Background of the Winter War
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The background of the Winter War covers the period before the outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union (1939–1940), which stretches from the Finnish Declaration of Independence in 1917 to the Soviet-Finnish negotiations in 1938–1939.
Before its independence, Finland had been an
During the late 1920s and the early 1930s, relations with the Soviet Union had normalized to a degree, but in 1938, the Soviets feared that Finland could be used as a springboard for an invasion and so started negotiations to conclude a military agreement. Meanwhile, Soviet leader
The nature of the Soviet demands, which included the installation of Soviet military facilities on Finnish soil, made them go nowhere.[5]
In August 1939, the Soviet Union and
The Soviet Union demanded territories on the
Prewar Finland
First steps of republic
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-02454%2C_Genf%2C_Schlusssitzung_des_V%C3%B6lkerbundrates.jpg/220px-Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-02454%2C_Genf%2C_Schlusssitzung_des_V%C3%B6lkerbundrates.jpg)
Finland had been the eastern part of the
The outbreak of the
After the First World War, an intergovernmental organisation, the League of Nations, was founded, whose goals included preventing war through collective security and settling disputes between countries through negotiations and diplomacy. Finland joined the League in 1920.[10]
In the 1920s and the 1930s, Finland was politically diverse. The
By the late 1930s, country had its export-oriented economy growing, had solved most of its "right-wing problem", and was preparing for the 1940 Summer Olympics.[10]
Finnish–German relations
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d2/Jaakariliike.jpg/220px-Jaakariliike.jpg)
During the closing stages of the First World War, German-trained
Finnish–German relations cooled after the
Finnish Nazis and
Finnish–Swedish relations
After Finland had achieved independence and ended the civil war, the other
Finland sought security guarantees from the League of Nations, but did not have high expectations. Sweden was one of the founding members of the League and so framed its military policies based on the League's principles of disarmament and sanctions.[14] In the mid-1920s, the Finns established a special planning committee, the Erich Committee, which was named after its chairman, Rafael Erich, and had top politicians and officers aiming to explore possible military collaboration of Finland with other nations. The prime goal was co-operation with the Scandinavian countries, of which Sweden was the most important prospective partner.[14]
The Finnish and Swedish militaries engaged in wide-ranging co-operation, but it was more focused on the exchange of information and defence planning for the Åland Islands than on
Secret military co-operation with Estonia
Finnish–Estonian relations were closest diplomatically after the
Estonia also sought public security guarantees and signed the Baltic Entente in 1934 with Latvia and Lithuania.[3]
Relations with the United Kingdom and France
After the collapse of Imperial Germany in November 1918, the Finns sought new political partners. The
Relations with France were important after the First World War and in the 1920s as France played a leading role in the new European security arrangements. In the 1930s, France started to fear the rise of Germany and initiated a rapprochement with the Soviet Union, which strained Franco–Finnish relations. However, during the Winter War, France was one of the most important suppliers of military materiel.[15]
Finnish defence plans
The
Finland had a limited
Prewar Soviet Union
One of the main targets of Stalin's
Finnish–Soviet relations
Diplomatic relations
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/46/Soviet-finnish-nonaggression-pact-1932.jpg/220px-Soviet-finnish-nonaggression-pact-1932.jpg)
The relationship between the Soviet Union and Finland had been tense from the legacy of the two periods of Russification at the turn of the century; the failed Finnish Civil War and incursions by groups of Finnish nationalists; and the Viena expedition in 1918 and the Aunus expedition of 1919 into Russian East Karelia.[9]
On 14 October 1920, Finland and
In 1928, the Soviet Union began collectivization in Ingria. During the collectivization and the ethnic cleansing, the Soviets captured, killed and deported Ingrian peasants, which provoked widespread criticism by the Finnish media in 1930. Two years later, the nationalist Lapua Movement attempted to overthrow the Finnish government during the Mäntsälä rebellion.[21]
