Finland and Russia

[timoa]

Btw by the time of Winter war most of the Soviet tanks were obsolit.

<removed out of line comments.. timo>

Maybe you are right about obsolete tanks Oleg, Finnish forces had 29 antitank weapons against russian 1400 tanks but they managed to delay them anyway.

"The Russian 7th Army deployed on the Karelian isthmus had at it's disposal 6-7 divisions, backed up approx. 900 guns and 1400 tanks. The Finnish covering forces amassed no more than 21 500 with 71 artillery pieces and 29 AT-guns, but despite the fact that they were so heavily outnumbered, they managed to delay the onslaught for three days."

http://www30.brinkster.com/huttunen/winter.htm

[Oleg Grigoryev]

Poor poor russian soldiers. Pulled off from their routine tasks in whatever-grad and their field plowing and matushkas and made to attack big bad Finland. And not even given proper tanks!

Damn you Finland, what have you done!

are you feeling ok? what was that about anyway?

Finnish forces had 29 antitank weapons against russian 1400 tanks but they managed to delay them anyway.

yes -what is your point? as far as I know, the main AT weapon of Finnish army was Molotov cocktail -you had 29 bottles in total?:)

[timoa]

yes -what is your point? as far as I know, the main AT weapon of Finnish army was Molotov cocktail -you had 29 bottles in total?:)

hohohohoo. you take a bottle against a t-34 and tell me how much of a Anti Tank weapon it feels. never used one meself against tank either but i suppose that you have to practically sit on top of the tank to actually make any damage with that.

"hey guys, here is a crate of bottles in case you see any enemy tanks" - gee, thanks. how many other countries would even count a bottle as a weapon against tanks?

[Oleg Grigoryev]

hohohohoo. you take a bottle against a t-34 and tell me how much of a Anti Tank weapon it feels. never used one meself against tank either but i suppose that you have to practically sit on top of the tank to actually make any damage with that

pop-quiz: how many T-34 were used during Winter War?

[timoa]

pop-quiz: how many T-34 were used during Winter War?

Russians probably didn't use that in winter war, why?

[Oleg Grigoryev]

pop-quiz: how many T-34 were used during Winter War?

Russians probably didn't use that in winter war, why?

well you began citing difficulties of stopping T-34 with Molotov - so I asked you how many T-34 were in red Army as of winter of 1940. (hint - tank was acepted into service on 5/40)

[Hanski]

Gentlemen, I believe it should be quite possible to conduct a civilised discussion without personal insults or excessive emotionality, so let us just calm down, and present our arguments and counterarguments - Oleg deserves the opportunity to make his points, and I respect his willingness to present other viewpoints than those we know already.

Finland was badly unprepared for war in 1939, which was the fault of extremely naive politicians. Despite the warnings of Marshal Mannerheim and the highest military, they simply refused to believe there was going to be a war. The 1930's had been time for recovery after the Civil War / Liberation War, hunger and poverty, and there was understandably more willingness to invest in industry and other infrastructure than military buildup.

There was a pre-war naval buildup campaign which produced two armoured ships - in hindsight there would have been much better value for money if those funds had been spent to produce the Suomi submachine guns, or to purchase field artillery or fighter aircraft. But where the politicians failed, the soldiers had to pay with their blood.

The Finnish government badly misjudged the intentions of Stalin, and nearly lost the newly independent country by unpreparedness for its defence.

Hanski

[Mark V]

Gentlemen, I believe it should be quite possible to conduct a civilised discussion without personal insults or excessive emotionality, so let us just calm down, and present our arguments and counterarguments - Oleg deserves the opportunity to make his points, and I respect his willingness to present other viewpoints than those we know already.
Hanski

Agree.

Wayn Lwyds posts, alltough shared in many ways by most Finns and me also, are maybe a little bit too provocative to our dear Russian friends.

Maybe the problem lies in that Winter War was one of those very rare wars which other party could openly be proud of and the other side is clearly the guilty party. Sorry, Oleg but this is the truth. And because of this we Finns sometimes tend to bring up this issue too much, which in long term naturally annoys the other side of that war - Russians.

Peace brothers.

Oleg is one of those rational and informative Russian members in this site, whose posts i personally read with great interest.

