Russia at war
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Joachim von Ribbentrop.
Stalin sent Hitler a rather conventional telegram of thanks, but in his telegram to
Ribbentrop he said: "The friendship between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Germany, cemented by blood, has every reason to be solid and lasting."
The impression persisted among the Soviet hierarchy that Ribbentrop was more
wholehearted about the Soviet-German Pact than Hitler was. No doubt they would have
preferred it the other way round.
Third on the list was the telegram from Kuusinen, followed by birthday greetings from Chiang Kai-Shek, Mgr Tiso, the President of Slovakia, Mr Sarajoglu of Turkey, and the particularly obsequious messages from the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
There were no birthday greetings from any Western leaders, who were busy at the time expelling the Soviet Union from the League of Nations.
Kuusinen wired: "In the name of the toiling people of Finland, fighting hand-in-hand with the heroic Red Army for the liberation of their country from the yoke of the White Guards, hirelings of foreign imperialists, the People's Government of Finland sends its warmest good wishes to you, Comrade Stalin, the great (veliki) friend of the Finnish People."
A few days later Stalin replied: "To the Head of the People's Government of Finland, Otto Kuusinen, Terijoki. Thank you for your good wishes... I wish the Finnish people and the People's Government of Finland a speedy and complete victory over the oppressors of the Finnish people, the Mannerheim-Tanner gang."
Shortly before the Finnish war had begun, there was, at Munich, an abortive attempt on Hitler's life. He had already left when the explosion occurred, in which six persons were killed and sixty wounded. Promptly Ambassador Shkvartsev called on Ribbentrop to
present him the condolences of the Soviet Government "in connection with the terrorist act in Munich, which had caused serious loss of life". Pravda also reported that, according to Himmler, the plot had originated abroad and that a reward of 800,000 marks would be paid in any currency to anyone whose information would lead to the discovery of the criminals. Hitler's Munich speech, delivered before the explosion, was reported in Pravda under a three-column heading.
During the Finnish war Soviet relations with Germany continued— at least on the face of it—to be friendly, while the hostility to Britain and France became much more strident than before. True, there were, from time to time, some seemingly inexplicable deviations from this obvious line; thus, at the end of November, Pravda surprisingly reproduced an article from the Nineteenth Century (London) deeply sympathetic to Poland and describing the ruthless bombing by the Germans of trains crowded with refugees. It was like a confirmation of the numerous stories of German brutality in Poland which Russian soldiers had brought back from there, and which were widely current in Russia. Pravda's inconsistency is but one of the minor mysteries in that very strange period in Russian history. Yet, on the surface, Soviet-German relations could not be better.
As the Finnish war progressed, the official Russian attitude to Britain and France became more and more hostile. Typical was Pravda's New Year editorial on January 1, 1940:
"Our country is the land of the greatest historical optimism. On the other hand, the capitalist world, as it enters 1940, is torn by agonising contradictions. Covering up their imperialist aims with hypocritical slogans about their 'battle for democracy', the British and French financial oligarchies, helped on by their faithful flunkeys from the Second International—Blum, Jouhaux, Citrine and Bevin—are kindling the flames of the new
war."
The class war in Britain, France and the USA, said Pravda, was stronger than ever between the "overwhelming majority of the people" who did not want war, and a handful of capitalists who cared nothing for the people's blood and were only interested in their own profits: "All the honest sons and daughters of the British, French and American peoples have branded with contempt that gang—ranging from the Pope to the London
stockbrokers—who have started all this screaming and yelling over the noble help given by the Red Army to the Finnish people struggling against their oppressors."
A few days later there were angry articles on "the shameful comedy of the 'expulsion' of the Soviet Union" from the League of Nations—a comedy staged by Britain and France.
These were, moreover, now sending arms to Finland.
