FINLAND’S FREEDOM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 December 1939, Page 5

FINLAND’S FREEDOM

DECLARATION BY LENIN RECALLED. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, December 5. The reported jamming of a Finnish broadcast from Lahti at the point when the announcer recalled the policy laid down by Lenin for dealing with Finland causes little surprise here. That policy ran entirely counter to the present Soviet action. Writing in the "Pravda" on May 15, 1917, Lenin described the relation of Finland to Russia, stating that the Tsar and others were against the agreement with the Finnish Diet. They wanted to subjugate Finland to Russia. Class-conscious proletarians and the Russian Social Democrats, true to their programme, were for the freedom of Finland as well as of other non-sovereign nationalities. "Finland,” he said, "was annexed by the Russian Tsars through a deal with Napoleon. As we are really against annexations, we must come out openly for Finland's freedom. After we have said it and practised it. then, and only then, will agreement with Finland become really a voluntary, free, and true agreement and not a deception. Comrades, workers, and peasants, do not be carried away by the annexationist policy of the Russian capitalists concerning Finland. Courland, and the Ukraine. Do not fear to recognise the right of these peoples to independence.”