Causes of the Soviet-Finnish war. Why did the USSR start the Finnish war

The topic of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 has now become a fairly popular topic for discussion in Russia. Many call it the shame of the Soviet army - in 105 days, from November 30, 1939 to March 13, 1940, the sides lost more than 150 thousand people only killed. The Russians won the war, and 430 thousand Finns were forced to leave their homes and return to their historical homeland.

In Soviet textbooks, we were assured that the armed conflict was started by the "Finnish military". On November 26, near the town of Mainila, an artillery shelling of Soviet troops stationed near the Finnish border took place, as a result of which 4 soldiers were killed and 10 wounded.

The Finns offered to create a joint commission to investigate the incident, which the Soviet side refused and stated that they no longer consider themselves bound by the Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact. Was the shooting staged?

“I got acquainted with documents that were recently classified,” says military historian Miroslav Morozov. - In the divisional combat log, the pages with records of shelling are of a much later origin.

There are no reports to the division headquarters, the names of the victims are not indicated, it is not known which hospital the wounded were sent to ... Apparently, at that time the Soviet leadership did not really care about the plausibility of the reason for starting the war.

Since the declaration of independence by Finland in December 1917, territorial claims have constantly arisen between it and the USSR. But they often became the subject of negotiations. The situation changed in the late 30s, when it became clear that the Second World War would soon begin. The USSR demanded from Finland non-participation in the war against the USSR, permission to build Soviet military bases on Finnish territory. Finland hesitated and played for time.

The situation escalated with the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, according to which Finland belonged to the sphere of interests of the USSR. The Soviet Union began to insist on its terms, although it offered certain territorial concessions in Karelia. But the Finnish government rejected all proposals. Then, on November 30, 1939, the invasion of Soviet troops into the territory of Finland began.

In January, frosts hit -30 degrees. The soldiers surrounded by the Finns were forbidden to leave heavy weapons and equipment to the enemy. However, seeing the inevitability of the death of the division, Vinogradov gave the order to leave the encirclement.

Out of almost 7,500 people, 1,500 came out to their own. The divisional commander, regimental commissar and chief of staff were shot. And the 18th Infantry Division, which found itself in the same conditions, remained in place and completely died north of Lake Ladoga.

But the Soviet troops suffered the heaviest losses in the battles in the main direction - the Karelian Isthmus. The 140-kilometer Mannerheim defensive line covering it on the main defensive strip consisted of 210 long-term and 546 wood-and-earth firing points. It was possible to break through it and capture the city of Vyborg only during the third assault, which began on February 11, 1940.

The Finnish government, seeing that there were no hopes left, went to negotiations and on March 12 a peace treaty was concluded. The fighting is over. Having won a dubious victory over Finland, the Red Army began to prepare for war with a much larger predator - Nazi Germany. The story took 1 year, 3 months and 10 days to prepare.

According to the results of the war, 26,000 servicemen died on the Finnish side, and 126,000 on the Soviet side. The USSR received new territories and moved the border away from Leningrad. Finland later sided with Germany. And the USSR was excluded from the League of Nations.

Some facts from the history of the Soviet-Finnish war

1. The Soviet-Finnish war of 1939/1940 was not the first armed conflict between the two states. In 1918-1920, and then in 1921-1922, the so-called first and second Soviet-Finnish wars were fought, during which the Finnish authorities, who dreamed of a "Great Finland", tried to seize the territory of Eastern Karelia.

The wars themselves became a continuation of the bloody Civil War blazing in Finland in 1918-1919, which ended with the victory of the Finnish "whites" over the Finnish "reds". As a result of the wars, the RSFSR retained control over Eastern Karelia, but transferred the polar Pechenga region to Finland, as well as the western part of the Rybachy Peninsula and most of the Sredny Peninsula.

2. At the end of the wars of the 1920s, relations between the USSR and Finland were not friendly, but did not reach an open confrontation. In 1932, the Soviet Union and Finland signed a non-aggression pact, which was later extended until 1945, but in the fall of 1939 the USSR was unilaterally broken.

3. In 1938-1939, the Soviet government held secret negotiations with the Finnish side on the exchange of territories. In the context of the impending world war, the Soviet Union intended to move the state border away from Leningrad, since it was only 18 kilometers from the city. In exchange, Finland was offered territories in Eastern Karelia, much larger in area. The negotiations, however, were not successful.

4. The so-called “Mainil incident” became the immediate cause of the war: on November 26, 1939, a group of Soviet servicemen was fired upon by artillery on a section of the border near the village of Mainila. Seven cannon shots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, seven privates and two from the command staff were wounded.

Modern historians are still arguing about whether the shelling in Mainil was a provocation by the Soviet Union or not. One way or another, two days later, the USSR denounced the non-aggression pact, and on November 30 began hostilities against Finland.

5. On December 1, 1939, the Soviet Union announced the creation of an alternative "People's Government" of Finland in the village of Terijoki, headed by the communist Otto Kuusinen. The next day, the USSR concluded a Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship with the Kuusinen government, which was recognized as the only legitimate government in Finland.

At the same time, the formation of the Finnish People's Army from Finns and Karelians was going on. However, by the end of January 1940, the position of the USSR was revised - the Kuusinen government was no longer mentioned, and all negotiations were conducted with the official authorities in Helsinki.

6. The main obstacle to the offensive of the Soviet troops was the "Mannerheim Line" - named after the Finnish military leader and politician, the defense line between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga, consisting of multi-level concrete fortifications equipped with heavy weapons.

Initially, having no means to destroy such a line of defense, the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses during numerous frontal attacks on the fortifications.

7. Finland was simultaneously provided with military assistance by both fascist Germany and its opponents - England and France. But if Germany limited itself to unofficial military supplies, then the Anglo-French forces considered plans for military intervention against the Soviet Union. However, these plans were never implemented for fear that the USSR in such a case could take part in the Second World War on the side of Nazi Germany.

8. By the beginning of March 1940, Soviet troops managed to break through the "Mannerheim Line", which created a threat of the complete defeat of Finland. Under these conditions, without waiting for the Anglo-French intervention against the USSR, the Finnish government entered into peace negotiations with the Soviet Union. The peace treaty was concluded in Moscow on March 12, 1940, and the fighting ended on March 13 with the capture of Vyborg by the Red Army.

9. In accordance with the Moscow Treaty, the Soviet-Finnish border was moved away from Leningrad from 18 to 150 km. According to many historians, it was this fact that largely helped to avoid the capture of the city by the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War.

In total, the territorial acquisitions of the USSR following the results of the Soviet-Finnish war amounted to 40 thousand square kilometers. Data on the human losses of the parties to the conflict to this day remain contradictory: the Red Army lost from 125 to 170 thousand people killed and missing, the Finnish army - from 26 to 95 thousand people.

10. The famous Soviet poet Alexander Tvardovsky wrote the poem “Two Lines” in 1943, which became perhaps the most striking artistic reminder of the Soviet-Finnish war:

From a shabby notebook

Two lines about a boy fighter

What was in the fortieth year

Killed in Finland on the ice.

Lying somehow clumsily

Childishly small body.

Frost pressed the overcoat to the ice,

The hat flew off.

It seemed that the boy was not lying,

And still running

Yes, the ice held the floor ...

In the midst of a great war cruel,

From what - I will not apply my mind,

I feel sorry for that distant fate,

As if dead, alone

Like I'm lying

Frozen, small, dead

In that war, not famous,

Forgotten, small, lying.

Photos of the "unknown" war

Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant M.I. Sipovich and Captain Korovin on the captured Finnish bunker.

Soviet soldiers inspect the observation cap of a captured Finnish bunker.

