XXV. The Return of Politics
If God gives one an office, he will give one the wisdom to prosecute it.
- A traditional Finnish saying
Seinäjoki, a middling-sized town in Central Ostrobothnia had been chosen as the Parliament's emergency seat during the run-up to the war. The relocation of the legislative assembly had been started, apparently coincidentally, on the day the Soviet troops invaded Finland. As many other Finnish evacuation plans, it was due to be handled by specially scheduled trains, running non-stop from the capital to Seinäjoki. To avoid undue risks, the different party groups had been divided into several trains. Political precedence had prevailed, and the first group to leave Helsinki was the Social Democratic Party, with the Centre contingent following in the next train. In the event, the first train reached Seinäjoki during the nuclear exchange. The second train was – apparently – somewhere north of Tampere at the time; no further information of its fate is available. The next groups were left to there fate in the doomed capital.
Due to the arrival of the first party group, the governor of the Vaasa province had been in Seinäjoki with a few members of his staff (as well as a military band) to bid them welcome. This was what saved him while Vaasa itself burned. Under his leadership, the provincial government was during the next weeks rebuilt in Seinäjoki, partly utilizing the administrative and military assets available there at the time - due to the parliamentary relocation.
The surviving part of the Parliament was caught in a limbo. Constitutionally it wasn't large enough to form a quorum and in most members' opinion couldn't thus perform its normal functions. There was no information yet on what had happened to cabinet itself - a SDP-led coalition. The politicians in Seinäjoki were not ready form a constitutionally dubious emergency government themselves lest they tread on President Koivisto and Prime Minister Sorsa, both members of their own party.
While the relocated politicians bickered, a decision was made for them further east. Some days before the onset of war, two junior ministers in Sorsa's cabinet had been sent on provincial tours in different parts of the country, mainly it seems for keeping up the national morale. Officially the FNA maintains that sending these men out of the capital was a part of a continuity-of-government scheme but most available records do not support this view. In any case, these two men were the only members of the cabinet outside Helsinki on the day of the exchange.
One of them was Toivo Työläjärvi, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry, who perished in Turku on February 21st together with the local government. The other was Urpo Leppänen, the young Minister of Labour. Sent on a tour of the Central-Eastern part of the country, he had been in Iisalmi and Kuopio during the previous days, and on the 21st he was due to give a speech in Mikkeli, despite the fact that Finland and the USSR were now at war. And Mikkeli was where Leppänen ended up at the time of the nuclear alert, hurried with a small entourage of staff and officials to the provincial leadership's shelter below the Naisvuori hill.
His position here was ambivalent. Outside the capital and without his own ministry's bureaucratic staff he at first seemed to be out of his depth to take part in the reconstruction of command and control. But as days passed and still after three weeks no word was heard from the President or the cabinet, presumably in a Helsinki shelter, the situation started to change. While the civilian government in the provinces was slowly being restored and the military chains of command being reorganised to again allow coordination above the district level, the highest rung of national authority was notably vacant. The situation was untenable, and allowing it to continue was deemed unacceptable by those present in Mikkeli.
In private discussions between Minister Leppänen, Governor Voutilainen and the senior bureaucrats and politicians in Mikkeli, a decision was finally reached that Leppänen should assume, at least temporarily, the authority of the Government of the Republic. Therefore in March-April, the former Minister of Labour become the acting President in all but name, de facto using the constitutional powers of the head of state. His emergency cabinet was to include several local politicians and evacuated industry and business leaders as well as a few members of his own staff present, across pre-war party lines. Governor Voutilainen would be in charge of Interior,, the senior general in eastern Finland was saddled with Defence and Leppänen's senior aide with Labour and Social Services.
The rump parliament in Seinäjoki received word of the formation of the emergency cabinet via radio broadcast on March 15th. After initial indignation for being bypassed in the decision, the SDP politicians grudgingly accepted that if Leppänen really was the lone surviving member of the cabinet, his assuming power was theoretically within the constitutional rules of succession and in any case the parliament within its current composition was not in a position to turn this reorganised cabinet down with a vote of no confidence...
Fragment 57.
02.12.2010.
ABB
[This fragment was received from a widow of a former soldier. It was part of an unpublished memoir found among the personal items of the recently deceased veteran.]
We were on patrol along the perimeter. Rubber boots stomping the grey snow and mud. Footprints among footprints, too many to distinguish from each other. Abandoned vehicles, scattered thrash. That fool Nieminen pointing his rifle around, as if the cars were occupied by Ivan. No Ivan here, no sir.
