Risto Ryti was the fifth President of Finland. As a politician he was
known as a rational and determined man who had nerves of steel. Those
characteristics were needed; he was in office from 1940 to 1944, during
World War II. His policies during the war raised great controversy and led
to accusations that he had fraternised with Nazi Germany and delayed
Finland’s peace with the Soviet Union. He was eventually sentenced to
prison as a result of these policies. This paper is an overview of the
life and political career of Risto Ryti.
Risto Ryti’s Youth and Studies
Risto Heikki Ryti was born 3 February 1889 as the fourth child of Evert
and Ida Ryti. Ryti had seven brothers and three sisters. The family had a
large farm in the village of Loimankylä in Huittinen, in Southwestern
Finland. They had almost a thousand acres of land and fields, and also
cattle. The parents were both educated people, and Evert was both a
progressive farmer and an active participant in social and civic
activities (Huittinen). That is where Ryti and his brothers, who were also
actively involved in political activities, got their interest and
enthusiasm.
Ryti was a talented student. He went to an elementary school only a
short time before his parents got him a personal tutor. This man, M.A.
Knaapinen, who gave Ryti his elementary education, also ‘discovered’
Ryti’s talent and enthusiasm in his studies. After three years of personal
tutoring Ryti began studies in Porin lyseo, and after taking his
matriculation exam in the spring of 1906 he graduated from there on 19
April 1906 (Huittinen).
In the autumn of 1906 Ryti began studies at the Imperial University of
Alexander in Helsinki, which was later renamed as the University of
Helsinki. He got his first degree in Law in the autumn of 1909, and moved
to Rauma, where he set up a law office. He also continued his studies at
the university and in 1914 received a master’s degree in Law. Later the
same year he travelled to England to study maritime law in Oxford, but
soon his studies were interrupted when World War I broke out. After
returning to Finland he set up a law office in Helsinki together with a
close friend, Eric Serlachius, who had accompanied Ryti to England and who
was also to become Ryti’s brother-in-law (Huittinen).
Ryti’s Personal Life
As a politician Risto Ryti was known to be cool-headed. He made his
decisions based on facts and common sense, rather than emotion. To the
public he often seemed cold, even arrogant. Nevertheless, at home he was a
warm and humorous husband and father (Huittinen).
On their trip to England in 1914 Ryti and Eric Serlachius were
accompanied by Eric’s younger sister Gerda Paula Serlachius. Ryti had met
his future wife for the first time in the spring of 1912, but it took two
years before Risto and Gerda got the opportunity to get to know each other
better (Ryti-Erkinheimo 43).
Risto Ryti and Gerda Serlachius got married in Helsinki on 20 January
1916. Their first child, Karl Johan Henrik, was born in December 1916. He
was followed by Niilo Erik in 1919 and Eva Paula Margareta in 1922.
The relationship of Risto and Gerda Ryti proved to be warm and close.
Their backgrounds were similar, and they were both educated and
internationally oriented people. Their relationship was based on mutual
respect and trust. Risto Ryti got great support from his wife, especially
during the Continuation War and the years of the trial in military court
and imprisonment (Ryti-Erkinheimo).
Ryti as a Member of Parliament
Finland gained independence from the Russian Empire in 1917. That is
one of the factors that pushed Ryti into a political career (Turtola).
During the mid-1910’s Ryti was in charge of the legal and economic matters
of Alfred Kordelin, who was known as the richest man in Finland, and who
also became Ryti’s personal friend. The recognition and experience in
economic life Ryti gained with the Kordelin estate helped him in
political life (Huittinen). In January 1919 he was elected to the Finnish
Parliament as the second-youngest representative. He was thirty years old
at the time.
As a politician Ryti was known to have democratic and liberal
attitudes; he strongly disapproved of both left-wing and right-wing
radicalism. He was elected from the list of the Progressive Party. He
always had a strong sense of duty towards his country, and his feeling of
responsibility and honesty guided him throughout his years in politics
(Huittinen).
