[World Now] Finland to demolish last bust of Lenin, speeding up in favor of the West

‘Findirisation’

It is a term that refers to a passive foreign policy where a weak country looks in the eyes of a powerful country.

This is a term that derives from the foreign policy that Finland took during the Cold War in order not to offend its neighboring Soviet Union (now Russia).

It is quite a diminutive term for Finland.

At the time, the Finnish government blocked the publication of a Finnish translation of , written by the Soviet dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

It is also likely that the term would come from him, as he was to the extent of resigning an opposition candidate for the re-election of a president supported by the Soviet Union.

In order not to offend the Soviet Union, Finland did not join NATO until recently and remained a ‘neutral country’.

But everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine.

In May, Finland joined Sweden and suddenly declared joining NATO.

Currently, 28 of the 30 NATO member countries have confirmed their accession to NATO, and Finland is close to joining NATO.

Amidst this, a symbolic event was held showing Finland’s ‘de-neutral’ progress on the 4th local time.

In the city of Kokka in southern Finland, there was a bust of Lenin, socialist revolution, national woman of the Soviet Union (Soviet Union).

[사진 제공: 연합뉴스]

This bust, which depicts a pensive Lenin with his right hand cupping his chin, was given as a gift in 1979 by the former Soviet Union city of Tallinn, now the capital of Estonia.

This bust, erected in the city square of Kotka over the next decades, suffered many hardships.

It is said that on one occasion the Finnish government apologized to the Soviet Union when someone painted red paint on the arm of the bust.

Local people demanded that it be demolished because it is a symbol of Finland’s history that was oppressed by the Soviet Union.

For this reason, when the bust of Lenin was toppled in downtown Kokka, some residents popped champagne to celebrate.

“It’s a great thing to have the bust of the creator of one of the world’s most vicious regimes off the streets here,” said Marty Leikkonen, who is 77 years old.

Before this, statues of figures erected during the Soviet Union were also demolished one after another in other areas of Finland.

In April, a bust of Lenin was toppled in the center of the western city of Turk, and in August, a bronze statue called ‘World Peace’, given to Helsinki by Moscow city authorities in 1990, was also removed, a news agency reported. AFP.