, the Soviets became more vocal, and as it seemed, desperate in their demands. The main points crystallised as allowing the Soviet forces, both the army and the air force, the right to use Finnish Lapland and any military facilities there ”for the defence of the USSR” and placing the Finnish radar network to Soviet use for early warning purposes. As the Soviets grew more assertive, the Finnish side in turn waxed more eloquent and byzantine in its rebuffals, while at the same time allowing very minor concessions in an attempt to keep the opponent pacified as long as possible.


of discussions within the framework of the Finno-Soviet Bilateral Defence Commission at the Palace of the Council of State. Sorsa and Vladimirov discussed various issues...


The key question as regards to the wording of the FCMA Treaty was whether Finland was under a threat of attack ”by Germany or a nation allied with it”. This caused the Finnish government to officially keep up the increasingly unrealistic charade of everything being all fine and dandy in the Nordic area. ”A threat of war? What war?”, would the Finnish negotiatiors ask with honest faces while covering up violations of the Finnish airspace in the north by Western aircraft – openly conceding they had been happening since late November would have massively undermined the Finnish position.


Minister Paavo Väyrynen meets his Norwegian counterpart, Mr. Svenn Stray in Oslo today to to discuss unspecified questions of mutual interest. Väyrynen will continue his Nordic tour in two days. He is scheduled the meet the Swedish Foreign Minister, Lennart Bodström, on Wednesday...


The Finnish military was never going to defend Leningrad against a Western attack, of course. Since the immediate post-war years, the huge majority of Finnish defensive plans and exercises had predicated on the attack coming from the east. The Finnish military had extensive contacts with Sweden and Western intelligence assets. With the western neighbour, Finland co-operated in secret especially in matters relating to the navy and the air force. Plans were in place for a joint naval defense of the Åland islands and the surrounding area. The Swedish Air Force stockpiled fighters for the Finns, in numbers that went over and above the figure the FAF was allowed to operate according to post-war treaties. Intelligence channels were open, especially towards Sweden. Any troops the Finns mobilized would be most likely arrayed along the eastern border – and a high amount of maskirovka was taking place to hide this fact from the Soviets.


of logging has been started in South Karelia. The joint large-scale project by Enso-Gutzeit, Kymi-Kymmene and Imatran Voima will address the current problems of delivering wood both to pulp mills and power stations in the southern part of the country. The State Railways and the Defence Forces will cooperate in the project...


In retrospect, it is clear that given the situation the world found itself in during the first weeks of 1984, the Finno-Soviet situation was also going to come to a head and in short order. The Finnish government could string the Soviets along for only so long; it is surprising that this took as long as it did. In the event, Finland was among the last European nations along the Iron Curtain to be dragged along to the Third World War. When the Soviets finally called Helsinki's bluff, it was too late to...

(filler)
 
Last edited:

John Farson

Banned
I would have been eight months old in Helsinki when everything hit the fan, so I'm not too confident of my own survival here, especially if the city is nuked. Unless my family fled to my grandmother's place in Karttula.

Still, interesting thread. Do carry on.;)
 
I would have been eight months old in Helsinki when everything hit the fan, so I'm not too confident of my own survival here, especially if the city is nuked. Unless my family fled to my grandmother's place in Karttula.

Still, interesting thread. Do carry on.;)

Karttula, really? I'm from Kuopio's western countryside, 20 km from Karttula.

There is a high chance that were related.;)
 

John Farson

Banned
Karttula, really? I'm from Kuopio's western countryside, 20 km from Karttula.

There is a high chance that were related.;)

Hey, in the countryside, everyone's related.

Banjo_Boy_Biography.jpg
:p:eek:

How good a place would the area be to weather a nuclear war? There's certainly plenty of lakes and fish around, plenty of wood for burning, some amount of agriculture, no potential nuclear targets nearby that I know of.
 