Soviet soldiers are preparing a Maxim machine gun for anti-aircraft fire.

Burning after the bombing of the house in the Finnish city of Turku.

A Soviet sentry next to a Soviet quad anti-aircraft machine gun mount based on the Maxim machine gun.

Soviet soldiers dig a Finnish border post near the Mainil frontier post.

Soviet military dog ​​breeders of a separate communications battalion with liaison dogs.

Soviet border guards inspect captured Finnish weapons.

A Finnish soldier next to a downed Soviet I-15 bis fighter.

The formation of soldiers and commanders of the 123rd Infantry Division on the march after the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus.

Finnish soldiers in the trenches near Suomussalmi during the Winter War.

Captured Red Army soldiers captured by the Finns in the winter of 1940.

Finnish soldiers in the forest are trying to disperse, noticing the approach of Soviet aircraft.

A frozen Red Army soldier of the 44th Infantry Division.

Frozen in the trenches, the Red Army soldiers of the 44th Infantry Division.

A Soviet wounded man lies on a plaster cast table made from improvised means.

Three Corners Park in Helsinki with open slits dug out to shelter the population in the event of an air raid.

Blood transfusion before surgery in a Soviet military hospital.

Finnish women sew winter camouflage at the factory

A Finnish soldier walks past a broken Soviet tank column/

A Finnish soldier fires from a Lahti-Saloranta M-26 light machine gun /

Residents of Leningrad greet tankers of the 20th tank brigade on T-28 tanks returning from the Karelian Isthmus /

Finnish soldier with machine gun Lahti-Saloranta M-26/

Finnish soldiers with a machine gun "Maxim" M / 32-33 in the forest.

Finnish calculation of anti-aircraft machine gun "Maxim".

Finnish Vickers tanks, shot down near Pero station.

Finnish soldiers at the 152 mm Kane gun.

Finnish civilians who fled their homes during the Winter War.

Broken column of the Soviet 44th division.

Soviet SB-2 bombers over Helsinki.

Three Finnish skiers on the march.

Two Soviet soldiers with a Maxim machine gun in the forest on the Mannerheim Line.

A burning house in the Finnish city of Vaasa (Vaasa) after a Soviet air raid.

View of the streets of Helsinki after the Soviet air raid.

A house in the center of Helsinki, damaged after a Soviet air raid.

Finnish soldiers raise the frozen body of a Soviet officer.

A Finnish soldier looks at the changing clothes of captured Red Army soldiers.

A Soviet prisoner captured by the Finns sits on a box.

Captured Red Army soldiers enter the house under the escort of Finnish soldiers.

Finnish soldiers are carrying a wounded comrade in a dog sled.

Finnish orderlies carry a stretcher with a wounded man near the tent of a field hospital.

Finnish doctors load a stretcher with a wounded man into an ambulance bus manufactured by AUTOKORI OY.

Finnish skiers with reindeer and drags at a halt during the retreat.

Finnish soldiers disassemble the captured Soviet military equipment.

Sandbags covering the windows of a house on Sofiankatu Street in Helsinki.

T-28 tanks of the 20th heavy tank brigade before going on a combat operation.

Soviet tank T-28, shot down on the Karelian Isthmus at a height of 65.5.

A Finnish tanker next to a captured Soviet T-28 tank.

Residents of Leningrad welcome the tankers of the 20th Heavy Tank Brigade.

Soviet officers in front of the Vyborg Castle.

A Finnish air defense soldier looks at the sky through a rangefinder.

Finnish ski battalion with deer and drags.

Swedish volunteer in position during the Soviet-Finnish war.

Calculation of the Soviet 122-mm howitzer in position during the Winter War.

The orderly on a motorcycle transmits a message to the crew of the Soviet BA-10 armored car.

Pilots Heroes of the Soviet Union - Ivan Pyatykhin, Alexander Flying and Alexander Kostylev.

Finnish propaganda during the Soviet-Finnish war

Finnish propaganda promised a carefree life to surrendered Red Army soldiers: bread and butter, cigars, vodka and dancing to the accordion. They generously paid for the weapons they brought with them, made a reservation, promised to pay: for a revolver - 100 rubles, for a machine gun - 1500 rubles, and for a cannon as much as 10,000 rubles.

The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, Finnish talvisota - Winter War, Swedish vinterkriget) - an armed conflict between the USSR and Finland from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940.

On November 26, 1939, the government of the USSR sent a note of protest to the government of Finland about the artillery shelling, which, according to the Soviet side, was carried out from Finnish territory. Responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities was fully assigned to Finland. The war ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. The USSR included 11% of the territory of Finland (with the second largest city of Vyborg). 430,000 Finnish residents were forcibly resettled by Finland from the frontline areas inland and lost their property.

According to a number of historians, this offensive operation of the USSR against Finland belongs to the Second World War. In Soviet historiography, this war was viewed as a separate bilateral local conflict that was not part of World War II, just like the battles at Khalkhin Gol. The outbreak of hostilities led to the fact that in December 1939 the USSR, as an aggressor, was expelled from the League of Nations.

background

Events 1917-1937

On December 6, 1917, the Finnish Senate declared Finland an independent state. On December 18 (31), 1917, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR addressed the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) with a proposal to recognize the independence of the Republic of Finland. On December 22, 1917 (January 4, 1918), the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to recognize the independence of Finland. In January 1918, a civil war began in Finland, in which the “Reds” (Finnish socialists), with the support of the RSFSR, opposed the “Whites”, supported by Germany and Sweden. The war ended with the victory of the "whites". After the victory in Finland, the troops of the Finnish "whites" supported the separatist movement in East Karelia. The first Soviet-Finnish war that began during the already civil war in Russia lasted until 1920, when the Tartu (Yurievsky) peace treaty was concluded. Some Finnish politicians, such as Juho Paasikivi, viewed the treaty as "too good a peace", believing that the great powers would only compromise when absolutely necessary. K. Mannerheim, former activists and separatist leaders in Karelia, on the contrary, considered this world a shame and a betrayal of their compatriots, and the representative of Rebol Hans Haakon (Bobi) Siven (Fin. H. H. (Bobi) Siven) shot himself in protest. Mannerheim, in his “sword oath”, publicly spoke out in favor of the conquest of Eastern Karelia, which had not previously been part of the Principality of Finland.

Nevertheless, relations between Finland and the USSR after the Soviet-Finnish wars of 1918-1922, as a result of which the Pechenga region (Petsamo), as well as the western part of the Rybachy Peninsula and most of the Sredny Peninsula, were ceded to Finland in the Arctic, were not friendly, however, openly hostile too.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the idea of ​​general disarmament and security, embodied in the creation of the League of Nations, dominated government circles in Western Europe, especially in Scandinavia. Denmark disarmed completely, and Sweden and Norway significantly reduced their armaments. In Finland, the government and the majority of parliamentarians have consistently cut spending on defense and armaments. Starting from 1927, military exercises were not carried out at all to save money. The allocated money was barely enough to support the army. Parliament did not consider the costs of providing weapons. There were no tanks or military aircraft.

Nevertheless, the Defense Council was created, which on July 10, 1931 was headed by Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim. He was firmly convinced that while the Bolshevik government was in power in the USSR, the situation in it was fraught with the most serious consequences for the whole world, primarily for Finland: “A plague coming from the east may be contagious.” In a conversation that same year with Risto Ryti, then Governor of the Bank of Finland and a well-known figure in the Progressive Party of Finland, Mannerheim outlined his thoughts on the need for the speedy creation of a military program and its financing. However, Ryti, after listening to the argument, asked the question: “But what is the use of providing the military department with such large sums if war is not expected?”