In themselves, the Anglo-French arms shipments to Finland did not matter very much;
but it is quite obvious that the indignation the Russian attack on Finland had caused in Britain, France, America and Scandinavia, gave the Russian leaders food for anxious
thought. They dreaded the possibility that Finland might become common ground for a
reconciliation between Germany and the Western Powers, a reconciliation from which
Russia would be made to suffer. This largely explains the eagerness with which they
hastened to wind up the Finnish war and to make peace with the "Mannerheim gang"
without waiting for the "Terijoki government" to make its triumphal entry into Helsinki.
The idea of turning a "hostile" Finland into a "friendly" Finland with the help of this absurd device had miscarried completely and had merely silenced those Finnish elements
—including men like Paasikivi—which had criticised their government for rejecting the original Russian proposals.
What then had been the progress of the actual military operations?
Neither at the time, nor later, did the Russians do much flag-waving over the Finnish war.
It is now openly admitted that the first month of the war was an almost undiluted disaster.
The most the Russians achieved in December was to advance, in the course of "very heavy fighting", between fifteen and forty miles; but, having reached the Mannerheim Line proper, with its network of powerful fortifications, they came to a halt. On the Karelian Isthmus, as well as in Central Finland, the Russians were handicapped by snow, in some places five or six feet deep. The few available roads were heavily defended by the Finns, and the Russians had practically no trained ski troops, in which the Finnish army abounded. To move heavy equipment on such terrain was as good as impossible.
The Finns were heavily armed with automatic rifles and tommyguns, while the Russians were not. Temperatures—around minus 30°C. —were abnormally low. A large
proportion of the Soviet troops "were simply unprepared for this kind of warfare; they had had no experience of moving on skis through lake and forest country, and had no
experience at all of breaking through permanent lines of fortifications, or of storming pillboxes and other reinforced concrete structures".
[IVOVSS, vol. I, p. 266.]
By the beginning of January, the offensive was stopped. Marshal Timoshenko was
appointed Commander-in-Chief, and, for a whole month, the Russians planned and
prepared for a break-through of the Mannerheim Line. Large reinforcements, especially of engineers, were to be mustered for the purpose. Massive support of tanks, planes and guns was provided for in an all-out offensive effort to overcome the Finnish
fortifications. Moreover, three infantry divisions, reinforced by cavalry and tanks, were assigned the task of out-flanking the Mannerheim Line in the Viborg area across the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
The storming of the Mannerheim Line, preceded by a tremendous artillery barrage "from thousands of guns", did not begin till February 11. But the advance was still slow; although the Russians destroyed and captured many of the pillboxes, the Finns in the surviving pillboxes continued their desperate resistance, and casualties were very high on both sides. The steel and concrete fortifications of the Mannerheim Line, many of them connected by underground passages, with reinforced concrete walls three feet thick, were, indeed, in many cases almost invulnerable even to the heaviest pounding. It took nearly a week after a breakthrough along an eight-mile front before the Russians began to make any decisive progress. By Februar
y 21 most of the western part of the Mannerheim Line had been overrun, but the Russian losses had been so heavy that their forces had to be regrouped and further heavy reinforcements had to be brought up before the offensive could be resumed, what remained of the Mannerheim Line conquered and Viborg
captured.
Full-scale operations were only re-started on February 28. As the Russians approached Viborg, they met with another major obstacle —the flooding of large areas by the Finns
—but they finally reached the Viborg-Helsinki highway. By now the resistance of the
Finnish Army had, in the main, been broken. On March 4, Mannerheim informed the
Finnish Government that the Army could no longer resist successfully. The Soviet-
Finnish Peace Treaty was signed in Moscow on March 12.
[After the Finnish attempts to obtain German or American mediation had failed, tentative negotiations were started in January in Stockholm between the well-known Finnish
playwright, Hella Wuolijoki—with Foreign Minister Tanner's consent—and Mme
Kollontai, the Soviet Ambassador. A variety of negotiations continued throughout
January and February, though the Finns still hoped to obtain substantial military aid—
including troops—from Sweden, and also hoped that the Swedes would allow French and
British troops to go to Finland via Sweden. On this point the Swedes, afraid of becoming involved in a major war, would not yield and, indeed, advised the Finns to make peace with the Russians on the best possible terms.]
