The situation in relationships between the USSR and Finland in the 1920s and 1930s was absolutely different to that in 19th century when Finland’s economic interest in the Russian market was a solid background of her political connection to metropolis. The period between the two world wars seems to be one of lost opportunities for Moscow and Helsinki to come closer together. One of the worst “defects” in their policies towards each other was that in the new historical situation the two governments considered their geographical proximity and their mutual economic interest from solely a military point of view. At the same time the stimulating role of economic ties was ignored. The first trade agreement between the USSR and Finland was signed only in June 1940. Had a trade agreement been signed in 1920 or at some other time between 1923 and 1927 when Moscow was ready to make some important concessions concerning the main principles governing Soviet-Finnish trade, the subsequent history of Finnish-Soviet relations might well have been quite different avoiding two wars, in 1939 and in 1941–1944.