In August 1931, after inspecting the fortifications of the Enckel Line, established in the 1920s, Mannerheim became convinced of its unsuitability for the conditions of modern warfare, both due to its unfortunate location and destruction by time.

In 1932, the Tartu Peace Treaty was supplemented by a non-aggression pact and extended until 1945.

In the Finnish budget of 1934, adopted after the signing of the non-aggression pact with the USSR in August 1932, the article on the construction of defensive structures on the Karelian Isthmus was deleted.

V. Tanner noted that the Social Democratic faction of the parliament "... still believes that a prerequisite for maintaining the independence of the country is such progress in the well-being of the people and the general conditions of their life, in which every citizen understands that this is worth all the costs of defense."

Mannerheim described his efforts as "a futile attempt to pull a rope through a narrow and pitch-filled pipe." It seemed to him that all his initiatives to rally the Finnish people in order to take care of their home and ensure their future meet a blank wall of misunderstanding and indifference. And he filed a petition for removal from his post.

Negotiations 1938-1939

Yartsev's negotiations in 1938-1939

The negotiations were initiated by the USSR, initially they were conducted in a secret mode, which suited both sides: the Soviet Union preferred to officially maintain a "free hand" in the face of an unclear prospect in relations with Western countries, and for Finnish officials, the announcement of the fact of negotiations was inconvenient from the point of view of view of domestic politics, since the population of Finland was generally negative about the USSR.

On April 14, 1938, second secretary Boris Yartsev arrived at the USSR Embassy in Finland in Helsinki. He immediately met with Foreign Minister Rudolf Holsti and outlined the position of the USSR: the USSR government is confident that Germany is planning an attack on the USSR and these plans include a side strike through Finland. Therefore, the attitude of Finland to the landing of German troops is so important for the USSR. The Red Army will not wait at the border if Finland allows a landing. On the other hand, if Finland resists the Germans, the USSR will provide her with military and economic assistance, since Finland is not capable of repelling a German landing on her own. Over the next five months, he held numerous conversations, including with Prime Minister Cajander and Finance Minister Väinö Tanner. The guarantees of the Finnish side that Finland would not allow violating its territorial integrity and invading Soviet Russia through its territory were not enough for the USSR. The USSR demanded a secret agreement that, in the event of a German attack, its participation in the defense of the Finnish coast, the construction of fortifications on the Åland Islands and the deployment of Soviet military bases for the fleet and aviation on the island of Gogland (Fin. Suursaari) was mandatory. Territorial requirements were not put forward. Finland rejected Yartsev's proposals at the end of August 1938.

In March 1939, the USSR officially announced that it wanted to lease the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Powerful), Tytyarsaari and Seskar for 30 years. Later, as compensation, Finland was offered territories in Eastern Karelia. Mannerheim was ready to give up the islands, since they were still practically impossible to defend or use to protect the Karelian Isthmus. However, the negotiations were fruitless and ended on April 6, 1939.

On August 23, 1939, the USSR and Germany signed a non-aggression pact. According to the secret additional protocol to the Treaty, Finland was assigned to the sphere of interests of the USSR. Thus, the contracting parties - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - provided each other with guarantees of non-intervention in case of war. Germany started World War II with an attack on Poland a week later, on September 1, 1939. Soviet troops entered Poland on 17 September.

From September 28 to October 10, the USSR concluded mutual assistance treaties with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, according to which these countries provided the USSR with their territory for the deployment of Soviet military bases.

On October 5, the USSR invited Finland to consider the possibility of concluding a similar mutual assistance pact with the USSR. The Government of Finland stated that the conclusion of such a pact would be contrary to its position of absolute neutrality. In addition, the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany has already eliminated the main reason for the demands of the Soviet Union to Finland - the danger of a German attack through the territory of Finland.

Moscow negotiations on the territory of Finland

On October 5, 1939, Finnish representatives were invited to Moscow for talks "on specific political issues." The negotiations were held in three stages: October 12-14, November 3-4 and November 9.

For the first time, Finland was represented by an envoy, State Councilor J. K. Paasikivi, Finnish Ambassador to Moscow Aarno Koskinen, Foreign Ministry official Johan Nykopp and Colonel Aladar Paasonen. On the second and third trips, Finance Minister Tanner was authorized to negotiate along with Paasikivi. State Councilor R. Hakkarainen was added on the third trip.

At these talks for the first time there was talk about the proximity of the border to Leningrad. Joseph Stalin remarked: “We cannot do anything with geography, just like you ... Since Leningrad cannot be moved, we will have to move the border away from it.”

The version of the agreement presented by the Soviet side looked as follows:

Finland moves the border 90 km from Leningrad.

Finland agrees to lease the Hanko peninsula to the USSR for a period of 30 years for the construction of a naval base and the deployment of a 4,000-strong military contingent there for its defense.

The Soviet navy is provided with ports on the Hanko peninsula in Hanko itself and in Lappohya (Fin.) Russian.

Finland transfers the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Powerful), Tyutyarsaari and Seiskari to the USSR.

The existing Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact is supplemented by an article on mutual obligations not to join groups and coalitions of states hostile to one side or the other.

Both states are disarming their fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus.

The USSR transfers to Finland the territory in Karelia with a total area twice the amount received by Finland (5,529 km²).

The USSR undertakes not to object to the arming of the Åland Islands by Finland's own forces.

The USSR proposed an exchange of territories, in which Finland would receive more extensive territories in Eastern Karelia in Reboly and Porajärvi.

The USSR made its demands public before the third meeting in Moscow. Having concluded a non-aggression pact with the USSR, Germany advised the Finns to agree to them. Hermann Goering made it clear to Finnish Foreign Minister Erkko that the demands for military bases should be accepted and Germany's help should not be hoped for.

The State Council did not comply with all the requirements of the USSR, as public opinion and parliament were against it. Instead, a compromise option was proposed - the Soviet Union was offered the islands of Suursaari (Gogland), Lavensari (Powerful), Bolshoi Tyuters and Maly Tyuters, Penisaari (Small), Seskar and Koivisto (Birch) - a chain of islands that stretches along the main navigable fairway in the Gulf of Finland, and the territories closest to Leningrad in Terioki and Kuokkala (now Zelenogorsk and Repino), deepened into Soviet territory. Moscow negotiations ended on November 9, 1939.

Earlier, a similar proposal was made to the Baltic countries, and they agreed to provide the USSR with military bases on their territory. Finland, on the other hand, chose something else: to defend the inviolability of its territory. On October 10, soldiers were called up from the reserve for unscheduled exercises, which meant full mobilization.

Sweden made clear its position of neutrality, and there were no serious assurances of assistance from other states.

From the middle of 1939, military preparations began in the USSR. In June-July, the operational plan for an attack on Finland was discussed at the Main Military Council of the USSR, and from mid-September, the concentration of units of the Leningrad Military District along the border began.

In Finland, the Mannerheim Line was being completed. On August 7-12, major military exercises were held on the Karelian Isthmus, which practiced repelling aggression from the USSR. All military attachés were invited, except for the Soviet one.

The Finnish government refused to accept the Soviet conditions - since, in their opinion, these conditions went far beyond the issue of ensuring the security of Leningrad - while at the same time trying to conclude a Soviet-Finnish trade agreement and the consent of the USSR to arm the Åland Islands, whose demilitarized status was regulated Åland Convention of 1921. In addition, the Finns did not want to give the USSR their only defense against possible Soviet aggression - a strip of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, known as the "Mannerheim Line".

The Finns insisted on their own, although on October 23-24, Stalin somewhat softened his position regarding the territory of the Karelian Isthmus and the size of the alleged garrison of the Hanko Peninsula. But these proposals were also rejected. “Are you trying to provoke a conflict?” /IN. Molotov/. Mannerheim, with the support of Paasikivi, continued to press before his parliament on the need to find a compromise, saying that the army would hold out on the defensive for no more than two weeks, but to no avail.