How good a place would the area be to weather a nuclear war? There's certainly plenty of lakes and fish around, plenty of wood for burning, some amount of agriculture, no potential nuclear targets nearby that I know of.


Follow this space and you might just see. Seriously, after this I have to place some events in Karttula.

(filler)
 
Welcome to the P&S team!

Though "Protect and Survive Six" doesn't have quite the ring... :D

Great work look forward to seeing more!
 
I am really happy to see a P&Sverse story set in a "neutral" country of Europe and I really liked this first installment. Subscribed.
 
If in Harrisburg, they had to close the windows
In Finland you'll never have any worries
Harrisburg is on another planet
It can't happen
Under the birch and the star

Can there be perfection, in any form?
Sure there can, in Olkiluoto
Nobody's as wise as an engineer
They're perfect
Every pipe and sprocket


(chorus)

Uranium breaks up
And produces light in the bulb
But no other country
Than Finland does it without risk
...

Eppu Normaali, Suomi-ilmiö (1980)




II. The National Interest



Fragment 6.
Logged 02.04.2007
JBH

[This fragment is in the form of a diary, in handwritten sheets stapled together. It was found a few years after the war near Tampere by a FNA recon and recov team.[1] The author is unknown, but the are some clues to suggest he is a civil engineer.]


Friday, December 2nd Another council meeting today. A lot of brouhaha about the additional budget. The Soc Dems are pushing hard for new bomb shelters and more money to the hospitals, just in case. They even had an army guy in today to talk about the revised emergency procedures and requirements. I guess the budget will pass, now that the state has promised more funds. The music festival for next summer will be cancelled, though, as well as the marathon. I don't like that a bit. That God-damned SKDL[2] lady railed again against ”the American imperialists” at length until the chair made her stop. God I hate her.


Monday, December 5th Got word today that the Iraqi project is getting mothballed, indefinitely. They're bringing our guys out of Kostamus[3], too. No surprise there... Not running out of work, though. Lindström said the govt has a load of projects they would like to get underway, by yesterday preferably. Some of them are pretty hush hush.

Talked with Virtanen at lunch. He seemed sort of under the weather, coming down with a cold? There's something like that about I hear.

Just opened the third can of beer. Getting ready for the party...


Tuesday, December 6th Slept in today. Got pretty plastered, I admit. Got into an argument with Lindström about... something to do with the military. I almost punched him, thank God for Mäki for defusing it. We were back to singing the March of the Pori Brigade in no time. The punch was pretty good.

Virtanen said they are thinking of moving to Sweden, to stay with his brother there. He really is a wreck. Tried to talk him out of it, can't remember how it ended.

Made out with Anne, that cute blonde from accounting. But lost her somewhere in the bar. Sang some karaoke. Drank schnapps with Mäki and his hockey buddies. Took a taxi home. I think.

I'd really hate to be in the parade in Hamina right now. It's something like -20 C, they look miserable. It's even too cold for the band to play...


Saturday, December 10th Went out with Anne today. We saw an American film about computers and a nuclear war, could have chosen better. Went to a restaurant afterwards, she seemed to like my jokes. It was nice, except that they kept playing that same Queen song all night. When we got out, a damned conscript almost run us over with a UAZ, an officer got up from the jeep to apologize. I hope he gave the kid a good talking-to. What the Devil were they doing in the center of town that late, anyway?


Wednesday, December 14th We're swamped with the govt projects, planning five different installations all at once. Funny how everything's ”Top Secret” or ”in the national interest” all of the sudden. They've hired some new guys, fresh out of Otaniemi[4], and we'll have to break them in while doing all this other stuff. It is NOT helping Virtanen hasn't turned up all week, what the fuck's up with him? Had to cancel plans with Anne tonight.


Friday, December 16th Got the bloody letter today. Have to report at Rissala by New Year. Lindström said he could convince the powers that be I am needed here but that he won't do it. The fucker. To hell with him. Air Force, here I come.



