Russia Looms Large Over Nato's Borders - But US Help Is Not Assured

In 1905, in the Finnish city of Tampere, Vladimir Lenin met Joseph Stalin for the first time. They and two dozen or so revolutionaries began to map out plans to overthrow the tsar and bring down the Russian empire.

- John Kampfner

The story is vividly chronicled in Tampere's Lenin Museum, a venue that thousands of Soviet citizens used to descend on each year, in official groups; in these different times, it is seen as something of an embarrassment by the city authorities.

Since the collapse of Soviet communism in 1991, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Finland's accession to Nato in 2023, the museum has successively changed its exhibits. It still tells the remarkable story of that secret meeting a century ago, when Finland was part of the tsarist Russian empire, but enjoyed a certain autonomy until it gained independence immediately after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.

The museum charts the course of Finland's relations with Russia. At the end of the second world war, Finland was required to cede a tenth of its territory, but it retained its independence. This came at a price: neutrality tinged with heavy subservience to the Kremlin. In 1970, on the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, events were organised across Finland. The nowderogatory word for all of this is Finlandisation.

Nato's newest member (Sweden is still waiting), Finland has temporarily closed its border with Russia as tensions have risen sharply.