On October 31, speaking at a session of the Supreme Council, Molotov outlined the essence of the Soviet proposals, while hinting that the hard line taken by the Finnish side was allegedly caused by the intervention of outside states. The Finnish public, having learned about the demands of the Soviet side for the first time, categorically opposed any concessions.

The talks resumed in Moscow on November 3, immediately reached an impasse. From the Soviet side, a statement followed: “We, civilians, have not made any progress. Now the word will be given to the soldiers.”

However, Stalin made concessions the next day, offering instead of renting the Hanko Peninsula to buy it or even rent some coastal islands from Finland instead. Tanner, who was then Minister of Finance and part of the Finnish delegation, also believed that these proposals opened the way to an agreement. But the Finnish government stood its ground.

On November 3, 1939, the Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote: “We will cast aside any game of political gamblers and go our own way, no matter what, we will ensure the security of the USSR, regardless of anything, breaking all and sundry obstacles on the way to the goal ". On the same day, the troops of the Leningrad Military District and the Baltic Fleet received directives on the preparation of military operations against Finland. At the last meeting, Stalin, at least outwardly, showed a sincere desire to reach a compromise on the issue of military bases. But the Finns refused to discuss it, and on November 13 they departed for Helsinki.

There was a temporary lull, which the Finnish government considered confirmation of the correctness of its position.

On November 26, Pravda published an article entitled “Jester Gorokhovy as Prime Minister”, which became the signal for the start of an anti-Finnish propaganda campaign. On the same day, artillery shelled the territory of the USSR near the village of Mainil. The leadership of the USSR blamed this incident on Finland. In the Soviet information agencies, the terms “White Guard”, “White Pole”, “White emigre” were widely used for naming hostile elements with a new one - “White Finn”.

On November 28, the denunciation of the Non-Aggression Pact with Finland was announced, and on November 30, the Soviet troops were ordered to go on the offensive.

Causes of the war

According to the statements of the Soviet side, the goal of the USSR was to achieve by military means what could not be done peacefully: to ensure the security of Leningrad, which was dangerously close to the border and in the event of a war (in which Finland was ready to provide its territory to the enemies of the USSR as a springboard) would inevitably have been captured in the first days (or even hours). In 1931, Leningrad was separated from the region and became a city of republican subordination. Part of the borders of some territories subordinated to the Leningrad City Council was at the same time the border between the USSR and Finland.

“Did the Government and the Party act correctly in declaring war on Finland? This question specifically concerns the Red Army.

Could the war have been avoided? It seems to me that it was impossible. It was impossible to do without war. The war was necessary, since peace negotiations with Finland did not produce results, and the security of Leningrad had to be ensured unconditionally, because its security is the security of our Fatherland. Not only because Leningrad represents 30-35 percent of the defense industry of our country and, therefore, the fate of our country depends on the integrity and safety of Leningrad, but also because Leningrad is the second capital of our country.

Speech by I.V. Stalin at a meeting of the commanding staff on 04/17/1940 "

True, the very first demands of the USSR in 1938 did not mention Leningrad and did not require the transfer of the border. Demands for the lease of Hanko, located hundreds of kilometers to the west, increased the security of Leningrad. Only the following was constant in the demands: to receive military bases on the territory of Finland and near its coast and to oblige it not to ask for help from third countries.

Already during the war, there were two concepts that are still being discussed: one, that the USSR pursued the stated goals (ensuring the security of Leningrad), the second - that the Sovietization of Finland was the true goal of the USSR.

However, today there is a different division of concepts, namely: according to the principle of classifying a military conflict as a separate war or part of the Second World War, which, in turn, represent the USSR as a peace-loving country or as an aggressor and ally of Germany. At the same time, according to these concepts, the Sovietization of Finland was only a cover for the preparation of the USSR for a lightning-fast invasion and the liberation of Europe from German occupation, followed by the Sovietization of all of Europe and the part of African countries occupied by Germany.

M. I. Semiryaga notes that on the eve of the war, both countries had claims against each other. The Finns were afraid of the Stalinist regime and were well aware of the repressions against Soviet Finns and Karelians in the late 1930s, the closure of Finnish schools, and so on. In the USSR, in turn, they knew about the activities of ultra-nationalist Finnish organizations that aimed to "return" Soviet Karelia. Moscow was also worried about Finland's unilateral rapprochement with Western countries, and above all with Germany, which Finland, in turn, went for because it saw the USSR as the main threat to itself. Finnish President P. E. Svinhufvud declared in Berlin in 1937 that "the enemy of Russia must always be a friend of Finland." In a conversation with the German envoy, he said: “The Russian threat to us will always exist. Therefore, it is good for Finland that Germany will be strong.” In the USSR, preparations for a military conflict with Finland began in 1936. On September 17, 1939, the USSR expressed support for Finnish neutrality, but literally on the same days (September 11-14) began partial mobilization in the Leningrad Military District, which clearly indicated the preparation of a military solution.

According to A. Shubin, before the signing of the Soviet-German pact, the USSR undoubtedly sought only to ensure the security of Leningrad. Stalin was not satisfied with Helsinki’s assurances of its neutrality, since, firstly, he considered the Finnish government to be hostile and ready to join any external aggression against the USSR, and secondly (and this was confirmed by subsequent events), the neutrality of small countries in itself did not guarantee that they could not be used as a springboard for an attack (as a result of the occupation). After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the demands of the USSR became tougher, and here the question already arises of what Stalin really aspired to at this stage. Theoretically, presenting his demands in the fall of 1939, Stalin could plan to carry out in the coming year in Finland: a) Sovietization and inclusion in the USSR (as happened with other Baltic countries in 1940), or b) a radical social reorganization with the preservation of formal signs of independence and political pluralism (as was done after the war in the so-called Eastern European "countries of people's democracy", or c) Stalin could only plan for the time being to strengthen his positions on the northern flank of a potential theater of operations, not yet risking interfering in the internal affairs of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. M. Semiryaga believes that in order to determine the nature of the war against Finland, “it is not necessary to analyze the negotiations in the autumn of 1939. To do this, you just need to know the general concept of the world communist movement of the Comintern and the Stalinist concept - great-power claims to those regions that used to be part of the Russian Empire ... And the goals were - to annex the whole of Finland as a whole. And there is no point in talking about 35 kilometers to Leningrad, 25 kilometers to Leningrad ... ". The Finnish historian O. Manninen believes that Stalin sought to deal with Finland according to the same scenario that was eventually implemented with the Baltic countries. “Stalin's desire to 'solve problems in a peaceful way' was a desire to peacefully create a socialist regime in Finland. And at the end of November, starting the war, he wanted to achieve the same with the help of the occupation. “The workers themselves” had to decide whether to join the USSR or establish their own socialist state.” However, notes O. Manninen, since these plans of Stalin were not formally fixed, this view will always remain in the status of an assumption, not a provable fact. There is also a version that, putting forward claims to border lands and a military base, Stalin, like Hitler in Czechoslovakia, sought to first disarm his neighbor, taking away his fortified territory, and then capture him.

An important argument in favor of the theory of the Sovietization of Finland as the goal of the war is the fact that on the second day of the war a puppet Terijoki government headed by the Finnish communist Otto Kuusinen was created on the territory of the USSR. On December 2, the Soviet government signed an agreement on mutual assistance with the government of Kuusinen and, according to Ryti, refused any contact with the legal government of Finland, headed by Risto Ryti.