Ryti’s talent in politics was noticed almost immediately by his fellow
Members of Parliament (Turtola). The same year he was elected Ryti was
made the chairman of the Parliamentary Law Committee. Two years later, in
1921, he was chosen as the Minister of Finance in the Vennola Government.
When the Kallio Government took office in 1922, Prime Minister Kyösti
Kallio wanted Ryti to continue as the Minister of Finance.
During those three years (1921-1924) as the leader of Finnish economic
policy, Ryti had a remarkable influence on the state economy. In the
beginning of the 1920’s the Finnish economy was chaotic. The
value of the Finnish mark had collapsed in 1919-1920, and trade with
Russia had virtually stopped because of the Bolshevik Revolution. It
seemed that the Finnish economy was in a dead end. Risto Ryti, with
his experience in economics and finance, was greatly involved in balancing
the instable state budget (Kuusterä 27).
In 1927 Ryti was re-elected to the parliament for two more years
against his own will. He had been on a trip abroad, and when he returned
to Helsinki, he discovered that he had been put on the list of the
Progressive Party (Ahlstrand 6). He was the Governor of the Bank of
Finland at the time, and did not think he could also work as a Member of
Parliament, which would have meant being his own superior (Huittinen).
However, in order to resign from Parliament Ryti would have had to get
permission through court proceedings, and he did not want the matter to be
taken to court. During his term as a Member of Parliament from 1927 to
1929 he focused mainly on leading the Bank of Finland and international
relations (Huittinen).
Ryti as the Governor of the Bank of Finland
In 1922 President Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg appointed Ryti, who was then
the Minister of Finance, as the Governor of the Board of the Bank of
Finland (Turtola). An acting Governor was also appointed, because Ryti
could not take office until his term as minister ended. In January 1924
Kallio’s government resigned, and Ryti was able to withdraw from daily
politics and begin his career in the Bank of Finland (Turtola). Risto Ryti
is the longest-serving Governor of the Bank of Finland in the country’s
history (Huittinen). He was head of the bank for 17 years, first from 1924
to 1940 and then again from 1944 to 1945 after he resigned from the
Presidency.
Ryti’s biggest challenge during his years in the Bank of Finland was
the years of depression from 1929 to 1933. In 1926 the Finnish economy
seemed to be in a boom. The Bank of Finland tried to encourage the upward
tendency by obtaining more foreign credit. The objective was to get the
general rate of interest lower and consumption higher. But as a
consequence the market overheated while the rate of interest remained
high. Then in 1929, before the breakout of the world depression, Finland’s
economy began to decline (Kuusterä 33).
The situation in Finland was at its worst in the beginning of the
1930’s. During those years the number of bankruptcies doubled, the credit
losses of banks quadrupled and the number of unemployed people rose
(Kuusterä 33).
Ryti’s answer to the difficult situation was rather bitter. He figured
that the only way out of the recession was to increase exports. This could
only be accomplished by lowering wages in order to decrease the costs of
production to make Finnish exports more competitive in international
markets. However, these policies first led to bankruptcies and compulsory
auctions of farms. It was not in Ryti’s policy to support the arranging of
relief work or the increasing of social benefits (Turtola). As Martti
Turtola, Docent of Political History at the University of Helsinki, has
written: "Ryti’s way of thinking was a kind of Social Darwinism: if
someone did not manage to succeed, it was his own fault." 1
But with Ryti’s harsh monetary policy the country’s economy began to
recover after 1933. By the end of the decade the country had reached a
time of prosperity, which lasted until the beginning of World War II in
1939 (Turtola).
The Winter War and Ryti as Prime Minister
In World War II (1939-1945) Finland had to battle the Soviet Union
twice. The Winter War lasted from November 1939 to March 1940. The
Continuation War began in 1941, lasting until September 1944. Ryti was to
lead the country during both wars, first as Prime Minister and then as
President.
