Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Dieter Stiefel, Alice Teichova (Hrsg.): Sonderband 9. „Zarte Bande” – Österreich und die europäischen planwirtschaftlichen Länder / „Delicate Relationships” – Austria and Europe’s Planned Economies (2006)
Pekka Sutela: Finnish Trade with the USSR: Why Was It Different?
least for a transitional period of two or three years. They were encouraged by the fact that signals coming out of Moscow were somewhat contradictory. The analysis of Finnish discussions in 1990 on the future of clearing trade with the USSR will prove an interesting topic for future historians. Here we can only outline the arguments raised in the debate. The views of the supporters of clearing - mainly the spokesmen of established export industries - can be summarised very easily. Without ever being explicit about how and why, they argued that as clearing had been advantageous to the Finnish economy, it should be continued. If not, there should at least be a transitional period of two or three years to allow time for adjustment. As the pro-clearing view was argued from positions of power, its antithesis had to be developed at greater length. At least six arguments were used.39 First, there was no longer a functioning planning and allocation mechanism for foreign trade in the USSR. By clinging to the tail of the earlier mechanism Finland faced the danger of being seen as a supporter of the ancient regime in the USSR. Second, the USSR was obviously depoliticizing its foreign trade. There is no reason why bilateral clearing trade with Finland would fulfil the economic trade criteria now crucial in decision making. Third, indeed, there are good reasons to argue that clearing with Finland was economically disadvantageous to the USSR. Fourth, continuing clearing trade with Finland would have been an anomaly in the overall conduct of Soviet foreign trade. Fifth, bilateral clearing did not go well with the general thrust of Soviet economic reform attempts. Sixth, clearing does not go well with the spatial devolution (or dissolution) of the USSR. These are admittedly rather self-evident points, and the need to emphasise them in 1990 illustrates the degree to which the perceived short-term interests of the established export industries determined the policies not only of industrialists' associations but also those of the state.40 8 The macroeconomic implications of the collapse of Soviet trade Calculations using both the Bank of Finland's BOF 4 quarterly model of the Finnish economy and the KESSU model of the Finnish Ministry of Finance showed at the time that the collapse of Finnish exports to the USSR contributed some 2-3 percentage points to the total decline of Finnish GNP in 1991.41 As the overall Finnish Trade with the USSR: Why Was It Different? 39 Though the relevant discussion was rather wide-ranging, these points were probably presented for the first time publicly and comprehensively only ex post facto in Sutela, Pekka: Sovjetunionens ekonomi och handel med Finland. In: Ekonomiska Samfundets Tidskrift 4/1991, pp. 201-206. 40 Need it be said, after the above characterization of Finnish corporatism that the state foreign economic policy apparatus did indeed seek to establish a transitional arrangement? 41 Rautava, Jouko - Hukkinen, Juhana: Russia's economic reform and trade between Finland and Russia. In: Bank of Finland Monthly Bulletin 4/1992, pp. 6-9; Valtiovarainministeriö: Talouden näkymät ja talouspolitiikan linja vuoteen 1996. Helsinki 1992. 327
