Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

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Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#1

Post by durb » 22 Oct 2014, 16:52

When reading Max Jakobson´s classical work The Diplomacy of Winter War (Diplomaattien Talvisota), one can not avoid the impression that Eljas Erkko was a poor choice for Finnish Foreign minister in late 1930´s. It almost seems that diplomacy and foreign policy were the blind spots of this otherwise remarkable man.

When discussing Winter War, I can not avoid the nagging feeling that Finnish politicians did not understand enough geopolitical realities and were naive. Also too stiff - even the smallest compromise with Soviets was seen as a big threat to Finnish independence. Thus a niet-policy and image of "unbreakable rock" was built - Erkko being a great example of this hard line. But was it really wise and did it serve the very best interests of Finnish nation?

It may well be that by late 1930´s Soviet Union was anyway going to annex Finland to the family of Soviet nations as it did with the Baltic states, but is there a undeniable proof - "smoking gun" - showing that this was the ultimate Soviet goal right from the start of so-called Yartsev negotiations in 1938? AFAIK no proof. Was it a goal in Stein conversations in spring 1939? AFAIK no proof. So far I have not seen anyone presenting "smoking gun" documents found from Soviet archives. If the "smoking gun" document exists, please show it and confirm that it´s date is long before Winter War.

More likely Soviet ambitions and demands grew gradually according to geopolitical changes - by summer 1939 the Finland Gulf islands would have been enough. By autumn 1939 Soviet position was so strong, that it could present more far-reaching territorial claims and demand military base at Finnish continent. Finally the military action was taken with the setup of puppet governement (putting up Terijoki governement made it clear to everyone that Soviet goal was to annex whole Finland).

Also one should note the gradual strenghtening of Soviet position after Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Did Eljas Erkko and Finnish governement not realise this geopolitical change and all of its implications? AFAIK, this was not realised and Finns naively thought that Germany or Sweden would somehow support them against Soviets. In both cases disillusion, although Swedish volunteers and material help should not be underestimated.

Before Molotov-Ribbentrop pact the islands of Finnish Gulf including Suursaari (Hogland) could well have been leased for Soviet Union for agreeable compensation (the islands were lost anyway both in Winter War and Continuation War). Suursaari and other outer Finnish Gulf islands could not be held militarily and Mannerheim advocated the leasing of them to Soviets - maybe it would have not stopped Soviet expansion ambitions but at least a undeniable good gesture would have been made and we would not have a small nagging feeling that the inflexible and irrealistic Finnish foreign policy played also its small part in the events to come later. Finnish governement would have made reasonable well to meet Soviet security demands and thus made all it could have possibly made without jeopardising Finnish independence. But Mannerheim´s advice was not heard on spring 1939. Let´s say that Winter War was 90 % of Soviet aggression and 10 % of bad Finnish foreign policy.

Although Jakobsson does not say it directly, Eljas Erkko appears in his book as a man who repeatedly made wrong conlusions and was unable to admit his mistakes, showed little understanding of geopolitical realities and was uncapable to show any flexibility. Erkko´s wrong analysis may have seriously misled Finnish governement. It seems, that Erkko was a wrong man placed in a wrong job in the wrong time.

Of course it is easy to criticise Erkko afterwards because we have the information that he did not have. But still...a foreign minister who does not like to travel to negotiations in which the very fate of his country might be at stake and who declared that the place of foreing minister was to be together with his government at Helsinki.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#2

Post by JariL » 23 Oct 2014, 14:25

Erkko was not alone. President Kyösti Kallio did not want to make concessions either. Kallio has often been downplayed as being weak and an amateur in foreign policy but he had a very clear sense of duty and firm principles he followed in his life. Kallio had seen what the divide among own ranks had done in 1918 and firmly believed that an outside attack was a lesser evil than internal disruption. Given that he commented Poland's resistance against Germany with the words "Finally someone is shooting back!" he seems to have believed that also the small and insignificant have the right and obligation to defend their values. This was certainly naive in 1939 given the circumstances but would realism have been any better solution? When the world turns mad reason may count for little. What reasoning could have saved Poland? Or Czechoslovakia?