In August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression
pact, which is known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The pact had a
secret supplementary protocol that divided the neighbouring countries into
Soviet and German spheres of interest. Finland was among many other
Eastern Europe countries in the Soviet sphere of interest. By November
1939 the Soviet Union had imposed so-called “pacts of mutual
assistance” upon Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These pacts gave the
Soviets the right to establish military bases on the territories of the
countries (Manninen, 2. maailmansota).
After occupying the three Baltic countries the Soviet Union demanded
that Soviet forces should also be stationed on Finnish territory and that
Finland should provide military bases to house these forces. In
negotiations in Moscow the political elite of Finland announced that none
of Finland’s military bases would be ceded. The failed negotiations led to
a military attack by the Soviet Army on 30 November 1939 (Manninen, 2.
maailmansota).
In the months leading up to the negotiations, as war seemed inevitable,
President Kyösti Kallio wanted Risto Ryti, with his rationality and
consistency, to be the war-time Prime Minister. The country needed a Prime
Minister who enjoyed full confidence and was not politically committed to
any party; Ryti as the Governor of the Bank of Finland had not been a
member of any political party in over fifteen years. Ryti tried to turn
down the offered position, because it had been a long time since he had
been actively involved in state politics. But eventually his sense of duty
towards his country prevailed, and he started as Prime Minister on 1
December 1939, the next day after the Soviet attack (Ahlstrand 16).
The Ryti government’s only agenda was to attain peace. Ryti as Prime
Minister felt it was his responsibility to ensure that the peace was as
favorable to Finland as possible. Continually during the five months of
the war Ryti explored the Soviets' interest in negotiating peace, but from
the beginning it was obvious that the Soviets would not recognise the Ryti
Government (Ahlstrand 16). Instead, Stalin continued his efforts to bring
his puppet government, the People's Government of Finland, into power.
This so-called Terijoki Government was formed by Finnish communists
who had escaped to the Soviet Union during the Finnish civil war in 1918
(Manninen, Talvisota).
However, the Soviet Union had underestimated Finland’s ability to
defend itself. Stalin had rushed into war against Finland inadequately
prepared, because he had assumed that Finnish workers would welcome his
army as liberators (Chew). In prewar training the Soviet Union had
concentrated on operating in the steppes of Russia and in the terrain and
climate of Central Europe (Korhonen). The Soviet Army also had many
Ukrainian soldiers, who were not used to warfare in northern forests
(Chew). The Finns had the advantage of knowing their own terrain and they
were also prepared for the exceptionally cold climate. Thus, the Finnish
forces managed to halt many Soviet attacks and caused the Soviet forces
considerable losses.
Eventually, a variety of factors were to assist Ryti's efforts to
obtain peace. England and France offered to send Finland reinforcements,
with the motive to secure and occupy the Swedish ore mines (Tutor). At
that point Stalin realized that the World War threatened to spread to
Scandinavia (Manninen, Talvisota). The high number of Soviet casualties
had also been a political embarrassment to the Soviet Union (Virtual).
These were some of the reasons that led Stalin to sign an armistice with
the Finnish peace delegation, with Ryti as the leader, on 20 March 1940.
The treaty ceded about 10% of Finland's eastern territory to the Soviet
Union. About 12% of the Finnish population lived in the ceded areas and
they had to be relocated in other areas of Finland. There were also some
economic and political obligations (Tutor). However, the war ended on
terms that were as favorable as possible to Finland under the
circumstances. Finland remained independent and in full control of its own
territory.
Risto Ryti Elected as President
War-time President Kyösti Kallio had problems with his health almost
all his term as President, and, as Prime Minister, Ryti became more and
more responsible for international relations and the entire political
leadership (Turtola). In August 1940 Kallio became seriously ill, and Ryti
took over as acting head of state (Huittinen). On 27 November 1940
Kallio filed his resignation.
There was no national presidential election after Kallio’s resignation.
The election for Kallio’s successor was held by the same Electoral College
that had elected Kallio three years earlier. On 19 December 1940 Ryti was
elected President by an overwhelming majority for the remainder of
Kallio’s term. On the same day President Kallio died (Huittinen).
