It is OVER: The West Destroys Itself. Final Words. | Tord Björk

## The Helsinki Final Act’s legacy Fifty years after the Helsinki Final Act, the conversation revealed a striking tension between the document’s original promise and the political memory that now surrounds it. The 1975 accord was not merely a summit of state interests but a pact that opened space for détente, human rights, and cross-border cooperation in ways that cascaded into powerful grassroots movements. What the Helsinki process catalyzed—dissident networks in Eastern Europe, mass peace mobilizations in the West, and a suite of trust-building measures—was as much a social achievement as a diplomatic one. That duality, the legal-political instrument and the popular movement it helped unleash, is central to understanding both the Act’s successes and its subsequent eclipse. The Final Act’s insistence on “indivisible security” and wide-ranging cooperation—economic, environmental, cultural—created a template for linking peace to everyday life. The Moscow Helsinki Group, for example, turned state commitments into civic leverage, while movements such as European Nuclear Disarmament fed popular pressure that weakened cold-war militarism. But the transcript also highlights a missed opportunity: economic cooperation clauses in 1975 pointed toward collective regional development rather than unilateral dominance by established financial institutions. The uneven transition after 1990—where Poland received aid and Russia did not—helped produce political and social collapse in parts of the post-Soviet space. Thus, the Helsinki legacy is both a success story and a cautionary tale: treaties can open doors, but only if follow-up preserves the balance between statecraft and social solidarity. Read now through the lens of today’s geopolitics, the Act’s broader aims feel unfinished. What was supposed to be a reorientation toward shared security and collaborative development morphed, in many instances, into a narrower, state-centric interpretation that sidelined the popular movements that had helped make détente meaningful. The erasure of that popular dimension from official narratives risks turning the Final Act into a hollow symbol rather than a living framework for multi-issue cooperation. ## Finland, NATO, and erased peace history Finland’s shift from neutral interlocutor to NATO member is a striking case study in historical rewriting. The conversation laid bare how the national remembrance of Finland’s diplomatic craftsmanship—once rooted in a unique mix of rural-worker alliances and a vibrant peace movement—has been smoothed into a triumphalist narrative of liberal victory. This redaction doesn’t merely rebrand a past achievement; it delegitimizes the very civic practices—friendship societies, grassroots exchanges, and cross-border cultural ties—that enabled Finland to act as a broker in the Cold War. The Helsinki anniversary events, as discussed, became an exercise in selective memory. Rather than foreground the grass-roots coalitions and popular peace activism that made the ’75 breakthrough possible, official commemorations often presented the period as the inevitable triumph of liberal democracies over communist regimes. That simplification serves present political goals: it naturalizes alignment with Western military structures and diminishes the possibility that neutrality or nonalignment might still be strategically valuable. Erasure of this history weakens the civic vocabulary for being a mediator in tense international moments and closes political space for alternatives to military partnership. This rewriting is not merely domestic branding; it has practical consequences. By treating the 1975 success as a byproduct of state power alone, contemporary policymakers have fewer incentives to cultivate the bottom-up infrastructures—localized friendship networks, youth exchanges, and civic peace organizations—that once provided Finland with real leverage across blocs. In short, historical amnesia can become a tool of policy change. ## Why peace movements declined The trauma of professionalization and sectoral specialization emerged as a central explanation for the decline of broad-based peace movements. What was once a cross-cutting mobilization linking labor, rural communities, human rights activists, and pacifists splintered over decades into narrowly defined NGOs and issue-specific campaigns. Specialization made expertise possible, but it also encouraged organizations to play by grant-driven rules, concentrate on discrete deliverables, and prioritize institutional longevity over coalition-building. The conversation emphasized two intertwined dynamics. First, professionalization: movements adopted bureaucratic norms, grant-seeking behaviors, and expertise-driven framings that made them less porous to new constituencies. Second, fragmentation: environmentalists, human rights groups, labor unions, and peace advocates drifted toward single-issue silos. Together these trends weakened the movements’ ability to articulate holistic critiques and to mobilize broad public constituencies. The result was a peace movement that could debate deterrence in technical terms but struggled to connect disarmament to everyday economic and environmental concerns that matter to ordinary citizens. There’s also a cultural shift at play. The post-Cold War triumphalism—seeing history as converging on liberal capitalism—blurred the urgency of alternative visions for security and cooperation. Movements that had drawn their energy from mass participation in the ’70s and ’80s found themselves contending with an ideological landscape that encouraged managerialism over radical reimagining. The net effect: strong expertise and weaker social roots. ## NATO, technology, and economic control One of the more provocative threads in the exchange was the widening nexus among military alliances, advanced technologies, and economic instruments of power. NATO’s evolution, coupled with the digitization and sophistication of modern warfare, has blurred the lines between defense policy and economic governance. The conversation suggested that security today is as much about controlling technologies—data networks, precision weaponry, and dual-use infrastructures—as it is about troop deployments and bases. This technological turn has profound political consequences. When alliances like NATO become gatekeepers of critical technologies, they also shape who gets access to economic growth, whose industries are favored, and which states are deemed reliable partners. That dynamic makes security policy an axis of economic control, not merely a mechanism for deterrence. The