Political decisions are seldom made with all facts known. On the contrary, there is a lot of confusion and contradictory information, "good" advice from friends, threats from foes etc. that make decision making difficult. Thus evidence of Soviet annexation plans is not important when looking at decision making in 1939 unless it could be proven that the Finnish governmnet had access to such information. Naturally, such documents might proove "ex post" that the decisions were correct but even that would be academic.


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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#3

Post by Karelia » 23 Oct 2014, 18:12

It appears to be obvious, that the soviets wanted to get all of Finland (too) - in one way or the other. Whether the Finnish politicians were willing to make enough compromises or not is irrelevant. The Baltic examples demonstrate, how after every compromise there was the next soviet demand waiting. The end result would have been the same for Finland too: soviet occupation of the hole country.

Accepting all soviet demands in autumn 1939 would have meant total Finnish surrender to the soviets - a suicide. The Finnish politicians are not to be blamed, since their decisions did not make any real difference. Of course the soviets would have preferred to occupy Finland by bullying, but if not, starting a war was not a problem.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#4

Post by durb » 24 Oct 2014, 04:47

Accepting the Soviet demands in autumn 1939 is not so much the viable alternative timeline option that I have in mind. More it is about leasing Suursaari - it could well have been all island included in "islands package", which Mannerheim advised to give to Soviets on the spring 1939 when Boris Stein was negotiating in Helsinki. Once that deal done and islands leased to USSR, there could not have been any reasonable Soviet claim that Finns were ignoring the security of Leningrad. What is more important, leasing Suursaari and other islands to USSR would not have made any harm of Finland´s ability to defend herself and thus it would not have been such compromise which would have put the whole Finnish indepence in doubt.

Had the leasing of islands of Finnish Gulf helped to avoid the war? Honestly I do not know and probably no-one else knows. Anyway Mannerheim was ready to give up from those islands and give Soviets something at the time when they were not yet so "hungry". It would have been a very good gesture toward USSR by a country which had good reason to consider USSR as its only potential enemy and in which Communist party was illegal. Maybe leasing the islands would have been taken by Stalin only as a first step of occupying all Finland but we can not say that for sure.

If there was a Soviet "step-by-step" plan to annex Finland all the time in storage it would be just interesting to know if such document has been found from Soviet archives. If such document does not exist, we are just guessing what were the true Soviet goals in 1938 (Yartsev-phase) and in spring/summer 1939 (Stein-phase) and by October 1939 (when negotiations in Moscow started).

Would leasing Suursaari and other islands in summer 1939 spared Finns from more far-reaching demands of autumn 1939? We just do not know - if Erkko had been little more flexible and listened the good advice of Mannerheim, things could have been different but how much? We just do not know - Erkko decided that no leasing of islands because the whole Finnish territory was one and undivided by constitution - and this was one of the decisions of the timeline which led to Winter War.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#5

Post by Topspeed » 19 Feb 2015, 18:06

Wasn't the troopers in Suomussalmi in 1939 found with a plan to cut Finland in half in a week after crossing the border. There is your heavily smoking gun. You might also know what soviets did to old Czar officers on the white's side ?

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#6

Post by StefanSiverud » 21 Feb 2015, 02:29

Let's use the benefit of hindsight: Which country that gave in to Soviet demands in the Stalin era did not lose a lot more than they had agreed to?

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#7

Post by durb » 22 Feb 2015, 20:41

Surprise, there were Soviet plans to attack Finland already by 1920´s! But they were just wargames...

Wargames as HQ exercise and military plans are not necessarily the same thing than attacking and occupying the neighbouring country. Also Finnish HQ made same kind of wargame practices and theoretical plans to attack Eastern Karelia in 1930´s - does anyone consider that as a serious Finnish plan to attack Soviet Union? This kind of military exercise and planning in which neighbouring country is "attacked" was quite routine wargaming.

The Soviet goals regarding to Finland may well have been different during the 1930´s. At first point there was a question of islands of Finnish Gulf - according to Mannerheim those islands had not any strategic value to Finland and could well have been leased without any harm to Finnish independence/neutrality. Would there have been more demands with the aim of sovietize Finland is questionable up to autumn 1939. It may well be that no compromise was possible but was everything possible really tried to achieve reasonable compromise by Finnish side? I´m quite sure that if the Finnish politicians would have known that Soviets would attack once talks failed - then they would have been more willing to compromise. This is evident when one takes in account the shock reaction of Erkko & others when the war started. They erroneusly thought that Soviets were just bluffing with their demands and were not to be taken seriously.