Nevertheless, in the 1930s, the diplomatic climate between Finland and the Soviet Union gradually improved. In the 1920s, the Soviet Union had offered different non-aggression pacts with Finland, but they were all rejected. The offer was renewed as part of a series of agreements with countries on the Soviets' western border. In 1932, the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact with Finland, which was reaffirmed in 1934 for ten years.[21]
Relations between the two countries remained largely distant, however. Foreign trade in Finland was
Stalin and protection of Leningrad
After the
However, in 1937, Stalin encouraged Russian chauvinism, which implied Russians to be politically and culturally superior.[25][26] The Soviet diplomacy turned towards the recovery of the territories of the Russian Empire. The Soviet Union used the Communist International to announce a doctrine in which bourgeoisie equalled fascism and that communism was the natural agency of the proletariat. In practice, this meant that anything other than communism would be considered anti-Soviet and fascist.[23] The Soviet foreign policy was a mixture of the ideology of world revolution and the traditional concerns of Russian national security.[27]
Under
In the late 1930s, the Soviet Union was no longer satisfied with the
In 1938, Sweden was no longer a major threat to Russia, but the Soviets had not forgotten the role that the Finnish-controlled Åland islands had played as a base of operations for the German Expeditionary Force helping the Whites during the Finnish Civil War.[2]
Finnish–Soviet negotiations
From 1938 to early 1939
In April 1938, a junior diplomatic official,
If Finland fought against Germany, the Soviet Union would offer all possible economic and military assistance. The Soviets would also accept the fortification of Åland islands but demanded "positive guarantees" on Finland's position.[31][32][33]
The Finns assured Yartsev that Finland was committed to a policy of neutrality and that they would resist any armed incursion. Yartsev was not satisfied with the reply because of Finland's military weakness. He suggested that Finland could either cede or lease some islands in the
Negotiations continued in autumn 1938. The Soviets reduced their demands: a
The Finns attempted to appear impartial, and the interior ministry issued an order banning the far-right IKL. The ban was reversed by the Finnish courts as being unconstitutional. Many years later, the minister then in charge, Urho Kekkonen, admitted that it had been a simple gesture to suggest to Moscow that Finland did not harbour a German fifth column.[36]
By the winter of 1939, the Soviets further reduced their demands and sent
The Finns had many reasons to turn down the Soviet offer since they had started negotiations for a military co-operation with Sweden. The Finns had great hopes for the joint Finnish–Swedish defence of the Ålands islands and did not want to jeopardise their negotiations. In addition, the violent collectivisation, the
The Soviet envoys sent to negotiate with Finns were officially of a relatively low rank, but as Väinö Tanner stated, the Finns assumed rightly that they represented some higher state organ of state, probably the Soviet secret police, the NKVD.[31]
Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5d/Sdelka_veka.jpg/220px-Sdelka_veka.jpg)
On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany signed the
In the immediate aftermath of the pact, the Scandinavian countries and Finland were relieved. The Germans and Soviets were now allies and so there was no German threat against the Soviet Union. However, shortly afterward, Germany
Soviet demands in late 1939
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Soviet-finnish_negotiations_1939_borderline.png/250px-Soviet-finnish_negotiations_1939_borderline.png)
On 5 October, the Soviet Union invited Finland to negotiations in Moscow. The Finnish government did not hasten to comply, like the Estonian government earlier. Unlike the Baltic countries, the Finns started a gradual
The Soviets demanded for the frontier between the Soviet Union and Finland on the Karelian Isthmus to be moved westward to only 30 kilometres (19 mi) east of
The Soviet offer divided the Finnish government. Foreign Minister Eljas Erkko and Defence Minister Juho Niukkanen rejected the offer and were backed by President Kyösti Kallio. However, Paasikivi and Mannerheim, along with Väinö Tanner, who was later appointed as one of the Finnish negotiators, wanted to accept the Soviet offer.[27][38]The Finns counted on military assistance from Sweden, and Erkko took part in the Stockholm assembly of Scandinavian leaders on 19 October. There, Erkko privately met Swedish Foreign Minister Rickard Sandler, who assured him that he would persuade the Swedish government to assist Finland during a possible war. During the actual war, however, Sandler failed in that task and so resigned.[41]