With a high degree of certainty, we can assume: if things at the front were going according to the operational plan, then this “government” would arrive in Helsinki with a specific political goal - to unleash a civil war in the country. After all, the appeal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Finland directly called […] to overthrow the “government of executioners”. In Kuusinen's appeal to the soldiers of the "Finnish People's Army" it was directly stated that they were entrusted with the honor of hoisting the banner of the "Democratic Republic of Finland" on the building of the President's Palace in Helsinki.

However, in reality, this "government" was used only as a means, although not very effective, for political pressure on the legitimate government of Finland. It fulfilled this modest role, which, in particular, is confirmed by Molotov's statement to the Swedish envoy in Moscow, Assarsson, on March 4, 1940, that if the Finnish government continues to object to the transfer of Vyborg and Sortavala to the Soviet Union, then subsequent Soviet peace conditions will be even tougher and the USSR will then go to a final agreement with the "government" of Kuusinen

M. I. Semiryaga. “Secrets of Stalinist diplomacy. 1941-1945"

A number of other measures were taken, in particular, among the Soviet documents on the eve of the war there are detailed instructions on the organization of the "People's Front" in the occupied territories. M. Meltyukhov, on this basis, sees in the Soviet actions the desire to Sovietize Finland through an intermediate stage of the left "people's government". S. Belyaev believes that the decision to Sovietize Finland is not evidence of the original plan to capture Finland, but was made only on the eve of the war due to the failure of attempts to agree on changing the border.

According to A. Shubin, Stalin's position in the fall of 1939 was situational, and he maneuvered between the minimum program - ensuring the security of Leningrad, and the maximum program - establishing control over Finland. At that moment, Stalin did not aspire directly to the Sovietization of Finland, as well as the Baltic countries, because he did not know how the war in the West would end (indeed, in the Baltics, decisive steps towards Sovietization were taken only in June 1940, that is, immediately after how the defeat of France was indicated). Finland's resistance to Soviet demands forced him to go for a hard power option at a disadvantageous moment for him (in winter). In the end, he secured at least the completion of the minimum program.

According to Yu. A. Zhdanov, back in the mid-1930s, Stalin in a private conversation announced a plan (“distant future”) to transfer the capital to Leningrad, while noting its proximity to the border.

Strategic plans of the parties

USSR plan

The plan for the war with Finland provided for the deployment of hostilities in three directions. The first of these was on the Karelian Isthmus, where it was supposed to lead a direct breakthrough of the Finnish defense line (which during the war was called the "Mannerheim Line") in the direction of Vyborg, and north of Lake Ladoga.

The second direction was central Karelia, adjacent to that part of Finland, where its latitudinal extent was the smallest. It was supposed here, in the Suomussalmi-Raate Region, to cut the country's territory in two and enter the city of Oulu on the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia. The selected and well-equipped 44th division was intended for the parade in the city.

Finally, in order to prevent counterattacks and a possible landing of troops from the western allies of Finland from the Barents Sea, it was supposed to conduct military operations in Lapland.

The main direction was considered to be the direction to Vyborg - between Vuoksa and the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Here, after successfully breaking through the line of defense (or bypassing the line from the north), the Red Army got the opportunity to wage war on a territory convenient for the operation of tanks, which did not have serious long-term fortifications. Under such conditions, a significant advantage in manpower and an overwhelming advantage in technology could manifest itself in the most complete way. It was supposed, after breaking through the fortifications, to carry out an offensive on Helsinki and achieve a complete cessation of resistance. In parallel, the actions of the Baltic Fleet and access to the border of Norway in the Arctic were planned. This would make it possible to secure a quick capture of Norway in the future and to stop the supply of iron ore to Germany.

The plan was based on a misconception about the weakness of the Finnish army and its inability to resist for a long time. The assessment of the number of Finnish troops also turned out to be incorrect: “it was believed that the Finnish army in wartime would have up to 10 infantry divisions and a dozen and a half separate battalions.” In addition, the Soviet command did not have information about the line of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus, having only "fragmentary intelligence data" about them by the beginning of the war. So, even at the height of the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus, Meretskov doubted that the Finns had long-term structures, although he was informed about the existence of the Poppius (Sj4) and Millionaire (Sj5) pillboxes.

Plan of Finland

On the direction of the main attack correctly determined by Mannerheim, it was supposed to delay the enemy for as long as possible.

The Finnish defense plan north of Lake Ladoga was to stop the enemy on the Kitel line (Pitkyaranta region) - Lemetti (near Lake Syuskyjärvi). If necessary, the Russians were to be stopped north of Lake Suojärvi in ​​echeloned positions. Before the war, a railway line was built here from the Leningrad-Murmansk railway line and large stocks of ammunition and fuel were created. Therefore, a surprise for the Finns was the introduction of seven divisions into battles on the northern coast of Ladoga, the number of which was increased to 10.

The Finnish command hoped that all the measures taken would guarantee a quick stabilization of the front on the Karelian Isthmus and active containment in the northern section of the border. It was believed that the Finnish army would be able to independently contain the enemy for up to six months. According to the strategic plan, it was supposed to wait for help from the West, and then conduct a counteroffensive in Karelia.

The armed forces of the opponents

The Finnish army entered the war poorly armed - the list below shows how many days of the war the stocks available in the warehouses were enough for:

• cartridges for rifles, machine guns and machine guns - for 2.5 months;
• shells for mortars, field guns and howitzers - for 1 month;
• fuels and lubricants - for 2 months;
• aviation gasoline - for 1 month.

The military industry of Finland was represented by one state cartridge factory, one gunpowder factory and one artillery factory. The overwhelming superiority of the USSR in aviation made it possible to quickly disable or significantly complicate the work of all three.

The Finnish division included: headquarters, three infantry regiments, one light brigade, one field artillery regiment, two engineering companies, one signal company, one sapper company, one quartermaster company.
The Soviet division included: three infantry regiments, one field artillery regiment, one howitzer artillery regiment, one anti-tank gun battery, one reconnaissance battalion, one communications battalion, one engineering battalion.

The Finnish division was inferior to the Soviet one both in numbers (14,200 versus 17,500) and in firepower, as can be seen from the following comparative table:

The Soviet division in terms of the combined firepower of machine guns and mortars was two times superior to the Finnish one, and in terms of firepower of artillery - three times. The Red Army was not armed with submachine guns, but this was partially offset by the presence of automatic and semi-automatic rifles. Artillery support for Soviet divisions was carried out at the request of the high command; they had at their disposal numerous tank brigades, as well as an unlimited amount of ammunition.

On the Karelian Isthmus, Finland's defense line was the "Mannerheim Line", consisting of several fortified defensive lines with concrete and wood-and-earth firing points, communications, and anti-tank barriers. In a state of combat readiness there were 74 old (since 1924) single-machine-gun pillboxes of frontal fire, 48 new and modernized pillboxes, which had from one to four machine-gun embrasures of flanking fire, 7 artillery pillboxes and one machine gun-artillery caponier. In total - 130 long-term firing structures were located along a line about 140 km long from the coast of the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga. In 1939, the most modern fortifications were created. However, their number did not exceed 10, since their construction was at the limit of the financial capabilities of the state, and the people called them “millionaires” because of their high cost.

The northern coast of the Gulf of Finland was fortified by numerous artillery batteries on the coast and on the coastal islands. A secret agreement was concluded between Finland and Estonia on military cooperation. One of the elements was to be the coordination of the fire of the Finnish and Estonian batteries in order to completely block the Soviet fleet. This plan did not work: by the beginning of the war, Estonia provided its territories for the military bases of the USSR, which were used by Soviet aircraft for air strikes on Finland.

