Recalling Finland's Citizen Uprising

In the article ''Clinging to Lenin's Legend Long after the Revolution,'' June 27, the author is right to state that Finland applauded Lenin for granting independence from the Russian duchy in the October Revolution of 1917.

However, she is incorrect when she states that there was a civil war over it in 1918. There was a citizen uprising, the purpose of which was to drive the occupying Russian Army from Finland. The Finnish communists and the Finnish army engaged in a brief but devastating war with the Russians and succeeded. History records that episode.

Also there was no civil war in 1939. Vastly outnumbered on many fronts in that bitter winter, Finland fought Stalin's forces to a standstill. Had they not, a firm conjecture could be made that Sweden, Norway, and Denmark would have been under the guns as well and the West, worrying about Germany's advances, would not have lifted a finger to halt Russian advances. The Finnish literally fought the Russians by themselves. Meanwhile the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania succumbed and were annexed to the Soviet Union.

The divisive focus on the Lenin Museum in Tampere succeeds only in highlighting a darkly hued Finnish government's political appeasement of the former Soviet Union. It also glorified the founder of a regime that was so bloody, cold, and merciless in its treatment of humanity as to defy reason in any historical comparison.

Eugene Paasinen Taylor, Mich.