Book review | In the 1968 presidential election, Matti Virkkunen was guilty of majesty

Nonfiction book

Marko Paavilainen: Defender of the Finnish way of life. Matti Virkkunen as a social influencer. Bridge. 448 pp.

In the evening On January 16, 1968, the presidential election had taken place, but there was a strange situation at Yleisradio's TV results night. For one reason or another, all the candidates failed to show up, so did the challengers Matti Virkkunen and Veikko Vennamo like a winner Urho Kekkonen.

For Kekko, the elections were a shock. A compromise election with its apparent alternatives would have suited him, but SMP's Vennamo and the coalition's Virkkunen ruined the pattern by seriously running for office. The struggle turned out to be fierce, even tearing, even without a single joint argument.

The result shocked Kekko the most. Virkkunen had drawn almost a quarter of the votes and 66 electors, Vennamo (11.4 percent) 33 electors, so the leader had to settle for “only” 65 percent and 201 electors. A clear choice, but the expectations had been much higher.

“I'm really depressed and upset about the result of the election,” Kekkonen wrote in his diary.

The 1968 election was the first truly televised election. – Matti Virkkunen and Niilo Ihamäki, who led the speech, in the middle. Other participants Kaino Haapanen (Skdl), Pauli Burman (Sdp), Ahti Karjalainen (Kepu), Kalle Palosaari (Smp), Viljo Pousi (Tpsl), Elsi Hetemäki (Kok) and Georg C. Ehrnrooth (Rkp). Picture: New Finland

He no longer stooped to similar democratic experiments. The elections brought success to the coalition, but it had to pay for its arrogance, Kekkonen left the main right-wing party always in the opposition.

My crochet career path the steepest, most dizzying turn was precisely the presidential election. At the same time, he did a disservice to the assembly and a service to the people's government.

Virkkunen's actions were nowhere near reduced to one election. Historian Marko Paavilainen written by Defender of the Finnish way of life draws the arc of Matti Virkkunen's (1908–1980) life. Before the wars, this was a hot-spirited AKS cadre, as a lawyer a trade diplomat during the war and at the end of the 40s, from which he unexpectedly rose to become the CEO of Kansallis-Osake-Panki in 1948.

Until 1975, Virkkunen was the strongest front line of our business life, the number one banker.

Paavilainen bases his work on Virkkunen's home archive, which is being opened for the first time, public materials and previous research. The source base is extensive.

With his subtitle “social influencer”, Paavilainen emphasizes Virkkunen's work other than as a banker, because Markku Kuisma has neglected the banking side in his KOP history (2004). Sarka is also enough for Paavilainen, Virkkunen if who was the all-around-man at the top of society.

Virkkusen's family background was receptive to every departure, both in politics and economics. His father Paavo Virkkunen was a priest, rector of Norssi and a famous right-wing figure, originally a Snellman. His mother Katri Virkkunen (born Thulé) belonged to the Fire Tribes, which played a solid role in the Fennoman economic and university elite.

CEO Virkkunen presents the 1971 annual report of Kansallis-Osake-Pank. Picture: KOP / ELKA

Even when Matti Virkkunen took 1936 to marriage Eeva Honkajuuren, the daughter of KOP's general manager, some sort of rising career in society was not an excluded idea. Especially not when the main character had charisma, eloquence and determination.

The beginning of the work is filled – for quite a long time – with the antecedents of the extended family. The emphasis is explained by the large proportion of correspondence from his youth in the Virkkus archive. And there's nothing wrong with that, after all, the glimpses are affectionately descriptive.

Hivenen would still have been able to get rid of Katri's mother's frequently repeated godly sighs, it would have
been enough if her deep Christianity had been confirmed once or twice. Mati and the other boys' alcohol consumption was monitored and scolded by the mother all the time – obviously unsuccessfully.

Paavilainen describes Isä-Virkkunen's meanderings on the right side of politics well.

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Along with the bank, Virkkunen almost led the fight against communism

Matti Virkkunen forcefully positioned himself in the guardianship and AKS, and at the university he was involved in thrashing of Alexander I with the tar of the bust. However, he stayed away from the darkest tricks of the Lapua era, and even prevented the AKS members from marching to Mäntsälä in the 1932 rebellion.

Paavo-isä overtook Matti-son from the right, and while leading the coalition in 1932–1934, he ended up in the IKL electoral alliance.

Matti Virkkus did not become an active politician, but he was a constant whisperer of the coalition.

Virkkunen worked in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1934 to 1947, finally as head of the trade department. The book is at its most exciting in the episodes where the young vice-consul in London procures military aid from the British for the winter war. His part was also significant in negotiating large dollar loans from the USA shortly after the Continuation War.

to the board of KOP he jumped in 1947. Father-in-law Mauri Honkajuuri was the general manager and grandfather Antti Tulenheimo led the speech in the supervisory board, so Virkkunen's recruitment must have been done on the couch. After Honkajuuri died suddenly in 1948, his son-in-law took his place.

In Virkkunen's grip, KOP pulsated. He took over small banks, added branches, created large industries through mergers, such as Rauma-Repola. Although he was ideologically opposed to state-owned companies, they were trustworthy.

Along with the bank, Virkkunen almost led the fight against communism. He directed funds to the Finnish Society Support Foundation and other field organizations. Virkkunen lectured for so long and with the same emphasis on the red peril that he probably thought it was more correct to talk about the long decades of the peril rather than just the years of the peril from 1944–1948.

From his point of view, Virkkunen was a right-wing conservative. He did not embrace the new winds that arose in the coalition with their social choice economies, he kept the ideals of his youth.

The anti-communist did not tolerate the People's Front that started in 1966 – not so much the government responsibility of the communists, whom he still classified as traitors to the fatherland. For him, the foundation of the welfare state was the foundation of subversion.

Did Virkkunen use great power?

The book even exudes a funny need to prove that he didn't use it. In Marko Paavilainen's opinion, for example, the fact that Virkkuse did not have a lot of stock or other assets would show his modest role.

A few power facts. Virkkunen sat on the governing bodies not only of his own bank, but also of the Bank Association, numerous large firms and insurance companies, wealthy foundations and funds, the Central Chamber of Commerce, two universities and one of the National Theaters – leading the speech in many of them for decades.

Every reader should be able to answer the above question. Power is actually exercised by the one who moves and directs the capital of institutions – more than the one who may or may not own a manor in the countryside.

The value and style of the biography is broken by the eagerness with which Paavilainen ignores and belittles these bright facts. It doesn't brighten Virkkunen's afterimage at all. He was a capital lord who knew his worth that much.

Manager and the bank's representative car in Niemelä in the late 1960s. Picture: New Finland