776 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 negligible fighting value (one such unit, an artillery battalion, consisted of Ukrainians wearing Polish uniforms to which German insignia had been sewn). There were Hungarian priests who were distinctly evil, encouraging the ArrowCrossin its atrocities,and a few who were heroicallyhumane. Large-scale cruelties, some accidental and some deliberate, were generalized . The Germanswere relativelyhumane, and often intervenedto saveJews from the murderousArrowCrossmilitia. Rape and murderaccompanied the Russian entry in the city, and continued for some weeks into the occupation. But there were also frequent instances of humane effortsat all levels of the Red Army. Many German soldiers preferred suicide to capture by the Russians, and so did a few Hungarians. The bulk of the city's inhabitants, however, saw the Russiansas a lesserevil than the ArrowCross, but the local Communistswere cruellydisappointed. The German commander was unfitfor thejob, spent his time safelyunder cover, and did not find the courage to defy Hitler and ordera break-outuntil it was too late. The attemptedbreak-out,in which massesof refugeesmingled with troopsin the darkstreetsto createa maddened horde thatwasmercilessly shelled and machine-gunned, was perhapsthe most gruesomeevent in a siege thatwas repletewith horror. Apartfrom secondarysources,mainly Hungarian and German, the author has done much interviewing and letter-writing as well as trawling several archivalcollections. This is a book which librariesshouldhave. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies J. N. WESTWOOD University ofBirmingham Lehtinen, Lasse. Aatosta jaloaja alhaistamieltd.UrhoKekkosen ja SDP.n sulteet I944-I98I. Werner Soderstr6m, Helsinki, 2002. 720 PP. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography.Appendices. Index. ?38.oo. INthe New Year,the Finnishpresident,TarjaHalonen, urgedresearchersand other commentators to stop raking over the Kekkonen period. This was a regrettablesuggestionthat could even be seen as yet another manifestationof the country's tradition of self-censorship for the sake of internal political harmony. Lasse Lehtinen's lengthy text has already defied this tradition.He seeksto show that Kekkonenand his croniesplayed too close to the Soviet Union as to become unnecessarily entangled with it, that the right-wing of the Finnish Social Democratic Party,for all its faults,stood up to Kekkonen until the late sixties and then gave way to the principle 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em', while in the end the SDP redeemed itself through the personage of Mauno Koivisto, the presidential successor, who helped to bring in what we now have. What we now have is competition, thevery thing Social Democracy was born to replace. The storyis meant to be told up to Kekkonen'sphysicalfailurein I98I, but the author cannot resist a few pages of comment referringto more modern times in which the impact of Gorbachev, Thatcher, and Reagan on the breakdown of the Soviet Union saves Finland, thus demolishing, too, REVIEWS 777 Kekkonen'slife's-work.It has been rumouredthatthe authorwillwriteall this up more extensivelyin a furthertext. The presenttext is writtenwell. Many of the detailsof the in-fightingof the Finnishpolitical partiesare graphically,and this reviewerbelieves, accurately described.In particular,the reviewerwould liketo singleout for its excellence Lehtinen's analysis of the 'confusion of the parties' in the second half of the I950S and the way that the author has related this factionalism to the bitter strugglesover the share-outof the national wealth between the industrialand agrarian interests. Throughout the work, Lehtinen is not afraid to pack his punches. In short, the case is powerfully argued. He has been in politics himself, even been a bit of a king-maker, if the Republic of Finland will pardon the expression,in connection with the successfulpresidentialcandidaturesof Mauno Koivisto and MarttiAhtisaari. Lehtinen's book has raised the hackles of several academics and other members of the literati.This is undoubtedly due, in part, to the fact that as a doctorate of the University of Oulu, its reliance on an extensive number of secondary workswas held to contribute, formally, to lessening the character of the book'soriginalitywhile, in addition,the authoris saidto have somewhat overspreadhis theme. But, actually, Lehtinen relied much on the archivesof the Social Democratic Party and, for example, on his own previous studies into the vast materialof the ParliamentaryCommittee on Socialization. In his use of secondary sources, however, he has sometimes turned them on their head. No fault to be found in that, but...