IIRC T-34 prototype was in it's way to Karelian Isthmus when war ended, and it was used on trials against the obstacles of Mannerheim Line (well, such line never existed as an true fortified defence line actually) after the war.

And BTW. The main AT-weapon in Winter War was 37mm Bofors AT-gun, bought from Sweden or made by licence in Tampella and VTT (State Gun Factory).

[Oleg Grigoryev]

For a historian, finding out the so-called objective truth, or the best approximation of it, should be the goal -- pushing other agendas is not acceptable, and it is the duty of his / her scientific opponents to point it out if there is a bias in interpreting facts. There should be conscious discussion about whether or not there are sources of error due to political bias.

should be is the key phrase. –does not always happen - consider Seaton as an example.

Could you please explain in more detail? I believe this reference is not generally known among the readers of this thread.

you can get general idea by browsing through this threads
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=10129

http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=10793

The name of Suvorov/Rezun appears there couple of times which also illustrates my point in regards to interpretation.

What exactly is meant by the "Scandinavian foothold"? Were there plans regarding Soviet expansion to Sweden, Norway, or Denmark?

Your replay is very illustrative in regards to my points about pre-existing perceptions. His work deals with struggle of the Great European Powers (France, GB, Germany, USSR) to gain means of control over the Scandinavia during the late 30s early 40s , political motive of each country behind it their attempts to manipulate each other and Scandinavian countries etc - basically an attempt to analyze problem as a whole from the “realpolitic” point of view.

Before 1992, was the Winter War presented in school textbooks as a minor border clash, a war with an offensive of Finland against the U.S.S.R., or as a war with an offensive of the U.S.S.R. against Finland?

it was presented as a war by USSR against Finland that caused bay necessity of securing USSR northern flank.

About the political goal if Finland had been defeated militarily - why on earth should Stalin have given up politically something that had been conquered militarily with the sacrifices of the Red Army?

probably for the same reason they left Petsamo after the war. Why did not UN forces go all the way to Baghdad? Why did Stalin left Austria and Iran? You calling for me to speculate – we already have enough of it –generally this kind of questions are variations of ARGUMENTUM AD IGNORANTIUM - something along the lines “Of course the Bible is true. Nobody can prove otherwise”

What about the quotations on these websites then? (None of them is Finnish.)

exactly. What is was the definition of spheres of influence as far as Soviet and German governments were concerned? If occupation of Poland is to serve as an example, then there was multiple diplomatic correspondence - even right after the pact, concerning the operation itself. It seems reasonable that such a correspondence had to exist in all other cases. spheres of influence could in fact ( the most common view) be a euphemism for “occupation”, or it could it mean, for instance it could be promises of noninvolvement while other side applies pressure on the countries defined within the sphere. Anyway I am still curios why Molotov had to come to Berlin in 1940 and ask for the same thing – above offered explanations in regards to German soldiers in Finland could be one of the factors, but I have my doubts that it was the major one.

[Hanski]

Oleg presented as his view

"if there were no winter war USSR probably would not annex Baltic states.”

amazed at this, I had to ask:

I must say this idea is completely new to me – what is the logic of it?


“prior to Winter war USSR could count on Baltic states to stick to treaties they signed with USSR. After that they probably did not want to have anything in common with USSR. Consequntely USSR moved to annex. That’s a hypothesis anyway.”

Isn't this an interesting hypothesis indeed! If it were true, then if only Finland had agreed to all the demands of Stalin without opposing him, the Red Army could have peacefully entered every country in its “sphere of influence” to take its bases without a single shot being fired. The Red Army would have then lived a life of its own within its bases, and otherwise the rest of the Finnish and Baltic societies would have lived in harmony happily ever after. How sweet, what an idyllic fairytale!

Unfortunately, the mean Finns did not buy this beautiful melodrama, but instead they made Stalin pay dearly for his attempt at enforcing his idyll. Like Molotov said, Finns needed to be hit with a sledgehammer to force common sense in their heads. In doing so, Stalin lost million men (according to Khruschev), but Stalin did finally manage to rob the Karelian Isthmus including Viipuri and the Salla territory, and he got his base at Hanko.