Perhaps the very problem was the borderline drawn in Tarto peace conference in 1920 - Soviet Russia was at that point weak and it had to make compromises which it would not have done in a stronger position. Already by that time Soviets wanted the borderline further from the city of St. Petersburg and offered some forest areas in Northern Karelia as compensation. Once the Soviet/Russian position was stronger, they wanted to "correct" the Tarto boundaries like they had proposed already in 1920. The old border between Finnish Grand Duchy and Russian Empire was not strategically problem when both Finland and Russia belonged to same empire. Once Finland became independent, things changed and "the safety of St. Petersburg/Leningrad" became an issue to be taken seriously on the table some day...

By late autumn/early winter (Nov. 1939) the Soviet/Stalin goal was to occupy whole Finland with the help of puppet governement - this is so clear that no point to discuss it. But was this step already well planned by Stalin in 1938? I think that not yet by that point. By spring and summer 1939? I think that not yet even by that point. Somewhere in the late autumn 1939 the fateful decision was made, but not before that.

If Stalin & Co. have had right knowledge of Finnish society and politics, they would have thought more carefully about the invasion to Finland and more importantly how far it would be sensible to go to pressurize Finnish. Just those small island at Finnish Gulf...

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#8

Post by Vaeltaja » 23 Feb 2015, 08:23

durb wrote:Surprise, there were Soviet plans to attack Finland already by 1920´s! But they were just wargames...
There were also Soviet wargames played out in later 1930s that used a scenario which started with 'imaginary border incident at Mainila'...
The Soviet goals regarding to Finland may well have been different during the 1930´s. At first point there was a question of islands of Finnish Gulf - according to Mannerheim those islands had not any strategic value to Finland and could well have been leased without any harm to Finnish independence/neutrality. Would there have been more demands with the aim of sovietize Finland is questionable up to autumn 1939. It may well be that no compromise was possible but was everything possible really tried to achieve reasonable compromise by Finnish side? I´m quite sure that if the Finnish politicians would have known that Soviets would attack once talks failed - then they would have been more willing to compromise.
So Soviets make a demand without giving anything in return -as was the case with the islands - and you see it fit that Finns would have needed to find a compromise? Compromise to what? To Soviet blackmailing? As can be seen from the events on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea the Soviet demands prior to the Winter War were just the thin edge of the wedge.
Once Finland became independent, things changed and "the safety of St. Petersburg/Leningrad" became an issue to be taken seriously on the table some day...
Why? Short distance from the border to a major city were not exactly a rarity in Europe at that time. So why exactly would just that be so huge problem?
If Stalin & Co. have had right knowledge of Finnish society and politics, they would have thought more carefully about the invasion to Finland and more importantly how far it would be sensible to go to pressurize Finnish. Just those small island at Finnish Gulf...
No, the correct choice would have been to demand nothing. The islands were not militarized so it wasn't as if they would constitute a threat of any kind to begin with. Finnish society with its Social Democratic majority was not in any manner of speaking interested in going to war. Not unless provoked and that is exactly what the Soviet Union did.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#9

Post by Topspeed » 23 Feb 2015, 09:21

durb wrote: I´m quite sure that if the Finnish politicians would have known that Soviets would attack once talks failed - then they would have been more willing to compromise. This is evident when one takes in account the shock reaction of Erkko & others when the war started. They erroneusly thought that Soviets were just bluffing with their demands and were not to be taken seriously....
Are you forgetting that Germany and USSR had divided eastern Europe into their spheres of interest and Ribbentrop gave free hands to Molotov/Stalin over Finland. USSR also needed a practise ground to test their teeth on someone..before the clash that was about to come. Having Finland under his thumb it would have been a lot easier to wage war against Germany in the future ( and "liberate" the working class in Finland in the process ). Fighting the Winter War with Finland 1939-1940....ensured the victory in Barbarossa for the USSR. This is clearly recorded when Adolf Hitler visited Mannerheim in Mikkeli in 1942...german tanks were unmaneuvereable in the Russian winter. The almost stalemate against finns in 1939-1940 was a valuable lesson for the soviets...and they were able to create a movable fast assault tank T-34 SOTKA.