Almost throughout the "Winter War" there had been something of a news blackout in Russia, even though people in Moscow, and especially Leningrad, had a fair idea of what was going on. But very little was said at first about the great offensive against the Mannerheim Line in February, and still less about the abortive advance into Central
Finland; and it was not till the first week of March, after three months of inconclusive and mostly frustrating news, that the Soviet press at last began to speak of "victories on the Mannerheim Line". And then, suddenly, on March 12, it was announced that the Peace Treaty between the USSR and Finland had been signed. The signing was done by
Molotov, Zhdanov and Vassilevsky on the Russian side, and Ryti, Paasikivi and General Waiden on the Finnish side. The terms were harder than those originally proposed by the Russians—let alone those originally "agreed to" by Kuusinen. Now the whole Karelian Isthmus, including Viborg and numerous islands, a part of Rybachi Peninsula on the
Arctic, west of Murmansk, and the country north of Lake Ladoga were annexed by the
Soviet Union; moreover, she received a thirty-year lease on Hangö for a naval base.
Nothing was said any more about the "Terijoki Government"; it might never have existed. All that it had achieved in effect was to unify the Finnish people (many of whom had thought the original Russian proposals quite reasonable), and to cause much
unnecessary resentment in Finland. Now this resentment was further increased by the loss of Viborg.
Since, by March 5, the Red Army could easily have occupied Helsinki and other parts of Finland, the Finns may be said to have been let off lightly; nevertheless, without the loss of Viborg, it is just conceivable that the Finns might have been less eager to attack the Soviet Union in 1941. In itself, Viborg was of very little strategic value, but its loss was keenly felt in Finland, where the many thousands of "Viborg refugees" added greatly to anti-Russian feeling. During the War, many Russians agreed (on the quiet) that the
annexation of Viborg had been a serious mistake.
As distinct from Britain and France, Germany had, in the official Russian view, remained commendably neutral during the Soviet-Finnish war. Even so, the thought must have
crossed the Russian leaders' minds that Germany might yet take advantage of Finnish
grievances and longing for revenge. On the face of it, it is true, the Russians had attained their objective, which was to render Leningrad "invulnerable". This, as it turned out, short-lived advantage was outweighed by the fact that the performance of the Red Army in the Finnish War was far from good. There was a danger that the Germans might draw certain conclusions from this.
That the Soviet General Staff was not satisfied with the Red Army's record in Finland may be seen from the far-reaching measures that began to be taken soon afterwards to reorganise the Army. 1940 was to become, in General Zhukov's words, the "year of the great transformation" in the Red Army.
For all that relations with Germany had remained highly satisfactory on the surface
throughout the duration of the Soviet-Finnish War. All the abuse in the Soviet press was reserved for the Western democracies which, it was now claimed, were more anxious
than ever to "generalise the war" and to drag the neutrals into it. As early as January 17, Pravda began to speak about Anglo-French designs on the neutrality of the Scandinavian countries. Hitler's speeches continued to be politely reported, notably the one on January 30 in which he said that, thanks to the Soviet-German Pact, Germany had a "free rear" in the East: the state which Britain had guaranteed had disappeared from the face of the earth in eighteen days. Pravda also duly reported his threats to England and his announcement that "Germany would be victorious".
On February 11, with the Soviet-Finnish war still in full swing, a new Soviet-German economic agreement was signed. This, said Pravda, was a very good thing: "Present-day Germany is a highly-developed industrial power requiring many raw materials; and these the Soviet Union can largely supply. We also are a great industrial power; nevertheless, we can do with certain forms of imported industrial equipment... Our trade with Britain and France has dwindled, and the increase in our trade with Germany is only to be
welcomed... The new economic agreement had been welcomed by the Völkischer
Beobachter and other German papers."
