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Taisto Kalevi Sorsa was born on 21. December 1930 in Keuruu to Oskari and
Elsa Sofia Sorsa. As a youngster he was active in the Social Democratic Youth
Movement, were he met his spouse Elli Irene Lääkäri.
Before his political carrier Kalevi Sorsa made a carrier as a journalist in
the 1950’s and civil servant at the UNESCO in Paris and Secretary General for
the Finnish UNESCO Committee in the 1960’s. Sorsa felt at home in Paris and the
UNESCO’s field of work represented many of the cultural values he held dear.
Kalevi Sorsas political career started when he unexpectedly was chosen Party
Secretary in 1969. He then became long-term president of the Social Democratic
Party and the longest running Prime Minister of Finland with his four
governments in the 1970’s and 80’s. The development of the Finnish Welfare State
advanced greatly under Sorsa’s leadership in the 1970’s and 80’s. Public
Services were developed, Social Security was strengthened and Finland became
socially, economically and culturally more equal and more prosperous. Kalevi
Sorsa’s public reforms were characterised by growth optimism and a belief in the
ideals of equality. He combined social democratic ideology and practical reform.
Under Sorsa’s governments Finland rose from the deep depression of the 70’s
to the fastest growing economy in Western Europe. Kalevi Sorsa has been
described as the safe guard of the “Korpilampi-spirit”, the Finnish consensus,
developer of the domestic economic life and promoter of international
co-operation. In the 1980’s Sorsas governments outlined and founded the Ministry
of the Enviroment.
Sorsa can be considered, besides a developer of the Welfare State, to be the
first truly internationalist Finnish Party President. He was internationally
disposed already in his youth. He considered the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights so important the learnt it by heart. Sorsa was a member of the
InterAction Council from 1992 to 2004. The Council prepared a Universal
Declaration of Human Responsibilities, which it seeks to be adopted by the UN
alongside the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In his last years Sorsa
strongly promoted the contents of the Declaration.
The relations to the Soviet Union, were a question of immense importance for
Finland after World War II. Kalevi Sorsa was one of the most central persons in
maintaining there relations.
Despite strong resistance, Sorsa and President Kekkonen drove through
together the EEC Free Trade Agreement, which later opened the door for
membership in the European Union. Kalevi Sorsa actively promoted European
integration.
In 1978 Kalevi Sorsa was elected Chair of the Socialist International’s
Working Group on Disarmament. Central support for this work was given by the
President of the SI, Willy Brandt. Sorsa was Vice President of the SI from 1980
to 1996.
Sorsa’s last official international mission for the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, when he was already retired, was to lead secret negotiations for a
resolution to the Cyprus question.
At the end of his active political career Sorsa was nominated as member of
the Board of the Bank of Finland. Retirement from the Bank of Finland in 1996
gave Sorsa a chance to return to his literary interests and to ideological
debate without the restraints of day-to-day politics. The readers of for example
the social democratic daily Uutispäivä Demari got to know a feisty Sorsa, who
told his mind and readily debated the issues.
Kalevi Sorsa worked till the end. When he passed away in 2004 from a serious
illness, he was working on several literary projects. Kalevi Sorsa was an
ideologue, who saw the surrounding world as a challenge. For Sorsa politics was
the art of the possible, but never a goal in itself. Politics were made for the
people and the environment, for a better world. Sorsa was not a demagogue, but
educator, who valued the educational work of the labour movement. Characteristic
for his actions was to make a difference, not to be seen.
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