[12] IKL kept its 14 seats in the elections of 1936 but was weakened by the overwhelming victory for the coming social democrat-agrarian coalition, under Prime Minister Aimo Kaarlo Cajander that would replace in the spring of 1937 the centrist minority government of Kyösti Kallio, which had, in turn, replaced the narrow right-wing minority government of Toivo Mikael Kivimäki.

[12] The strong new government soon moved against the IKL, with Urho Kekkonen, then Minister of the Interior, bringing legal proceedings against the movement late in 1938.

[15] The Winter War, and particularly the Moscow Peace, were seen by IKL and its sympathizers as the ultimate proof of the parliamentary government's failed foreign policy.

During the year after the Winter War, Finland's foreign policy was drastically changed, by and large to correspond with that of IKL, and Annala was even included in the Cabinet in January 1941, when all but one parties of the parliament were represented.

[17] After the initial enthusiasm of the Continuation War in 1941 waned during the first winter, IKL wasn't included in Edwin Linkomies' cabinet in spring 1943.

[20] Ideologically, IKL was ardently nationalist and anti-Communist, and endorsed an aggressive foreign policy against the Soviet Union and hostility towards the Swedish language.

The party received its main support from wealthy farmers, the educated middle-class, civil servants, the Lutheran clergy and university students.