effect is to sharpen geopolitical rivalry around industrial capacity and technological ecosystems, reinforcing alignment pressures on states that might otherwise prefer neutrality. Framing peace as a solely military question is therefore obsolete. Peace and prosperity converge around who controls the nodes of technology and who sets the rules for trade, investment, and research. If movements want to influence security policy, they must broaden their lens to include industrial policy, tech governance, and economic solidarity—areas historically ceded to technocrats and geopolitical strategists. ## Rebuilding popular movements The remedy sketched in the discussion is neither nostalgia nor a retreat to old organizational models. Instead, it calls for a deliberate recombination of issues: peace, climate, labor, rural interests, and human rights must be woven back together into an integrated movement for civilizational choices. This is not a plea for ideological homogeneity but for practical solidarity across domains. Rebuilding requires three linked strategies: practical local action that demonstrates alternative forms of security; shared research that translates multi-issue analysis into common policy proposals; and the cultivation of cross-border friendships that humanize “the other.” Practical local action matters because it yi

It is OVER: The West Destroys Itself. Final Words. | Tord Björk Tord Björk, co-founder of People and Peace, International Peace Bureau council member, and Helsinki Plus 50 coordinator, discusses the Helsinki Final Act, Finland’s move from neutrality to NATO, and the decline of peace movements. He argues that peace, climate, labor, rural, and human rights groups should work together through practical local action, shared research, and building friendships across borders. Read the Nordic Peace Alliance Manifesto here: https://pascallottaz. substack.com/p/appeal-for-the-spirit-of-helsinki Links: People and Peace YouTube: https://www. youtube.com/@folkochfred/ Helsinki Plus 50: https://helsinkiplus.org International Peace Bureau: https://ipb.org Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Merch: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Donation: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Timestamps: 00: 00:00 Introduction 00:00:42 The Helsinki Final Act’s legacy 00:07:47 Finland, NATO, and erased peace history 00:16:31 Why peace movements declined 00:24:39 NATO, technology, and economic control 00:32:21 Rebuilding popular movements 00:38:34 Cooperation without more bureaucracy 00: 45:03 Decentralized movements and local action 00:54:05 Where to follow Tord Björk #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today, for the first time, with Tord Björk, a co- founder of the network People and Peace, a council member of the International Peace Bureau, and a coordinator of the working group Helsinki Plus 50. Tord, welcome. #Tord Björk Well, I'm very pleased and honored to be in this very important program. #Pascal Well, you are an activist, and you've been an activist for peace in Sweden and in Scandinavia more generally for many years. And I wanted to pick your brain on what the Helsinki Plus 50 working group is now doing. Can you give us some insights? #Tord Björk Well, what we did was to realize that the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act was of global importance. The thing is that in 1975, it was possible for all the state leaders that were confronting each other, including both Turkey and Cyprus, who were at war with each other one year before, to unite upon a call for détente, but not only détente, not only what is called indivisible security in the -- 1 of 17 -- Final Act, but also cooperation—economic, environmental, cultural—and including also human rights without double standards. So this was sort of an opening for a very long period of opening up for cooperation among movements, a mass popular peace movement, and a mass movement for human rights. #Pascal Yeah, and just to set this into its context, the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 was signed after five, almost six years of constant negotiations for a conference on security and cooperation. The CSCE, that was the brainchild, actually, of the Soviets in Moscow, who forwarded that request to Finland. Finland then sent out invitations, and after five years of negotiations, everybody from the United States and Canada all the way to, I think, even Mongolia were part of the Helsinki Final Act. About 50 countries then signed the basic principles of peaceful coexistence, basically. And to me, 1975 is the beginning of the end of the first Cold War, because that's where the principles were hammered out. Now, how are you assessing this, like 50 years on, how the development of the CSCE went on? Because, you know, there were other successes, like the institutionalization in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE, making this process permanent. What's your take? #Tord Björk Well, it goes through different stages. What we can see is the successful first stages. In spite of very strong criticism in Eastern Europe among those who were in opposition to the rule that was then over Central and Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union, they were very much against this. They thought it was only to help the Soviet Union in establishing that the borders should be recognized as they were. But the totally different thing happened when the Moscow Helsinki Group started with Sakharov and others in 1976. And this opened up for a very dynamic relationship between a mass popular movement, peace movement, for instance, the European Nuclear Disarmament movement, and these dissident groups in Central and Eastern Europe. So this ended then, finally, in that we got this change, nonviolent change, in all of the so-called kitchen revolutions. So this was a stage where this was very helpful also in terms of producing a lot of agreements on reducing nuclear arms and trust-building measures, a lot of agreements on that. Then came 1990, and it seemed like a total success for the Helsinki process in terms of a meeting in Paris where everybody agreed upon it again: indivisible security, human rights, et cetera, et cetera. But in reality, the Helsinki Final Act had a clause when it came to economic cooperation, claiming that the UN Commission for Europe was very important. In other words, it was not saying that the Bretton Woods institutions and financial institutions totally ruled by the US and the West was the solution to economic problems. But in reality, the opposite happened. It has been very clearly documented that Russia was treated