Finland was totally isolated by a German and Soviet blockade and attempted in October to obtain arms and ammunition in absolute secrecy by enlisting the German arms dealer Josef Veltjens.[42]
On 31 October, Molotov announced the Soviet demands in public during a session of the
Beginning of war
Military preparations
The Soviet Union had started an intensive rearmament near the Finnish border in 1938 and 1939. Finnish students and volunteers had spent the late summer of 1939 improving the defensive structures across the Karelian Isthmus. On the Soviet side of the border, penal labour worked hard to add some density to sparse road and rail networks.[43] In the summer of 1939, an important phase of Soviet planning occurred as told by Aleksandr Vasilevsky and Kirill Meretskov in their memoirs. The Supreme Council of War ordered the Commander of Leningrad Military District Merestkov to draft an invasion plan, instead of Chief of Staff Boris Shaposhnikov. The plan was adopted in July.[44] The necessary assault troop deployments and commands were not initiated until October 1939, but operational plans made in September called for the invasion to start in November. Stalin, however, was certain that the Finns would change their minds under Soviet pressure and cede the demanded territories.[45]
The invasion plans were laid down by the Soviet General Staff under Boris Shaposhnikov and Aleksandr Vasilevsky. The Soviet timetable was clearly and rigidly defined, with little or no margin for error. The key date was 21 December, Stalin's 60th birthday. By then, the Finnish capital Helsinki would be "freed of the Fascist oppression". Andrei Zhdanov had already commissioned a celebratory piece from Dmitri Shostakovich, Suite on Finnish Themes, to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army would parade through Helsinki.[46]
On 26 November, the Soviets staged the shelling of Mainila, an incident in which Soviet artillery shelled an area near the Russian village of Mainila and announced that a Finnish artillery attack had killed Soviet soldiers.[47] The Soviet Union demanded that the Finns apologise for the incident and move their forces 20–25 km from the border. The Finns denied any responsibility for the attack, rejected the demands and called for a joint Finnish–Soviet commission to examine the incident. The Soviet Union claimed that the Finnish response was hostile and used it as an excuse to withdraw from the non-aggression pact.[48]
Red Army assaults
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/League_of_nations_rudolf_holsti_1939.png/220px-League_of_nations_rudolf_holsti_1939.png)
On 30 November, Soviet forces invaded Finland with 27 divisions, totalling 630,000 men, bombed civilian boroughs of Helsinki and quickly reached the Mannerheim Line. The shelling of Mainila was a casus belli of the Soviet Union as it had withdrawn from non-aggression pacts on 28 November. Germany had staged a similar incident to have an excuse to start war against Poland.[49] The Soviet Union would later use the Orzeł incident to challenge the neutrality of Estonia.
Later, the Finnish statesman Paasikivi commented that the Soviet attack, without a declaration of war, violated three non-aggression pacts: the Treaty of Tartu of 1920; the Non-aggression Pact between Finland and the Soviet Union, which was signed 1932 and again in 1934; and the Charter of the League of Nations.[48] The invasion was judged illegal by the League of Nations, which expelled the Soviet Union on December 14.[50]
After the Soviet attack, Mannerheim was appointed as commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defence Forces. Furthermore, the Finnish government changed, with Risto Ryti appointed as new prime minister and Väinö Tanner as foreign minister.[51]
On 1 December, the Soviet Union created a new government for Finland, to be called the
Contrary to Soviet expectations, from the beginning of the conflict, nearly all
See also
- Causes of World War II
- Timeline of the Winter War
- Background of the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states
References
- ^ a b Trotter 2002, pp. 3–5
- ^ a b c Edwards 2006, pp. 36–38
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 33–34.
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, pp. 28–29
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, p. 55
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 35–37.
- ^ "Soviet Demands October 1939" (PDF). histdoc.net. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
- ^ Chubaryan; Shukman 2002, p. xxi
- ^ a b Trotter 2002, pp. 5–6
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, p. 18
- ^ Edwards 2006, pp. 26–27
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 27–29.
- ^ "Parliamentary elections: 1927–2003". Statistics Finland. Archived from the original on 2012-05-26. Retrieved 11 August 2009.
