Member of parliament and finance minister During the
Finnish Civil War Ryti played no active part, remaining in hiding with his family in Red-dominated
Helsinki. Afterwards, however, he would become deeply involved in politics, being elected a
National Progressive member of
Parliament in 1919, at the age of thirty the second youngest member. In the same year, the party candidate, an admirer of Ryti,
Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, was elected the first president of Finland. Ryti served as a member of Parliament from 1919 to 1924 and from 1927 to 1929. During his first few years in Parliament, Ryti served as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and later the Finance Committee. He also served as a member of
Helsinki City Council from 1924 to 1927. According to the Finnish historian Martti Turtola, Ryti succeeded in politics in the first few years after the Finnish Civil War because his liberal, democratic, and republican ideals were popular then. Moreover, Ryti's personal political success continued even after his liberal-oriented National Progressive Party shrank to a fringe party, because he was considered an expert especially in economic policy and, very importantly, an impartial servant of the fatherland who refused to play partisan politics (see Martti Turtola,
Risto Ryti: A Life for the Fatherland). In 1921, the thirty-two-year-old Ryti was appointed
finance minister in the government of
Juho Vennola. He served in that position twice until 1924. In 1923 President Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg appointed him governor of the
Bank of Finland, a post he remained in until he became prime minister in 1939. Ryti only began to exercise his duties as chairman of the Bank of Finland after he resigned as finance minister in January 1924. During his early years in parliament, Ryti succeeded in bringing order to the
government budget. Although he was a Ståhlbergian, Ryti did not approve of pardoning
Red prisoners. In his opinion, the Reds were criminals. Ryti refused to see the social background of the Finnish Civil War.
Governor of the national bank In 1925 Ryti was nominated by the national progressives as their candidate in that
years presidential election at the age of 36. In the second round of voting, he received the most support. However, in the third round the
Swedish People's Party, which held the balance, moved their votes to
Lauri Kristian Relander, and Ryti lost to Relander by 109 votes to 172. Ryti's support increased over the years but was never enough in elections. During the 1930s he withdrew from daily politics, but influenced economic policies. Ryti was an orthodox supporter of
classical liberal economics. He made his goal to tie the value of
Finnish markka to the
gold standard. Unlike many other European countries, Finland did not choose
deflationary solutions under his leadership; and in 1926 the country shifted to the gold markka. However, after the
Great Depression in 1929, Finland was forced to abandon the gold standard following the example of Great Britain. In the 1920s, Ryti established international contacts with the banking world of
Scandinavia, and with Great Britain and the United States. The
Wall Street Journal recognized his success. In 1934 he was awarded a British honour, being created a Knight Commander of the
Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) due to his great merits in Anglo-Finnish relations. He had excellent relations with the leaders of the
Bank of England, due to his similar economic policies, such as the belief in the gold standard until the
Great Depression, and due to his excellent command of English. In fact, Ryti could regularly telephone the Bank of England's leaders when he wanted to discuss economic or financial policies with them (see Martti Turtola, "Risto Ryti: A Life for the Fatherland"). Ryti participated in the activities of the League of Nations as a member of many committees dealing with economic questions and
monetary policy. In the politics of the 1930s, Ryti was an important background figure. His social policy was two-minded. Ryti opposed work programmes for the
unemployed and spending on assistance for poor. On the other hand, he thought that the benefits of the strong economics should be distributed evenly over the whole population, not just a few. Ryti played an important part in creating the social
welfare of the late 1930s. In general, Ryti was opposed to
state intervention in business and industry. He opposed
Socialist economics and especially its Soviet forms. Furthermore, Ryti had experienced the Russification period and the Civil War, making him
anti-Soviet. Ryti approved of neither German
national socialism nor right-wing extremism, and he also opposed the
Lapua movement. Ryti was an admirer of British civilisation and
culture and of American
free enterprise. ==Prime minister and president==