Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change

by Jared Diamond

The peace treaty required Finland to pay heavy reparations to the Soviet Union: $300,000,000, to be paid within six years. Even after the Soviet Union extended the term to eight years and reduced the amount to $226,000,000, that was still a huge burden for the small and un-industrialized Finnish economy. Paradoxically, though, those reparations proved to be an economic stimulus, by forcing Finland to develop heavy industries such as building ships and factories-for-export. (The reparations thereby exemplify the etymology of the Chinese word “wei-ji,” meaning “crisis,” which consists of the two characters “wei,” meaning “danger,” and “ji,” meaning “opportunity.”) That industrialization contributed to the economic growth of Finland after the war, to the point where Finland became a modern industrial country (and now a high-tech country) rather than (as formerly) a poor agricultural country.