[ Pravda, February 17, 1940.]
The volume and exact nature of these exchanges was not stated. Three days later Pravda reported another Hitler speech again boasting of the quick victory over Poland and
announcing that there was "more to come". As Pravda put it: '"I am determined to pursue this battle to the finish,' Hitler said with particular vigour."
[ Pravda, February 18, 1940.]
There was a clear suggestion here that an attack in the West was now in the offing.
Molotov waited till the end of March before making a statement to the Supreme Soviet on the termination of the Finnish War and on the international situation generally. This speech was, at least outwardly, the most violently anti-British and anti-French ever made.
He was no longer regretting the breakdown in the Anglo-French-Soviet talks during the previous year; on the contrary, he now said that "the Soviet Union had been determined not to become a tool in the hands of the Anglo-French imperialists in their anti-German struggle for world hegemony".
"The Anglo-French imperialists," he said, "wanted to turn the war in Finland into a war against the Soviet Union. But they failed in this, and the Soviet Union's relations with Germany continue to be good." The Anglo-French hostility to the Soviet Union, he went on, had been most violent in connection with the Finnish question, and he then
indignantly spoke of the police raid on the Soviet trade delegation in Paris, and of the
"virtual expulsion" from France of the Soviet Ambassador, Jacob Suritz. The Soviet Government had had to recall him.
After referring to the satisfactory economic relations with Germany, Molotov then
complained of British and French interference with Soviet-German trade: "They seize our ships in the Far East, because they are alleged to 'help Germany'; yet Rumania sells half her oil to Germany, and Rumania remains unmolested." He then protested against the various "fabrications" concerning Russia's alleged designs on India and other parts of the British Empire. "Our policy is a policy of neutrality, and I know it isn't to the taste of the Anglo-French imperialists, who want to inflict on
us a policy of hostility and war against Germany."
Pointedly he remarked that Chamberlain, who had hoped that the Finnish War would
develop into something different, was greatly distressed when he heard of the Finnish-Soviet peace settlement. He spoke of the 141 planes and the other equipment Britain had sent to Finland, and of the military help France and Sweden had given her.
He concluded somewhat morosely by saying that the war in Finland had cost the Soviet Union 48,745 dead and 158,000 wounded—for a small "frontier rectification".
[The Finns put the Russian losses much higher.]
Saying that the Finns were minimiising their losses, Molotov then "estimated" that they had lost 60,000 dead and 250,000 wounded. These figures gave the Russians but little grounds for boasting, nor were they likely to foster Finnish-Soviet relations. Significantly he was very sparing in his praise of the generals who had conducted the campaign.
Altogether, as I was later told by many Russians, Molotov's report on the Finnish War had left them with an unpleasant and frustrating feeling. The only two things that could be said in favour of the war were that it had achieved its immediate objective (but at a terrible price, and in very unfortunate conditions)—and that it was now over. Here and there, questions were also asked about the "Terijoki Government", but it was soon made clear to the bright young people who asked them that they had better shut up.
[Wolfgang Leonhard, op. cit., p. 86.]
Pravda briefly announced that, in view of the changed international situation, the Finnish
"People's Government" had been dissolved. This was the end of that absurd experiment.
At one time, while the war was still on, Pravda had published a long list—covering two whole pages of the paper—of the officers and soldiers decorated for bravery; but there was remarkably little flag-waving over the conclusion of the Finnish War—much less,
indeed than over the "victory" won in Eastern Poland. Here at least much could be made of the, more or less genuine, enthusiasm with which the Ukrainians and Belorussians
welcomed the Red Army; there was nothing like that in Karelia, where practically the entire population had been evacuated, or had fled, to Finland. Viborg, the only large city occupied by the Russians, had been abandoned by all its inhabitants. Above all there was the depressing effect of the heavy casualties suffered and of the suspicion that all was not perfect with the Red Army. Then, less than a month after the signing of the Soviet-Finnish Peace Treaty, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. This gave rise to more