What is worth fighting for

[Zep]

Isn't that been said over and over already? Russia/SU wanted to annex certain territories. I don't think these negotiations were of great importance. What matters is that they had decided the fate of Finland for themselves and were going to carry it out by whatever means necessary. And Russians are only stopped by brutal force equal or greater as it has been proved many times in history.

And I agreed with this estimate of the situation the first time. So...why didn't the Soviets simply start marching over Finland from east to west, and not bother negotiating at all?

 

[Zep]

Are you serious? Why not try and get something for nothing? Even if a tyrant like Stalin doesn't care about the bloodshed there's still the roubles needed to finance the war (plus all that effort to "spin"/cover-up any embarressing reverses).

As it turned out, there was no such thing as a free lunch - even for communists.

Well, I'm as serious as you would like to be.

Stalin cared not a whit for the cost of anything to do with the war, least of which were the finances. And the usual method of covering up military, or indeed ANY, embarrassing reverses was to simply expunge them from history and/or proclaim them victories instead. The Finnish campaign, being swept back to the gates of Moscow and beyond by Barbarossa, etc. All unworthy of mention, or "Great Victories". (Hence our own term for the homeopathy forums who delete whole swathes of posts by posters deemed unworthy by their admins: Stalin's Airbrush)

You can see exactly the same thing happening in North Korea today. Which is one reason why North Korea is considered a Stalinist state.

 

[Wire]

And I agreed with this estimate of the situation the first time. So...why didn't the Soviets simply start marching over Finland from east to west, and not bother negotiating at all?

What I meant is that there would have been aggression anyway. Soviets probably planned it this way (pseudocode):

Do negotiate n days.
If Finland assents then:
move forces in;
overthrow government;
start rapeing, looting and pillaging.

Else:
announce war;
move forces in;
overthrow government;
start rapeing, looting and pillaging.

Result would have been the same.

 

[Kerberos]

one of the reasons why Stalin made a pact with Hitler instead of Western Allies is that Hitler promised that he wouldn't interfere with Stalin's grab of the Baltic. Something that the Western Allies were not ready to do.

Do you have a link to that? I never heard of it, and it seems rather odd that the Allies would throw away a powerful ally, for the sake of preserving the sovereignty of three small and insignificant countries in the Russian sphere of interest.

The gains of Soviet Union from that war were miniscule compared with their losses, in particular if you consider that the abysmal performance of the Red Army in Winter War was one of the reasons why Hitler later thought that he could crush SU easily in a couple of weeks. So, it is possible that if Stalin hadn't ordered the invasion, Hitler wouldn't have attacked as early as in 1941 when the reorganization of the Red Army was still incomplete.

I'm no expert but wasn't the reorganization of the Red Army in large part caused by its abysmal performance in the Winter War?

 

[Wire]

Do you have a link to that? I never heard of it, and it seems rather odd that the Allies would throw away a powerful ally, for the sake of preserving the sovereignty of three small and insignificant countries in the Russian sphere of interest.

Western leaders were on much friendlier terms with Hitler than Stalin.

 

[LW]

Stalin cared not a whit for the cost of anything to do with the war, least of which were the finances.

The political tensions run very high in Europe in late 1939. Starting the war against Finland incurred a risk that Soviet Union would be drawn into the war between Western allies and Germany. And that wouldn't have been similar triffle that Stalin believed Finland would be. Doing the things peacefully would have lowered that risk.

And the war between SU and Western Allies might have come to pass. The leaders of UK and France offered to send official military help expeditions to Finland if the Finnish government asked for it.

The offer was declined, mainly because Finnish leaders realised that the Western allies wouldn't be able to send strong enough forces to stop the Red Army at the same time when they prepared for the expected German attack.

And the British archival sources have confirmed this viewpoint: the operation plans for the relief expedition concentrate on how to seize the Swedish mines to prevent the Germans from acquiring Swedish iron.

The Soviet high command actually believed that there already were British fighter squadrons operating in the Karelian Isthmus at the end of the war. At the Red Army crisis meeting in April, 1940 several participants claimed that the Red Air Force had shot down a couple of British Spitfires that were flying in British colours. Those claims were mistaken.

And the usual method of covering up military, or indeed ANY, embarrassing reverses was to simply expunge them from history and/or proclaim them victories instead.

I once managed to find the complete History of the Great Patriotic War, all six thick volumes published by the Marxist-Leninist Institute of the Central Committee of the Communist Party from an old books store. I bought it immediately, of course, even though my Russian is very, very bad.