On Lake Ladoga, the Finns also had coastal artillery and warships. The section of the border north of Lake Ladoga was not fortified. Here, preparations were made in advance for partisan actions, for which there were all the conditions: a wooded and swampy area where the normal use of military equipment is impossible, narrow dirt roads and ice-covered lakes, on which enemy troops are very vulnerable. At the end of the 30s, many airfields were built in Finland to receive aircraft from the Western Allies.

Finland began the construction of the navy with the laying of coastal defense ironclads (sometimes incorrectly called "battleships"), adapted for maneuvering and fighting in skerries. Their main measurements are: displacement - 4000 tons, speed - 15.5 knots, armament - 4 × 254 mm, 8x105 mm. The battleships Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen were laid down in August 1929 and accepted into the Finnish Navy in December 1932.

Cause for war and rupture of relations

The official reason for the war was the “Mainil incident”: on November 26, 1939, the Soviet government addressed the government of Finland with an official note stating that “On November 26, at 15:45, our troops, located on the Karelian Isthmus near the border of Finland, near the village of Mainila, were unexpectedly fired upon from Finnish territory by artillery fire. In total, seven gunshots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, seven privates and two from the command staff were wounded. Soviet troops, having strict orders not to succumb to provocation, refrained from firing back.. The note was drafted in moderate terms and demanded the withdrawal of Finnish troops 20-25 km from the border in order to avoid a repetition of incidents. In the meantime, the Finnish border guards hastily conducted an investigation into the incident, especially since the border posts were witnesses of the shelling. In response, the Finns stated that the shelling was recorded by Finnish posts, the shots were fired from the Soviet side, according to the observations and estimates of the Finns from a distance of about 1.5-2 km southeast of the place where the shells fell, that the Finns have only border guards on the border troops and no guns, especially long-range ones, but that Helsinki is ready to start negotiations on a mutual withdrawal of troops and start a joint investigation into the incident. The response note of the USSR read: “The denial on the part of the Finnish government of the fact of the outrageous artillery shelling of the Soviet troops by the Finnish troops, which resulted in casualties, cannot be explained otherwise than by the desire to mislead public opinion and mock the victims of the shelling.<…>The refusal of the Government of Finland to withdraw the troops that committed the villainous shelling of the Soviet troops, and the demand for the simultaneous withdrawal of Finnish and Soviet troops, proceeding formally from the principle of equality of arms, reveal the hostile desire of the Government of Finland to keep Leningrad under threat.. The USSR announced its withdrawal from the Non-Aggression Pact with Finland, arguing that the concentration of Finnish troops near Leningrad poses a threat to the city and is a violation of the pact.

On the evening of November 29, the Finnish envoy in Moscow, Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen (Fin. Aarno Yrjo-Koskinen) was summoned to the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, where Deputy People's Commissar V.P. Potemkin handed him a new note. It stated that, in view of the current situation, the responsibility for which lies with the Government of Finland, the Government of the USSR recognized the need to immediately recall its political and economic representatives from Finland. This meant a break in diplomatic relations. On the same day, the Finns noted an attack on their border guards near Petsamo.

On the morning of November 30, the last step was taken. As stated in the official announcement, “by order of the High Command of the Red Army, in view of new armed provocations by the Finnish military, the troops of the Leningrad Military District at 8 am on November 30 crossed the Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus and in a number of other areas”. On the same day, Soviet aircraft bombed and machine-gunned Helsinki; at the same time, as a result of the mistake of the pilots, mainly residential working quarters suffered. In response to the protests of European diplomats, Molotov claimed that Soviet planes were dropping bread on Helsinki for the starving population (after which Soviet bombs began to be called "Molotov bread baskets" in Finland). However, there was no official declaration of war.

In Soviet propaganda, and then historiography, the responsibility for the start of the war was assigned to Finland and the countries of the West: “ The imperialists were able to achieve some temporary success in Finland. They managed at the end of 1939 to provoke the Finnish reactionaries to war against the USSR».

Mannerheim, who, as commander in chief, had the most reliable data on the incident near Mainila, reports:

... And now the provocation that I have been expecting since mid-October has come true. When I personally visited the Karelian Isthmus on October 26, General Nennonen assured me that the artillery was completely withdrawn behind the line of fortifications, from where not a single battery was able to fire a shot beyond the borders ... ... We did not have to wait long for the implementation of Molotov's words uttered on Moscow negotiations: "Now it will be the turn of the soldiers to talk." On November 26, the Soviet Union organized a provocation, now known as “Shots at Mainila”… During the war of 1941-1944, captured Russians described in detail how the clumsy provocation was organized…

N. S. Khrushchev says that in late autumn (in the sense of November 26), he dined in Stalin's apartment with Molotov and Kuusinen. Between the latter there was a conversation about the implementation of the already adopted decision - the presentation of an ultimatum to Finland; at the same time, Stalin announced that Kuusinen would lead the new Karelian-Finnish SSR with the annexation of the "liberated" Finnish regions. Stalin believed "that after Finland is presented with ultimatum demands of a territorial nature and if she rejects them, military operations will have to be started", noticing: "today this will start". Khrushchev himself believed (in agreement with Stalin's mood, as he claims) that "it's enough to tell them loudly<финнам>, if they don’t hear, then shoot from the cannon once, and the Finns will raise their hands up, agree with the demands ”. Deputy People's Commissar of Defense Marshal G. I. Kulik (artilleryman) was sent to Leningrad in advance to organize a provocation. Khrushchev, Molotov and Kuusinen sat for a long time at Stalin's, waiting for the Finns' answer; everyone was sure that Finland would get scared and agree to the Soviet terms.

At the same time, it should be noted that internal Soviet propaganda did not advertise the Mainilsky incident, which served as an openly formal pretext: it emphasized that the Soviet Union was making a liberation campaign in Finland in order to help the Finnish workers and peasants overthrow the oppression of the capitalists. A striking example is the song "Accept us, Suomi-beauty":

We're here to help you get it right
Pay back the shame.
Accept us, Suomi is a beauty,
In a necklace of transparent lakes!

At the same time, the mention in the text of the “low sun autumn” gives rise to the assumption that the text was written ahead of time, counting on an earlier start of the war.

War

After the rupture of diplomatic relations, the Finnish government began the evacuation of the population from the border areas, mainly from the Karelian Isthmus and the Northern Ladoga region. The bulk of the population gathered in the period November 29 - December 4.

The beginning of the battles

The period from November 30, 1939 to February 10, 1940 is usually considered the first stage of the war. At this stage, the offensive of the Red Army units was carried out on the territory from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of the Barents Sea.

The grouping of Soviet troops consisted of the 7th, 8th, 9th and 14th armies. The 7th Army advanced on the Karelian Isthmus, the 8th - north of Lake Ladoga, the 9th - in northern and central Karelia, the 14th - in Petsamo.

The offensive of the 7th Army on the Karelian Isthmus was opposed by the Isthmus Army (Kannaksen armeija) under the command of Hugo Esterman. For the Soviet troops, these battles became the most difficult and bloody. The Soviet command had only "fragmentary intelligence data on the concrete strips of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus." As a result, the forces allocated to break through the "Mannerheim Line" turned out to be completely insufficient. The troops turned out to be completely unprepared to overcome the line of bunkers and bunkers. In particular, there was little large-caliber artillery needed to destroy pillboxes. By December 12, units of the 7th Army were only able to overcome the line support zone and reach the front edge of the main defense zone, but the planned breakthrough of the line on the move failed due to clearly insufficient forces and poor organization of the offensive. On December 12, the Finnish army carried out one of its most successful operations near Lake Tolvajärvi. Until the end of December, attempts to break through continued, which did not bring success.