Had the soviets had these in 1939 and Finland would be no more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#10

Post by Juha Tompuri » 23 Feb 2015, 21:40

durb wrote: What is more important, leasing Suursaari and other islands to USSR would not have made any harm of Finland´s ability to defend herself and thus it would not have been such compromise which would have put the whole Finnish indepence in doubt.
Soviet Air, Naval and Marine bases ready there when Winter War started being of no harm?
Soviet long range coastal/railway artillery ready there, being able to fire to Haapasaaret, Kirkonmaa, Rankki and Mustamaa Islands/coastal artilley bases. Also in theory Finnish coast ca. from Bay of Loviisa to shores of Virolahti (including for instance City of Kotka) would have been within the range of them.
No harm?

Regards, Juha
Last edited by Juha Tompuri on 23 Feb 2015, 23:06, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: adding info

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#11

Post by Topspeed » 24 Feb 2015, 14:26

I agree with Juha....soviets were really sly when asking just an itzy bitzy piece first. Why weren't they satisfied to Suursaari after the Winter war ?

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#12

Post by durb » 25 Feb 2015, 17:01

Mannerheim was ready to give Suursaari & other islands to be leased for the Soviets. It depends how one interpretes the situation - from Soviet point of view they would have been defence outposts for St. Petersburg, from Finnish they could be seen as outposts for further potential attack toward west. However Mannerheim was not too preoccupied about the later possibility - he was of course worried about potential Soviet attack, but not worried about the role of islands of Finnish Gulf in such a attack.

There was no question of "giving away" the islands without compensation in negotiations of 1939 - the islands would have been leased and (Soviet) monetary compensation had to be paid to the fishermen communities who would have to leave their homes in those islands. Anyway the question is academical as the islands were lost anyway during the war - in the very first days of Winter War they were evacuated and there was absolutely no way to keep them in Finnish hands. Thus Mannerheim was willing to cede the islands to Soviets for some acceptable compensation as they could not been held by Finnish forces in the case of war. As far as I know Finns had no plans to put up any fortresses in these islands and they did not form any vital part in prewar defence plans.

Why Suursaari & other concessions demanded in autumn 1939 were not enough for Soviets by Feb. 1940?

By Feb./March 1940 it was obvious that Soviets had grossly miscalculated the prize of war and thus needed to get such territorial gains which could be prestented as worthy of all military sacrifices. Thus more land had to be grabbed than by those terms presented in autumn 1939 - showing that Finland was "punished" for not agreeing with Soviet terms earlier. Soviets had to grab more land than just something small which barely would have been enough to bury all the Soviet soldiers killed and died during the Winter War.

It would be wrong to call Winter War as "Erkko´s war" - it was more Stalin´s war - but still the picture which I get of Erkko on the books (specially Jakobson) regarding the diplomatic aspect of Winter War is that Erkko was in a wrong place as foreign minister. There was no need to lick Stalin´s boots, but there was a need for more flexible and above all more realistic approach - the very basic essence of competent diplomat.

The very problem was of course that both Finnish and Soviet side had not right picture nor enough information for decision making. They had to make decisions by guessing and relying often in inadequate information. Wrong information, wrong guesses, wrong evaluations leading to bad decisions - that´s what the wars are made of...

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#13

Post by Vaeltaja » 25 Feb 2015, 18:50

durb wrote:Mannerheim was ready to give Suursaari & other islands to be leased for the Soviets. It depends how one interpretes the situation - from Soviet point of view they would have been defence outposts for St. Petersburg, from Finnish they could be seen as outposts for further potential attack toward west. However Mannerheim was not too preoccupied about the later possibility - he was of course worried about potential Soviet attack, but not worried about the role of islands of Finnish Gulf in such a attack.