Naturally, the book concentrates on the Eastern Front in 1941-45 but it gives also short accounts of war events in all other fronts. Except that I couldn't find any mention to Winter War at all. Or more precicely, it may have been mentioned in some part of the text that I don't understand, but there certainly are neither pictures, maps, nor captions that mention it.

 

[LW]

Do you have a link to that? I never heard of it, and it seems rather odd that the Allies would throw away a powerful ally, for the sake of preserving the sovereignty of three small and insignificant countries in the Russian sphere of interest.

I don't have an internet link available, I've read that from books. The Western Allies didn't really understand Stalin's mindset so the negotiations were troubled. For example, they kept insisting that the Red Army should first obtain a permission from the Poles before they could advance to fight Germans. This sort of thinking was alien to Stalin.

On the other hand, Stalin and Hitler understood each other very well. Even though they were ideologically worst enemies, both saw the advantage of arranging a deal (that at least Hitler thought temporary at start and probably Stalin also) and had no moral qualms about dividing the Eastern Europe between themselves.

I'm no expert but wasn't the reorganization of the Red Army in large part caused by its abysmal performance in the Winter War?

The Red Army was in the state of constant reorganizations with no well-defined goals starting from Tuhatchevski's execution, so the process started already before the war. But the Winter War showed the Soviet high command that they absolutely had to get their act together and do something quickly.

 

[RandFan]

I don't have an internet link available, I've read that from books. The Western Allies didn't really understand Stalin's mindset so the negotiations were troubled. For example, they kept insisting that the Red Army should first obtain a permission from the Poles before they could advance to fight Germans. This sort of thinking was alien to Stalin.

It's fair to ask for proof to a claim. And I will concede that I am not proof. However, I do have the same understanding as LW. If I have the time I will try and find support for the claim.

 

[LW]

It's fair to ask for proof to a claim.

You are correct. So I should have added "and since I'm away of my bookshelf I can't check it now".

 

[Kerberos]

Thanks for your replies, but you wont need to find links. I decided to get off my ass and check wikipedia and you are indeed correct. My scepticism was partially caused by my understanding that Hitler was the immediate enemy, an understanding that is of cause based on my knowledge of how things actually turned out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact
"In March 1939, Hitler's denunciation of the 1934 German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact was taken by the Soviets as a clear signal of Hitler's aggressive intentions. Litvinov, in April, outlined a French, British, Soviet alliance, with military commitment against Fascist powers, but Chamberlain's government procrastinated (partly because the Soviets demanded too much – a guarantee to the Baltic States, complete reciprocity and the right to send troops through Poland). However, Chamberlain, who already on 24th March had, with France, guaranteed Poland, now on 25th April signed a Pact of Mutual Assistance with Poland. Consequently, Stalin no longer feared that the West would leave the Soviet Union to fight Hitler alone; indeed, if, as seemed likely, Germany and the West went to war, the USSR could afford to remain neutral and wait for the capitalists to destroy each other."

 

[LW]

Because:

1) Finns refused to cede the "Main Line of Defence" to Soviets. Finns were prepared to cede territory in Karelian Isthmus, but the Soviets were not content with those areas and they demanded that the whole fortified area should be ceded to SU. (Note that this was the only area with fortified defences along the best attack route to inner Finland).

2) Finns refused to give Hanko as a base for the Red Army.

Some astute observers may have noticed that the Soviet Union included these two conditions in the peace terms. This may raise the question of whether the Finnish refusal to accept them before the war was actually important and why didn't the Soviets occupy Finland if it they were critical to the safety?

The answer can be summed with one word: Hitler.

When Soviets occupied the Baltic countries in 1940, they weren't ready to do the same for Finland, yet. Preparing the Hanko base took months and they had to also take care of the areas that they got with the peace settlement.

But in autumn 1940 they were preparing for a new campaign against Finland. However, before they committed to it, they asked the German opinion. And Hitler said: "No". It was not 1939 anymore. Hitler either had already decided to start Operation Barbarossa in 1941 or at least was seriously considering it. Any further Soviet expansion would not be desirable.

Also, the fall of Norway had brought the nickel mines in Petsamo (then Northern Finland) practically to German hands and the Germans could pressure Finland to sell most of the ore to them. Not that there were too many other options left since the British were the main pre-war customers and they were now blocked by German forces in Norway. In the later years Germany got 30% of all its nickel from Petsamo and the Germans realised its importance already in 1940: they couldn't let it fall into Soviet hands.

Stalin didn't want to antagonize Hitler over Finland, so he cancelled the invasion plans.