After his heroic achievement, why couldn’t Father Sunshine then continue to build his idyll in 1940 on the Southern side of the Gulf of Finland, where the so much more sensible Balts had merely opened the gates to let the Red Army in? Why not build the melodrama there as a display window, to convince the rest of the world how beneficial it is to let in the Red Army?

According to Oleg’s theory, the Balts had formerly been so willing and reliable in sticking to their treaties, until the naughty Finns had spoiled it all, by making the Balts less reliable with their inappropriate example.

Thereafter “they (the Baltic nations) probably did not want to have anything in common with USSR”, and in 1940 it was no more sufficient for the USSR to have absolute military superiority and occupation of all strategic sites in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

It was totally the fault of the mean Finns that Stalin then needed fake elections and puppet governments to join “voluntarily” the Baltic peoples in the happy family of Soviet nations, where they could be sent to die in Siberia and Soviet Citizens from all over the Empire were sent in to replace them. Now the USSR could again count on the Baltic States to stick to treaties they signed with USSR – how fortunate!

And isn’t it incredible how naughty the Finns were in 1939-40, by refusing to accept such generous offers that the USSR made?

-- There are many theories to explain history, but Oleg has really scored a record with this one.

Hanski

[Hanski]

Well, it seems our friend Oleg has left this thread, which is a pity, since he did present some arguments that would have been worth continuing to discuss. Unlike timoa above, I have nothing against dealing with Russians, and I am curious to hear their viewpoints, even though I don't necessarily agree.

Another of Oleg's arguments in one of his previous messages was that Stalin was not paranoid about Finland, because Finland was really unfriendly or hostile towards the Soviet Union - so Stalin had some justification for preparing the demands that later led to the Winter War.

This is untrue. The foreign policy of the Republic of Finland was essentially minding their own business, more than anything else, and expecting that others would allow the Finns to live in peace. This happened to the extent of gravely neglecting national defense; in hindsight, it was absolute folly of politicians who refused to listen the warnings of Marshal Mannerheim, and they failed to provide the material basics that any army would need even for its peacetime training.

I am ready to admit that there were both individuals and popular political movements who held extreme views -- as everywhere else in Europe in the 1930's, for that matter.

As was discussed before, the Finns fought an extremely bloody and bitter Civil War in 1918, and the Red side needed to go underground after their defeat and after the Communist party became forbidden by law. As a reaction to Communist agitation, a popular movement arose, and in turn it included extreme rightist groups, some of whom were openly more or less fascist. There was also the Academic Karelia Society with the dreams of uniting all ethnic Finns, even those living in the Soviet Karelia, and in the 1920's there had been the Olonets Expedition, a failed attempt at propagating a popular uprising in Soviet Karelia to overthrow their Soviet regime and join Finland.

But despite the hostile attitudes that some political groups held towards the USSR, often based on their members' personal experience realted to communist activity or the Civil War, the official foreign policy and security policy of Finland remained strictly neutral. Finland had a non-aggression pact with the USSR, and she did NOT collude with Hitler's Germany to attack Leningrad (which was totally Stalin's paranoid delusíonal thinking that the Finns had not understood).

The underground Finnish communist agents may have fed Stalin what he wanted to hear, but it is absolute rubbish to claim there was either political willingness or military plans to invite German troops to Finland for hostilities against the USSR. It goes without saying that a nation of 3,5 million was not insane enough to plan attacking alone a great power of 171 million for any reason.

As a strictly neutral country, Finland would have been determined to resist any such proposals, even if Germany had presented them in the 1930's. And there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Hitler would have shown such interest towards Finland - his concern in the North was only to guarantee the iron ore supply from Swedish mines for his weapons industry in the Ruhr district.

I would be curious to know where the Russian opinion is based, if they still hold the belief that Finland genuinely was a real military threat to Leningrad or the USSR in 1939.

Hanski

[Reigo]

One thing is quite sure: the Soviet leadership hoped that the new World War will destroy capitalists in Europe (and maybe in the whole world). And I sincerely doubt that the treaties of 1939 between Baltic states and Soviets would have remained then. When Stalin forced the treaties in 1939 he probably didn't know when and how exactly the Baltic states will be taken into the happy family, but I am 100% sure that he already in the autumn of 1939 thought a la: if in the future there will be suitable conditions, the Baltic states will be turned into full socialist paradise.