Arrived to the main gate, finally. I was getting cold and hungry. There was less snow here along the highway as the route was used regularly. The main gate, as it was called, was formed out of big trucks parked across the highway, surrounded by sandbags. There was a machine gun position manned by MP:s and a couple of multi-purpose, convertible containers made into a guard post. The war flag snapping lazily on the flagpole. There was a short line of sorry-looking vehicles waiting to be processed, with MP:s and Civil Defence personnel in protective gear working around them.
After knocking on the guard post's door and making a report to the First Sergeant we trudged along to the canteen to get our daily soup. I knew it wouldn't be much, but it still was food. We were down to confiscating food in abandoned shops and warehouses in the surrounding areas now, but so far our CO and the company quartermaster had managed to keep us in provisions. It took a lot of manpower and resources though, without a working general supply organisation.
I had just managed spoon up my bowl of the lean vegetable soup when there was some commotion outside. We grabbed our guns and got out fast. The ruckus was taking place at the main gate. It seemed that two largish vehicles had arrived from the south and had been stopped as the drivers tried to pass the line without stopping.
A man in a military overcoat got out from the first vehicle, a matte-green Range Rover, and approached the waiting MP, a Corporal. The man was youngish but looked like shit. Radiation. We all knew the look well enough. I guess this group wouldn't be moving anywhere, then.
I though first that the man was from the Armored Brigade, from the black coat, but then I made the Navy tabs. A Navy officer. Damn, I though. Not many of those alive around here, or anywhere in the South, East or North right now. Of the West I would know nothing about. The officer got into an argument with the MP:s, and while my buddies went to back them up, I went to fetch the Lieutenant. I had the feeling the irradiated officer would want to see a ranking officer, anyway.
I wasn't wrong. When I arrived with the disgruntled Lieutenant, the new arrival turned to him immediately.
”- Lieutenant, I expect that you allow our vehicles through immediately. We have no time for this hassle!”
He was very pale and sweating even despite the cold, and after speaking he got a coughing fit. The Lieutenant looked him and exchanged words with the MP corporal. Looked at the newcomer's rank tabs.
” - Commander, this here is a transit camp. Camp Number 7. We are filtering the traffic going north, direct orders from the military district commander, and I am sorry to say that it doesn't look like we can allow you to pass.”
The Navy officer looked at the Lieutenant, looking confused but defiant.
” - A transit camp? What the fuck do you mean? We can't stop here, Lieutenant. We've been through Hell to get here, all the way from the capital. We need to get to Mikkeli, if the provincial government is really working like they are saying.”
He started coughing again. There was blood on his filthy handkerchief. Behind him a bunch of soldiers and a few civilians were climbing down from the stopped vehicles, seemingly surprised about being stopped. They didn't look any better than the Commander. Two of the men approached us.
” - Lieutenant, I don't believe you understand what is at stake here. I have with me what is left of the Government of the Republic. I am taking the... the Acting President to Mikkeli with me if it is the last thing I do.”
He looked disgusted, and it seemed like it wasn't just because of his radiation sickness.
The Lieutenant was frozen to place, looking slack-jawed at the two men that were now just meters away. The shorter one of them especially. It took me a while before I understood his reaction, and when it struck me I must have looked the same.
The apparition came closer. He looked sickly pale and had already lost a big part of his hair. But he was smiling, or grimacing, really, and there was a sort of feverish fire burning in his eyes. He held out his hand to the Lieutenant who shook it, after a brief hesitation.
” - Lieutenant”, said the man, ”I know as well as you that you wouldn't want to hold up a Presidential convoy any longer than is absolutely necessary. We have a lot of things to do, to contact our Soviet counterparts to end a war and whatnot, and I am sorry to say that we will have to decline the opportunity to take a tour of your camp here. I am sure you are running a tight ship, as it were. Excellent work, Lieutenant, I must commend you, but we must be going as soon as possible.”
With that the ghostly man in a tattered suit and an immaculate tie turned back to the car, beckoning the Navy officer to follow him. The long-suffering Commander looked to the Lieutenant sullenly, appearing at the same time sick, tired and determined. The Lieutenant nodded slowly, still dazed.
”- All right, Commander. You can move on. Wait a second and I'll write up a permit. I'll also send a jeep and a few men to escort you the rest of the way. This way, please.”
And then the two officers left for the guard post. Me and the guys from my squad were too dumbstruck to move, opting to just stand there for the moment. I thought it was as good a time as any to smoke my last cigarette.
We were there still when the small convoy moved on past us, the exit to the quarantined areas, the abandoned cars, the snow-covered tents and the field hospital. Saw the suit salute us as the cars rolled by.
”- Guys”, I said, ”I believe that there was our President of the Republic. I am sorry to say.”
I would have just mulled about the incident for the rest of the night, if the First Sergeant hadn't come around right then and ordered us to oversee some grave-digging.
So off we went, passing the tents reeking of smoke and death. It would be a long night, again.
