Heh, he was thankfully nowhere near as nuts as Orbán.

As far as autocrats go, his rule could definitely have been much worse – we stayed independent from the USSR, no fucked up secret police hunting down dissidents, the press was free-ish except for anything negative related to Russia (they basically had their boot on our neck and we had to “behave” or they’d invade us again like the good neighbors they are), and so on.

Having a “president for life” isn’t exactly optimal, but since I had to grow up in a country with an autocratic leader I’m glad it was Kekkonen and not fucking Brezhnev or Tito.