[Waun Lwyd]

As promised I won't any longer participate in the specifics of this debate. It truly would be a meaningless effort, and if Oleg really is one of the more "enlightened" opponents of the independent, academic history research, then the situation is truly sad as to the state of this anti-rational camp. Anyway, concerning the larger issue of the struggle between the idea of analytically recoverable historical experience vs. the belief of information as a function of power politics, I would add a few points. An excellent illustration of this debate is the question of Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939. For decades the Soviet Union denied the existence of this pact which was the equivalent in historiography of denying the existence of the Moon in astronomy. But many communists dutifully believed the official version. My idea of scientific history is that the question can be solved through analytic, rational research, based on testimony and sources, and so establish the rationally undenieble fact of the existence of the pact. This is the way history as a discipline works - you can argue the opposite outside of this tradition (i.e. that knowledge is only a tool and concequence of power, and no truth is meaningful or independent in itself), but then this debate no longer concerns this rational, analytic and academic project.

I don't take very seriously the power political view which still (sadly) seems to be quite dominant in Russia (ps. nowadays great power seems to be connected with the respect for the idea of independent truth in science: so if Russia continues to believe in cynical fictions, it will also continue to be weak - quite ironic this...) In any case, the post-modern objection is intellectually more challenging. Here I would state quite clearly the position of the mainstream: can it be rationally, meaningfully denied that there was a Nazi-Soviet pact in 1939? Can it really be rationally, meaningfully asserted that there was no such action, no such agreement? If it can, there really is no point of historical research, and no point in debating these questions. I know that there are ingenious, amazingly complicated formulations to hide the reality and concequences of the most extreme postmodern assertions, but this basic question remains, and is, I think, fundamentally settled: historical truth can be recovered, not absolutely, but beyond reasonable doubt. Not of course in practice in those cases where most of the evidence has vanished, but even then there once was this independently recovarable reality.

The respect for the independence of the truth is also disrespect of power structures and controlling elites - this is not to say that they would not have great influence in historical research, but that the fundamental idea of that research is to resist this influence. Among many positive impacts of postmodern thought the cynicism and defaitism concerning this resistance is one of the most negative ones. But the fight does go on, both in science and in art, and maybe it will one day be proved to be enough against the forces of power, selfishness and cynicism - of which the Soviet Union of 1939 was one of most pathological examples ever. This is the larger issue behind this debate, and it is a liberating one: despite all falsification, despite of all cynicism and manipulation, the truth does exist and can be recovered, by research, analysis and intelligence.

[Hanski]

This is a link to a Russian website about the Winter War battles at Taipaleenjoki.

http://geocities.com/taipaleenjoki/#Int ... d%20author


Hanski

[JariL]

<Finland raised question of East Karelia in 1934 when USSR applied for <membership in the League of Nations &#8211; that was classified as interdiction <into Soviet internal matters.

Hi Oleg,

The question was not internal question of Soviet Union. Finnish stand was based on the peace treaty of Tarto where Soviet government promised to grant an autonomic position (at least culturally) to the Finnish/Karelian speaking East Karelia. This did not happen. Based on the peace treaty Finnish government had every right to ask why not.

It should also be remembered that there were other factors involved here than politics. There were unresolved trade issues. Soviet Union was exporting large amounts of sawn goods to the Western market at very low prices. This of course hurt Finnish saw mills that were very important source of foreign currencies to Finland. Finns had unsuccesfully tried to get Soviet government into negotiating table conserning this issue. If my memory serves me correct, when the East Karelian issue was brushed under the carpet some sort of agreement was also reached in the "trade war". It should also be noted that the negotiations were bilateral and not done in the League of Nations. Both parties wished to resolve the question outside of the League of Nations but Finnish government certainly used the League to get Soviet government interested in negotiating .

East Karelian issue was an embarrassement to Soviet government but it was definitely not an internal issue. Paradoxically Finland was the only country in the world back then that had a possibility to question Soviet policies in what today would be called "human rights" based on an agreement -even if only a very small part of Soviet population was invloved.

Regards,

Jari