Ryti became the second war-time President in the history of Finland. In
1943 Kallio’s original presidential term ended, but in a state of war
national elections to choose a new Electoral College could not be held.
Once again the Electoral College of 1937 and 1940 assembled to vote, and
Ryti was re-elected as President (Turtola).
The Continuation War
Risto Ryti has on many occasions been called a man of peace (Ahlstrand
46, Lallukka 7). It seems contradictory that he was the one who had to
lead Finland to war. In the 1930’s he had warned civic organisations from
warmongering against the Soviet Union. Still, he wasn’t enough of a
pacifist to sacrifice Finland’s rather newly-gained independence (1917)
without an effort to defend it. When war seemed inevitable, he
did not neglect his responsibilities as the head of state (Lallukka 7).
On 22 June 1941 Germany renounced the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression
pact and attacked the Soviet Union. Three days later, on the 25th of June,
the Soviet Union bombed nineteen Finnish cities and towns. The objective
was to destroy Finnish airports that were being used as German air bases
(Manninen, Jatkosota). As a result the Finnish Government considered the
country to be at war with the Soviet Union (Hyytiä).
During the summer and autumn the Finnish forces occupied large areas of
former Finnish territory that had been ceded in 1940. But in December 1941
there was a command from Mannerheim, Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish
Armed Forces, not to advance further (Manninen, Jatkosota). The war turned
into a stationary front that lasted for two and a half years, and ended in
a massive Soviet attack on 9 June 1944.
In the Continuation War Finland fought alongside Germany, because with
its small army and insufficient equipment Finland would not have survived
a war against a great power on its own. The alliance was not official; no
political agreements had been made (Ahlstrand 29). To Ryti personally it
was disagreeable to lean on Germany, for his ideologies were nowhere near
those of the national socialist system of Germany (Turtola). However, the
alliance was seen as the only way to secure Finnish independence against
Soviet Forces (Ahlstrand 29).
The Way to Peace
In the beginning of the summer of 1944, as Soviet troops began
advancing steadily toward Germany, Hitler sent his Minister for
Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, to Finland. To secure the
northern front Ribbentrop demanded a guarantee from the government that
Finland
would continue warfare against the Soviet Union. In return Germany would
provide the reinforcements and weapons that Finland so desperately needed
(Turtola).
After negotiating the matter Ryti agreed to write a personal letter to
Hitler saying that Finland would not make a separate peace with the Soviet
Union. The Council of State agreed that Ryti would be the only one to sign
the letter, which later became known as the Ribbentrop Pact. Ryti knew
that all it would take to invalidate that document would be for him to
resign from office. The pact would not bind Ryti’s successor (Turtola).
By mid-July the Finnish Army had managed to halt the massive Soviet
attack of 9 June, and stabilize the military situation on the Eastern
Front. The time was right for efforts to attain peace. Accordingly, Ryti
filed his resignation, using poor health as an excuse to resign. Ryti left
office on 1 August 1944. Carl Gustav Mannerheim was elected President by
emergency law (Turtola).
A truce agreement was signed on 19 September 1944 in Moscow. The
borders set after the armistice of 1940 came into effect again. In
addition Finland ceded some of its northern territory and was obliged to
pay reparations worth 300 million dollars (Tiainen 181).
In the autumn of 1944 Ryti was re-elected as the Governor of the Bank
of Finland. Jukka Rangell, who had followed Ryti as the head of the bank,
on his own initiative wanted give way to Ryti’s expertise. Ragnell
resigned from office and became a Member of the Board of the Bank of
Finland (Turtola). However, in June of 1945 the Trustees of the Bank of
Finland forced Ryti to resign because of political reasons related to the
Ribbentrop Pact (Huittinen).