There was no question of "giving away" the islands without compensation in negotiations of 1939 - the islands would have been leased and (Soviet) monetary compensation had to be paid to the fishermen communities who would have to leave their homes in those islands. Anyway the question is academical as the islands were lost anyway during the war - in the very first days of Winter War they were evacuated and there was absolutely no way to keep them in Finnish hands. Thus Mannerheim was willing to cede the islands to Soviets for some acceptable compensation as they could not been held by Finnish forces in the case of war. As far as I know Finns had no plans to put up any fortresses in these islands and they did not form any vital part in prewar defence plans.
Reason why no defenses were built there and why no troops were stationed there was that in Tarto treaty of 1920 those islands had been demilitarized. Which is the reason why no one really worried of defending them - it was impossible, so there was no reason to worry about it.
By Feb./March 1940 it was obvious that Soviets had grossly miscalculated the prize of war and thus needed to get such territorial gains which could be prestented as worthy of all military sacrifices. Thus more land had to be grabbed than by those terms presented in autumn 1939 - showing that Finland was "punished" for not agreeing with Soviet terms earlier. Soviets had to grab more land than just something small which barely would have been enough to bury all the Soviet soldiers killed and died during the Winter War.
Problem with this is that the Soviet plans clearly indicated that their intent was to capture whole of Finland. Captured documents, captured orders, detailed route descriptions with intelligence reaching all they to the Swedish border, formation of Kuusinen's puppet government, Molotov demands of getting 'free hands' to 'deal with' Finland late in 1940 etc. etc. Which again indicates that the Soviet pre-war demands were just the thin edge of the wedge.
It would be wrong to call Winter War as "Erkko´s war" - it was more Stalin´s war - but still the picture which I get of Erkko on the books (specially Jakobson) regarding the diplomatic aspect of Winter War is that Erkko was in a wrong place as foreign minister. There was no need to lick Stalin´s boots, but there was a need for more flexible and above all more realistic approach - the very basic essence of competent diplomat.

Being 'flexible' and having 'more realistic approach' was exactly what the Baltic States had. And that plan didn't exactly pan out did it? Their case proved that Soviets demands didn't match up with what they intended to accomplish - as they say "give him an inch and he'll take a yard."
The very problem was of course that both Finnish and Soviet side had not right picture nor enough information for decision making. They had to make decisions by guessing and relying often in inadequate information. Wrong information, wrong guesses, wrong evaluations leading to bad decisions - that´s what the wars are made of...
All that needed to disappear was the Soviet plan of conquering Finland and restoring the borders of pre-revolutionary Russia.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#14

Post by Topspeed » 25 Feb 2015, 19:46

I agree...life of the finns as an independent nation wasn't worth a spit for the die hard bolseviks that runned the country called USSR.

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Re: Eljas Erkko - one of lesser architects of Winter War?

#15

Post by Heikki Jansson » 12 Mar 2015, 16:09

durb wrote:Although Jakobsson does not say it directly, Eljas Erkko appears in his book as a man who repeatedly made wrong conlusions and was unable to admit his mistakes, showed little understanding of geopolitical realities and was uncapable to show any flexibility. Erkko´s wrong analysis may have seriously misled Finnish governement. It seems, that Erkko was a wrong man placed in a wrong job in the wrong time.
Erkko did btw. give the order in November -39 that the Moscow negotiations must be discontinued. The negotiators in Moscow only did as they were told when they stopped further talks.

Prof. Tuomo Polvinen has - among others, including prof. Heikki Ylikangas - explained Erkko's incoherent behaviour with the bluff theory - Erkko was convinced that the Soviets were, like in a card game, only bluffing. Whatever SU said was a bluff.

So, you only need to call the bluff, Erkko thought. That is what Erkko did, so we kept our headstrong positions in the talks. The finns did not compromise. The finns assumed that the Soviets were only bluffing.

We know the result - a catastrophe compared to what would have been lost in negotiations if we would have compromised. Even if we would have accepted the SU's proposal as such, in November -39. But we did not.

No wonder that J.K. Paasikivi called the war "Erkko's war"!

Well, Erkko did not any more participate in the next government. Hee was fired but that did not help the finns. We were alone in war - against the Soviet Union. Alone. Tut solo.

Everyone knew what the result would be. We lost everything we had negotiated for (borders) including Hanko. We lost also everything that the Soviet had already agreed to. We also lost a lot more, like 100 times more.

It took the Soviets four months to achieve. Then the peace was dictated to the Finns in Moscow 105 days later.

But then the Finns did understand that the Soviets had not been bluffing. Stalin had said: either you give what we ask or you both give what we ask and cry. The Finns chose the latter.

Erkko's war – the Winter War - was hopelessly lost.

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