The 8th Army advanced 80 km. She was opposed by the IV Army Corps (IV armeijakunta), commanded by Juho Heiskanen. Part of the Soviet troops was surrounded. After heavy fighting, they had to retreat.

The offensive of the 9th and 14th armies was opposed by the Northern Finland Task Force (Pohjois-Suomen Ryhmä) under the command of Major General Viljo Einar Tuompo. Its area of ​​responsibility was a 400-mile stretch of territory from Petsamo to Kuhmo. The 9th Army was advancing from the White Sea Karelia. She wedged into the enemy defenses for 35-45 km, but was stopped. The forces of the 14th Army, advancing on the Petsamo region, achieved the greatest success. Interacting with the Northern Fleet, the troops of the 14th Army were able to capture the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas and the city of Petsamo (now Pechenga). Thus they closed Finland's access to the Barents Sea.

Some researchers and memoirists are trying to explain the Soviet failures, including the weather: severe frosts (down to −40 ° C) and deep snow - up to 2 m. However, both meteorological observations and other documents refute this: until December 20, 1939, on On the Karelian Isthmus, the temperature ranged from +1 to -23.4 °C. Further, until the New Year, the temperature did not fall below -23 ° C. Frosts down to -40 ° C began in the second half of January, when there was a lull at the front. Moreover, these frosts prevented not only the attackers, but also the defenders, as Mannerheim wrote about. There was also no deep snow until January 1940. Thus, the operational reports of the Soviet divisions of December 15, 1939 testify to the depth of the snow cover of 10-15 cm. Moreover, successful offensive operations in February took place in more severe weather conditions.

Significant problems for the Soviet troops were caused by the use by Finland of mine-explosive devices, including improvised ones, which were installed not only on the front line, but also in the rear of the Red Army, on the routes of movement of troops. On January 10, 1940, in the report of the authorized people's commissariat of defense, commander of the II rank Kovalev to the people's commissariat of defense, it was noted that, along with enemy snipers, mines cause the main losses to infantry. Later, at a meeting of the commanding staff of the Red Army to collect experience in combat operations against Finland on April 14, 1940, the chief of engineers of the North-Western Front, brigade commander A.F. Khrenov noted that in the front action zone (130 km) the total length of minefields was 386 km In this case, mines were used in combination with non-explosive engineering barriers.

An unpleasant surprise was the massive use by the Finns against Soviet tanks of Molotov cocktails, later nicknamed the “Molotov cocktail”. During the 3 months of the war, the Finnish industry produced over half a million bottles.

During the war, the Soviet troops were the first to use radar stations (RUS-1) in combat conditions to detect enemy aircraft.

Terijoki government

On December 1, 1939, the Pravda newspaper published a message stating that the so-called "People's Government" had been formed in Finland, headed by Otto Kuusinen. In historical literature, the government of Kuusinen is usually referred to as "Terijoki", since it was, after the outbreak of war, in the village of Terijoki (now the city of Zelenogorsk). This government was officially recognized by the USSR.

On December 2, negotiations were held in Moscow between the government of the Finnish Democratic Republic, headed by Otto Kuusinen, and the Soviet government, headed by V. M. Molotov, at which a Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship was signed. Stalin, Voroshilov and Zhdanov also took part in the negotiations.

The main provisions of this agreement corresponded to the requirements that the USSR had previously presented to the Finnish representatives (transfer of territories on the Karelian Isthmus, sale of a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, lease of Hanko). In exchange, significant territories in Soviet Karelia were transferred to Finland and monetary compensation was provided. The USSR also undertook to support the Finnish People's Army with weapons, assistance in training specialists, etc. The contract was concluded for a period of 25 years, and if none of the parties announced its termination a year before the expiration of the contract, it was automatically extended for another 25 years. The Treaty came into force from the moment it was signed by the parties, and ratification was planned "as soon as possible in the capital of Finland - the city of Helsinki."

In the following days, Molotov met with official representatives of Sweden and the United States, at which the recognition of the People's Government of Finland was announced.

It was announced that the previous government of Finland had fled and therefore was no longer in charge of the country. The USSR declared in the League of Nations that from now on it would negotiate only with the new government.

Accepted Com. Molotov on December 4, the Swedish envoy, Mr. Winter, announced the desire of the so-called "Finnish government" to start new negotiations on an agreement with the Soviet Union. Tov. Molotov explained to Mr. Winter that the Soviet government did not recognize the so-called "Finnish government", which had already left the city of Helsinki and headed in an unknown direction, and therefore there could be no question of any negotiations with this "government" now. The Soviet government recognizes only the people's government of the Finnish Democratic Republic, has concluded a treaty of mutual assistance and friendship with it, and this is a reliable basis for the development of peaceful and favorable relations between the USSR and Finland.

The "People's Government" was formed in the USSR from Finnish communists. The leadership of the Soviet Union believed that the use in propaganda of the fact of the creation of a "people's government" and the conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement with it, indicating friendship and alliance with the USSR while maintaining the independence of Finland, would make it possible to influence the Finnish population, increasing the decay in the army and in the rear.

Finnish People's Army

On November 11, 1939, the formation of the first corps of the "Finnish People's Army" (originally the 106th Mountain Rifle Division), called "Ingermanland", which was staffed by Finns and Karelians who served in the troops of the Leningrad Military District, began.

By November 26, there were 13,405 people in the corps, and in February 1940 - 25 thousand military personnel who wore their national uniform (sewn from khaki cloth and looked like the Finnish uniform of the 1927 model; allegations that it was a trophy uniform of the Polish armies are erroneous - only part of the overcoats were used from it).

This "people's" army was to replace the occupation units of the Red Army in Finland and become the military backbone of the "people's" government. "Finns" in confederates held a parade in Leningrad. Kuusinen announced that they would be given the honor of hoisting the red flag over the presidential palace in Helsinki. In the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, a draft instruction was prepared “Where to start the political and organizational work of the communists (note: the word „ communists“crossed out by Zhdanov) in areas liberated from the power of the whites”, which indicated practical measures to create a popular front in the occupied Finnish territory. In December 1939, this instruction was used in work with the population of Finnish Karelia, but the withdrawal of Soviet troops led to the curtailment of these activities.

Despite the fact that the Finnish People's Army was not supposed to participate in hostilities, from the end of December 1939, FNA units began to be widely used to solve combat missions. Throughout January 1940, scouts of the 5th and 6th regiments of the 3rd FNA SD carried out special sabotage missions in the 8th Army sector: they destroyed ammunition depots in the rear of the Finnish troops, blew up railway bridges, and mined roads. FNA units participated in the battles for Lunkulansaari and in the capture of Vyborg.

When it became clear that the war was dragging on and the Finnish people did not support the new government, the Kuusinen government faded into the background and was no longer mentioned in the official press. When the Soviet-Finnish consultations began in January on the issue of concluding peace, it was no longer mentioned. Since January 25, the government of the USSR recognizes the government in Helsinki as the legal government of Finland.

Foreign military assistance to Finland

Soon after the outbreak of hostilities, detachments and groups of volunteers from around the world began to arrive in Finland. In total, over 11 thousand volunteers arrived in Finland, including 8 thousand from Sweden (“Swedish Volunteer Corps (English) Russian”), 1 thousand from Norway, 600 from Denmark, 400 from Hungary (“Detachment Sisu”), 300 from the USA, as well as citizens of Great Britain, Estonia and a number of other states. A Finnish source gives a figure of 12,000 foreigners who arrived in Finland to take part in the war.