The Trial and Ryti’s Defence
When Risto Ryti signed the Ribbentrop Pact, he knew that it could lead
to accusations of cooperating with Nazi Germany. For this, he also knew he
could be sentenced to imprisonment or even death. In 1945, the Soviet
Union pressured the Finnish Government to have a trial. Ryti was sure he
would be arrested, and he began writing his defence (Turtola).
When Finland signed its truce with the Soviet Union, the Finnish
Government also had to agree to cooperate with the Allies – the Soviet
Union, France, Great Britain and the United States – in order to arrest
war criminals and bring them to justice (Tiainen 181). In September 1944
the Finnish Parliament enacted a law concerning the punishing of war
criminals. In November the Council of State decided, under Soviet
pressure, to press charges against Risto Ryti and seven other politicians
2 , and ordered
them to be arrested
immediately (Lallukka 9).
The indictment had seven planks, all suggesting that the accused had
not done everything in their powers to attain peace. According to the
indictment the accused had, among other things, allowed German forces to
enter Finland, caused diplomatic relations with England to break off,
caused with their passiveness the negotiations with the Soviet Union to
cease, and allowed Finnish forces to re-occupy the areas that had been
ceded in 1940. In the last plank Ryti was accused of signing the
Ribbentrop Pact (Lallukka 9).
In his defence Ryti emphasized that Finland had not started the war,
but had only fought off a Soviet attack. Finland had not wanted revenge
for the Winter War. He also said that although Finland had drifted into
battle alongside Germany, no political agreement had been made. According
to Ryti, Finland had not participated in the World War, since Finnish
troops had not entered foreign territory — only former Finnish
territory. The Continuation War had been a defensive war and had only
concerned Finland (Lallukka 58). In his defence Ryti said:
My government collegues as well as I have acted according
to our best understanding, with the saving of our native land and its
people as our main concern. It is my firm belief that our line of action
has been the right one and the only possible way to save the country from
even further damage. 3
(Lallukka 126)
However, in a trial in the beginning of 1946 Risto Ryti was found
guilty. He was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment, while the other
seven politicians all received shorter sentences.
After the Verdict
During his first three years in prison Ryti’s health began to waver,
especially after the other convicted politicians were released and Ryti
with his longer sentence was left alone. He managed to maintain his mental
balance with the loyal support of his spouse and his strong faith. In May
of 1949 Ryti was pardoned because of his poor physical health (Turtola).
Ryti never returned to public life, although there were many offers and
attempts to persuade him, despite his poor health (Turtola). His condition
got gradually worse and he also had problems with his memory
(Ryti-Erkinheimo 52). Risto Ryti died in Helsinki on 25 October 1956. He
was buried on 11 November in the Hietaniemi Cemetery.
The recognition Ryti received during his last years showed that the
majority of the people did not consider him a criminal (Turtola). After he
was pardoned he received numerous congratulations from civic organisations
and individual citizens (Huittinen). An official portrait was painted of
him, and the University of Helsinki made him a doctor honoris causa
(Turtola).
The disintegration of the Soviet Union has influenced the way Ryti has
been seen from the 1990’s onward. There was no longer a political need to
judge Ryti’s period in politics, and in the beginning of the 1990’s the
public interest in Ryti as a person and in his life work increased
enormously. In 1993, the Risto Ryti Association was established to honour
the political heritage of Ryti (Eskola 17).
During the last 65 years Risto Ryti and his politics have had both
critics and supporters, but only since the 1990's has it been possible to
view his political career objectively. Ryti played a significant role in
Finnish history, leading Finland through times and events that were
crucially important to the future of the nation. He was a trusted leader,
who was willing to sacrifice himself and his career for the freedom of his
country.
Notes
1 Quotation translated by Saana Mäkiranta. back
2 The seven other politicians were Prime Minister J.W.
Rangell, Prime Minister Edwin Linkomies, Ambassador T.M. Kivimäki, and
Ministers Antti Kukkonen, Väinö Tanner, Henrik Ramsay and Tyko Reinikka.
back
3 Quotation translated by Saana Mäkiranta. back
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