- ^ a b c d Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 21–24.
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 29–30.
- ^ Juutilainen, Antti (1999). "Puolustussuunnittelmat 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 65–69.
- ^ Palokangas, Markku (1999). "Suomalaisjoukkojen aseistus ja varustus". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 299–335.
- ^ Courtois 1999, p. 198.
- ^ Conquest 2008, p. 211.
- OCLC 743409751. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
Stalin purged the Red Army officer corps in the years before the war, destroying some 80 percent of officers of all ranks, […] Stalin's onslaught resulted in a total of 82,000 executions […] Soviet leaders released him from prison in March 1940, following the disastrous Soviet attempt to take over Finland. That catastrophe brought home to Soviet leaders that the Red Army needed skilled commanders
- ^ a b c d e Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 30–33.
- ^ Edwards 2006, p. 23
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, pp. 43–46
- ^ Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos and Piirainen 2000, p. 79
- ^ Rayfield 2005, pp. 253–254
- ^ Timo Vihavainen: Nationalism and Internationalism. How did the Bolsheviks Cope with National Sentiments? in Chulos and Piirainen 2000, p. 85
- ^ a b Chubaryan; Shukman 2002, pp. xv–xvi
- ^ Edwards 2006, pp. 32–33
- ^ Rayfield 2005, pp. 280–281
- ^ Rayfield 2005, pp. 315–316
- ^ a b Edwards 2006, pp. 41–42
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 32–33.
- ^ a b Trotter 2002, pp. 12–13
- Toivo Kivimäkiin private on 15 June 1935 stating that "in case of a military conflict in the Mainland Europe, the Soviet Union could be forced to occupy some parts of Finland".
- ^ Polvinen 1992, pp. 432–433. Andrei Zhdanov made a public speech at the end of November 1936 stating that Finland should not be a base for the Germans. In that case, Finland would be target of the Red Army assault. The threat was similar than the earlier by Eric Assmus, but this time, it was published in Soviet newspapers.
- ^ Edwards 2006, pp. 48–51
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 34–35.
- ^ a b c d Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 38–41.
- ^ Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. p. 41.
- ^ Trotter 2002, pp. 14–16
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 41–43.
- ^ Veltjens 2009
- ^ Edwards 2006, p. 97
- ^ Manninen 1994, p. 107
- ^ Manninen, Ohto (1999). "Neuvostoliiton tavoitteet ennen talvisotaa ja sen aikana". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 141–148.
- ^ Edwards 2006, p. 98
- ^ Tanner 1950
- ^ a b Turtola, Martti (1999). "Kansainvälinen kehitys Euroopassa ja Suomessa 1930-luvulla". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. pp. 44–45.
- ^ Edwards 2006, p. 105
- ^ Minus a Member at Time magazine on Monday, December 25, 1939
- ^ Trotter 2002, p. 51
- ^ Trotter 2002, p. 58
- ^ Trotter 2002, p. 61
- ^ Soikkanen, Timo (1999). "Talvisodan henki". In Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti (eds.). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen. p. 235.
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- Chubaryan, Alexander O.; Shukman, Harold (2002). Stalin and the Soviet–Finnish war 1939–40. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-5203-2.
- Chulos, Chris J.; Piirainen, Timo, eds. (2000). The Fall of an Empire, the Birth of a Nation. Helsinki: Ashgate. ISBN 1-85521-902-6.
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- Leskinen, Jari; Juutilainen, Antti, eds. (1999). Talvisodan pikkujättiläinen (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö. p. 976. ISBN 951-0-23536-9.
- ISBN 952-9052-51-0.
- Polvinen, Tuomo; Heikkilä, Hannu; Immonen, Hannu (1992). J. K. Paasikivi. Valtiomiehen elämäntyö 2 : 1918–1939 (in Finnish). Porvoo, Helsinki, Juva: WSOY. ISBN 951-0-18122-6.
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First published in the United States under the title A Frozen Hell: The Russo–Finnish Winter War of 1939–40
- Veltjens, Klaus (2009). Seppl: a step ahead of politics. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-4421-4582-5.