Notes

[1] So called. In reality, these ”teams” are [REDACTED].
[2] A Finnish leftist party, in 1983 in parliament as well as the governing coalition.
[3] Refers to the Finno-Soviet project of building a mining combine in Kostamus, Soviet Karelia.
[4] The pre-war Helsinki University of Technology campus, shorthand for the HUT.
 
Last edited:
Suscribed as well!

I think that someone mentionned on the main P&S thread that Finland has huge stockpiles of fuel and raw materials for civil defense purposes. This might come in very handy to rebuild the country later on.
 
Welcome to the P&S team!

Though "Protect and Survive Six" doesn't have quite the ring... :D

Great work look forward to seeing more!


Thank you, kind sir.

A new update is coming any hour now!


Falkenburg said:
I'm in. :D

Anachronistic, I know, but (given the context) this seems apt (to me at any rate).

Falkenburg

I haven't listened to SMG that much, but I promise there will be a few songs by Ultra Bra, the same crew's previous band.
 
Follow this space and you might just see. Seriously, after this I have to place some events in Karttula.

Good to see this, and add yet another someone whose grandmother's cottage was in Karttula in 1984. It's Savo conspiracy in this forum, I'd guess :)
 
...

The pretty candles on the tree flicker quietly

From the face of Baby Jesus a pale light shines

And the guns rain death, smell the napalm, clearly

In the name of the Child, the Major gives orders

It's Christmas night, now you can sing


(chorus)

It's Christmas night and glory be

To the Lord and Mother Earth

It's Christmas night and glory be

To Our Saviour
...


Hassisen Kone: On jouluyö, nyt laulaa saa (1981)





Helsinki from the South Harbour in December 1983. FNA archives.




III. Last Christmas

By late November 1983, the mounting international tension had already prompted the Finnish authorities to begin introducing measures that amounted to transition to war conditions. On the 24th the parliament approved a new Readiness Law allowing extraordinary powers to the cabinet, revising a similar piece of legislation dating to 1970. One of the first acts of the cabinet thus empowered was to increase ”extraordinary refresher exercises”, at first for recently trained conscripts. In effect this meant the beginning of a creeping mobilization that would see its height by early February. Many a young man arrived home from studies or work in December to find that dreaded brown envelope bearing the lion-and-tower insignia of the Defence Forces, summoning him to the appropriate military garrison within two weeks.


"...the Ministry of Labour guidelines for work duty requirements for the adult population not in armed service or engaged in strategically important duties. The implementation will be handled jointly by municipal labour offices and local Military Province authorities, said Minister Leppänen in the press conference. He also wanted to urge the people, quote, to work diligently to get the nation through these demanding times and to help family, friends and neighbours as well as those in need..."


By the last week of 1983, military trucks, freshly painted matte-green buses and APCs bearing the blue-white roundel were becoming a commonplace on the nation's highways. The civilian use of long stretches of road was prohibited as the Air Force started building its auxiliary road bases in several locations in the countryside, usually during the long dark hours of the sub-Arctic winter. The creation of a defensive ring around the capital was begun by the Uusimaa and Guard Jaegers, even as military engineers prepared positions for Soviet-made SA-3 missiles and AA guns of different calibres.

It seemed as if the national Independence Day parade of December 6th had been extended into a nationwide theme month, though with its usual pomp and circumstance replaced with a fear-grey seriousness one could read from the sullen faces of the young conscripts. The Christmas of 1983 was thus a muted affair, spiced with the government's at first awkward patriotic messages adorning buildings and the radio waves, vaguely but surely reminescent of the early 40s. ”Leave No Comrade Behind”, a national concert of veteran choirs was held in the Fair Centre in Helsinki and televised in prime time on TV1. The Lutheran Church recorded best attendance for Christmas-time services in years, seemingly bucking the recent trend towards secularization. Christmas hams were hoarded. Boys and girls around the nation were delighted to see their Christmas holidays extended indefinitely as many schools were taken over by the military to house its growing ranks. The top hit on the Finnish singles chart was child sensation Jonna's oddly serious song of young love, Minttu sekä Ville. Gradually, sleeplessness started to become a national pastime, and not just among the veterans of the last time around.