completely differently in this transition period from, let's say, Poland. Poland received all the kind of specific help they needed to make this transition in a good way, while Russia was denied. And we got this complete breakdown -- 2 of 17 -- of the situation in Russian society, which actually also took place in Ukraine, but less in Belarus. So, in other words, this idea from '75 was never completed when it comes to economy. And what we instead got was this development of more and more away from what was later called common security. And instead, we got this very polarization on all issues, economic and military and so on. So that is interesting then, because 50 years afterwards, Finland had to do something. This was the biggest success ever in Finnish diplomatic history, and they were forced to do something. And that became really comical. To dig into the way they organized this 50-year anniversary, it shows a lot. And what we now see is that by claiming to be the legitimate followers of the Helsinki Final Act, all the movements can claim that we are now fulfilling what the state leaders decided in '75. So it gives us legitimacy to produce ideas about change, not only in terms of security, but also cooperation and human rights. #Pascal Yeah. And, you know, you're saying it was almost comical because, of course, the 50th anniversary was last year, in 2025. And that was already two years after Finland joined NATO, right? Finland was neutral together with Sweden, where you are, by the way. So Finland, Sweden, and Norway, these Nordic countries, you closely cooperate. The importance, actually, of 1975—and 1969, actually, this started, right?—was that the Soviets told the Finns to do something because the Finns were neutral and they were able to access both sides, right? And one of the success stories of the Helsinki process is that these different neutral countries, including also Sweden and Switzerland, were able to help grease the wheels to make sure that the communist and capitalist countries actually met and had those negotiations, partially in Helsinki, then in Geneva, then again in Helsinki for the Final Act. And that's, however, a very, very different mindset from what then grew in the early 2000s. Finland first redefined its neutrality to non-alignment, and then after 2022 completely discarded it, applied for NATO, went in, and is now a proud member of the alliance with U.S. bases, 17 U.S. bases, and even recently the agreement that the United States could station nuclear weapons. I mean, it went into a complete reverse gear. So this, together with the memory of having been a neutral and a very successful one at that, how did that go down last year? As you said, Finland couldn't but try to remember its diplomatic past. #Tord Björk It was really interesting, and we've been studying this very much in detail, following every step in how they prepared it and what was said, etc. Much of it is online, so it's possible to look for everyone. The problem was, of course, that they had to kill peace as a concept. So they mass- produced this idea that there is no such thing as peace anymore and no peace movement. The story -- 3 of 17 -- behind this Helsinki Final Act in 1975 is not at all mainly a story of the states, the Soviet acting, or Kekkonen, the president of Finland. It's a very different story. It's the story that the Finnish peace movement is totally unique in all the Western world. It was the only place where more, what can be said, bourgeois pacifist organizations joined with the peace committees. The only place on Earth that it could take place, and that they developed already in the 1940s. And that made it possible for the Peace Committee to have their world headquarters in Helsinki. It also made it possible to have a student and youth festival, which had been going on since the late 1940s in many places on Earth. And for the first time ever, it was in Vienna, in the West. But in 1961, it took place in Helsinki. And it was so violently attacked by the right-wing activists that it was possible for President Kekkonen to go to the cultural activities of this festival, which made an explosion of popular interest in building friendship societies. So Finland still has something like hundreds of friendship societies with any kind of countries. So it became a mass interest in, oh, well, why don't we build friendship with people? And with that popular base, it was fully possible for President Kekkonen then to move forward with this Helsinki thing. That is totally erased in the history, never mentioned, not even by the peace movement themselves in Finland. I had to bring it up. And it's very clear when you see pictures from peace manifestations already today. You see the symbols: the pacifists, the anti-imperialists, and the militarists, you know, they go there side by side. The second step was to erase the peace movement from the follow-up of the Helsinki Agreement. So the president, Stubb, the president at the moment, he claimed that the whole result of Helsinki was the defeat of communism. Capitalism defeated communism. So the only result of the whole effort was how this was enabling liberty in the Soviet bloc, and that brought down this communist regime. There was never any mass peace movement. It doesn't exist in the narrative of the Finnish politicians. So this way they sort of erase the memory that it was the combination of these things that produced the results. #Pascal It's a complete rewriting of history. And as you said, killing peace and also killing the whole concept of neutrality, of the ability to access everybody, complete erasure and just absolute total victory of us against the others, of good versus evil. A really stupid conception. And honestly, the difference between Alexander Stubb, your president today, and Urho Kekkonen, your president in the '60s and '70s, I mean, it couldn't be larger. Urho Kekkonen was a mastermind and also a brilliant geostrategist. And I would say the second probably most important neutral leader of the Cold War besides Tito. But all of that memory is gone, isn't it? #Tord Björk -- 4 of 17 -- Yeah, we'll see if the memory is gone because, you know, history tends to place things back in place again. It's not only that he was geopolitical. The interesting thing, he had the background in the rural party, the Center Party. And there was this class alliance between the very radical working- class movement and the rural. And that built sort of—it was not only that, well, I talked about the peace movement, but there was a sort of mass base in terms of when they did things, it happened all over the country, both in the cities and the rural