...said President Koivisto in his New Year's Speech. Koivisto referred to the wording of the FCMA Treaty, saying that Soviet units would only be allowed on Finnish soil based on a Finnish plea for help. He said that while the Finnish government understands that the Soviet Union has valid security interests in Fennoscandia, at the present asking for such help would not be in the national interest of the Republic of Finland and would only serve to increase tensions in the area. Furthermore, Koivisto stressed that the Finnish Defence Forces are ready to defend the nation against foreign aggression, pointing out that the current international instability has already prompted the nation to enhance its defensive capabilities... As to Western critizism levelled against the changes in the Finnish military posture Koivisto commented that that the Finnish forces are as always on a purely defensive footing and are not a threat to any of Finland's neighbours..."


The national economy was being harnessed for the potential war effort. With determination bordering on excessive, the state took control of both import and export, setting up new rules and taking over some companies ”for the duration”, amalgamating them with existing state enterprises. Stockpiling was increased and measures put into place to curtail private consumption. Transition to a full rationing regime was projected initially to mid-February. This proved too optimistic. While Finnish stockpiles of consumables, fuels and other critical materials were at pre-planned levels, the escalation of the crisis during the coldest part of the winter and the worst ice conditions made the government especially wary. This was the part of the year Finnish trade with the rest of the world was already at its most vulnerable: it would not take much to cut trade links to the outside of the northern Baltic altogether.


"..., the import of strategic materials. Likewise, the Ministry of Defence has been empowered to begin the mandatory acquisition of equipment, machinery and vehicles for national defence requirements. The civilian population is urged to remain calm and to comply with the authorities. All private property requisitioned by government agencies will be returned or reimbursed as soon as the international situation..."


Finland approached Sweden in early January to suggest new measures for safeguarding merchant shipping on the central Baltic and the Archipelago Sea. The Swedish government had already come to similar conclusions, and a week an agreement was reached to organise freighters and passenger ships travelling through Swedish waters to Finland into convoys protected by armed vessels while within the territorial waters of both nations, as well as international waters between them.

As the heaviest ice conditions were expected still to come, more or less the total normal inventory of the Finnish Navy would be docked well into March. As the only available option, Finnish icebreakers were docked briefly to arm them with naval guns and shoulder-fired Strela-3 AA missiles. Even stripping the main 120 mm Bofors guns from the now-docked Turunmaa-class gunboats for putting them on the biggest icebreakers was considered but abandoned as counterproductive. In Sweden, there was no need for such measures: the Swedish icebreakers were already armed, as they were operated by the military even before the international crisis. On the Finnish south coast, an emphasis was placed on arming the new Helsinki-class missile boats, under construction, with their still-missing main armament, to be used for the meantime as stationary batteries together with the coastal artillery and missile units. Defensive mining of sea approaches was planned to be started as soon as...

(filler)
1aK+F4PJ7cBm32CUNiyI2GAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC
 
Last edited:
...By the last week of 1983, military trucks, freshly painted matte-green buses and APCs bearing the blue-white roundel were becoming a commonplace on the nation's highways.

I'd presume that with APC's you mean these :D:

traktorit-volvo-bm-957045_b_6c076e1321555106.jpg


I'm interested to read how Finland gets whacked, as implied by original P&S -series and the prologue of your TL. Condition of Finnish Cold War military creates rather good precondition on Finland getting militarily curbstomped, but on the other hand Finnish civil defense preparations, combined with the fact that nuclear exchange is happening during middle of winter, are both bonus for the Finns.

On the other hand, sturdier defense than expected might just result in more tactical and operational level nuclear strikes.
 
Top