• Among those who fought on the side of Finland were Russian white emigrants: in January 1940, B. Bazhanov and several other Russian white emigrants from the Russian General Military Union (ROVS) arrived in Finland, after a meeting on January 15, 1940 with Mannerheim, they received permission to form anti-Soviet armed groups from captured Red Army soldiers. Later, several small "Russian People's Detachments" were created from the prisoners under the command of six white émigré officers from the ROVS. Only one of these detachments - 30 former prisoners of war under the command of "Staff Captain K." for ten days he was on the front line and managed to take part in the hostilities.
• Jewish refugees who arrived from a number of European countries joined the Finnish army.

Great Britain delivered to Finland 75 aircraft (24 Blenheim bombers, 30 Gladiator fighters, 11 Hurricane fighters and 11 Lysander scouts), 114 field guns, 200 anti-tank guns, 124 automatic small arms, 185 thousand artillery shells, 17,700 bombs, 10,000 anti-tank mines and 70 Beuys anti-tank rifles, model 1937.

France decided to supply 179 aircraft to Finland (donate 49 fighters and sell another 130 aircraft of various types), but in fact, during the war, 30 M.S.406C1 fighters were donated and six more Caudron C.714 arrived after the end of hostilities and in the war did not participate; 160 field guns, 500 machine guns, 795 thousand artillery shells, 200 thousand hand grenades, 20 million rounds of ammunition, 400 sea mines and several thousand sets of ammunition were also transferred to Finland. Also, France became the first country to officially allow the registration of volunteers to participate in the Finnish war.

Sweden supplied Finland with 29 aircraft, 112 field guns, 85 anti-tank guns, 104 anti-aircraft guns, 500 automatic small arms, 80,000 rifles, 30,000 artillery shells, 50 million rounds of ammunition, as well as other military equipment and raw materials. In addition, the Swedish government allowed the country's campaign "Finnish's cause is our cause" to collect donations for Finland, and the State Bank of Sweden provided a loan to Finland.

The Danish government sold Finland about 30 pieces of 20-mm anti-tank guns and shells for them (at the same time, in order to avoid accusations of violating neutrality, the order was called "Swedish"); sent a medical convoy and skilled workers to Finland, and authorized a fundraising campaign for Finland.

Italy sent 35 Fiat G.50 fighters to Finland, but five aircraft were destroyed during their transfer and development by personnel. Also, the Italians handed over to Finland 94.5 thousand Mannlicher-Carcano rifles mod. 1938, 1500 Beretta pistols mod. 1915 and 60 Beretta M1934 pistols.

The Union of South Africa donated 22 Gloster Gauntlet II fighters to Finland.

A representative of the US government issued a statement that the entry of American citizens into the Finnish army does not contradict the US neutrality law, a group of American pilots was sent to Helsinki, and in January 1940 the US Congress approved the sale of 10 thousand rifles to Finland. Also, the United States sold 44 Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters to Finland, but they arrived too late and did not have time to take part in the hostilities.

Belgium supplied Finland with 171 MP.28-II submachine guns, and in February 1940, 56 Parabellum P-08 pistols.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, G. Ciano, in his diary mentions the assistance to Finland from the Third Reich: in December 1939, the Finnish envoy to Italy reported that Germany had “unofficially” sent a batch of captured weapons captured during the Polish campaign to Finland. In addition, on December 21, 1939, Germany concluded an agreement with Sweden in which it promised to supply Sweden with the same amount of weapons as it would transfer to Finland from its own stocks. The agreement was the reason for the increase in the volume of military aid from Sweden to Finland.

In total, during the war, 350 aircraft, 500 guns, more than 6 thousand machine guns, about 100 thousand rifles and other weapons, as well as 650 thousand hand grenades, 2.5 million shells and 160 million rounds of ammunition were delivered to Finland.

Fighting in December - January

The course of hostilities revealed serious gaps in the organization of command and control of the Red Army troops, the poor preparedness of command personnel, and the lack of specific skills among the troops necessary for waging war in the winter in Finland. By the end of December, it became clear that fruitless attempts to continue the offensive would lead nowhere. There was a relative calm at the front. Throughout January and the beginning of February, the troops were strengthened, material supplies were replenished, and units and formations were reorganized. Subdivisions of skiers were created, methods were developed for overcoming mined terrain, obstacles, methods for dealing with defensive structures, and personnel were trained. To storm the Mannerheim Line, the North-Western Front was created under the command of Army Commander 1st Rank Timoshenko and a member of the military council of the LenVO Zhdanov. The front included the 7th and 13th armies. Enormous work was carried out in the border regions to hastily build and re-equip communication lines for the uninterrupted supply of the army in the field. The total number of personnel was increased to 760.5 thousand people.

To destroy the fortifications on the Mannerheim Line, the divisions of the first echelon were assigned groups of destruction artillery (AR) consisting of one to six divisions in the main directions. In total, these groups had 14 divisions, in which there were 81 guns with a caliber of 203, 234, 280 m.

The Finnish side during this period also continued to replenish the troops and supply them with weapons coming from the allies. At the same time, fighting continued in Karelia. Formations of the 8th and 9th armies, operating along the roads in continuous forests, suffered heavy losses. If in some places the achieved lines were held, then in others the troops retreated, in some places even to the border line. The Finns widely used the tactics of guerrilla warfare: small autonomous detachments of skiers armed with machine guns attacked troops moving along the roads, mainly at night, and after the attacks went into the forest, where bases were equipped. Snipers inflicted heavy losses. According to the firm opinion of the Red Army soldiers (however, refuted by many sources, including Finnish), the greatest danger was represented by “cuckoo” snipers who fired from trees. The formations of the Red Army that had broken through forward were constantly surrounded and broke through backwards, often abandoning equipment and weapons.

The Battle of Suomussalmi was widely known in Finland and beyond. The village of Suomussalmi was occupied on December 7 by the forces of the Soviet 163rd Infantry Division of the 9th Army, which was given the responsible task of striking at Oulu, reaching the Gulf of Bothnia and, as a result, cutting Finland in half. However, thereafter the division was surrounded by (smaller) Finnish forces and cut off from supplies. The 44th Infantry Division was put forward to help her, which, however, was blocked on the road to Suomussalmi, in a defile between two lakes near the village of Raate, by the forces of two companies of the 27th Finnish regiment (350 people). Without waiting for her approach, the 163rd division at the end of December, under the constant attacks of the Finns, was forced to break out of the encirclement, while losing 30% of its personnel and most of the equipment and heavy weapons. After that, the Finns transferred the released forces to encircle and eliminate the 44th division, which by January 8 was completely destroyed in the battle on the Raat road. Almost the entire division was killed or captured, and only a small part of the military managed to get out of the encirclement, leaving all the equipment and convoy (the Finns got 37 tanks, 20 armored vehicles, 350 machine guns, 97 guns (including 17 howitzers), several thousand rifles, 160 vehicles , all radio stations). The Finns won this double victory with forces several times smaller than those of the enemy (11 thousand, according to other sources - 17 thousand) people with 11 guns against 45-55 thousand with 335 guns, more than 100 tanks and 50 armored vehicles. The command of both divisions was given under the tribunal. The commander and commissar of the 163rd division were removed from command, one regimental commander was shot; before the formation of their division, the command of the 44th division was shot (brigade commander A. I. Vinogradov, regimental commissar Pakhomenko and chief of staff Volkov).

The victory at Suomussalmi had enormous moral significance for the Finns; strategically, it buried plans for a breakthrough to the Gulf of Bothnia, which were extremely dangerous for the Finns, and so paralyzed the Soviet troops in this sector that they did not take active actions until the very end of the war.

At the same time, south of Suomussalmi, in the Kuhmo area, the Soviet 54th rifle division was surrounded. The winner at Suomussalmi, Colonel Hjalmar Siilsavuo, who was promoted to major general, was sent to this sector, but he was never able to liquidate the division, which remained encircled until the end of the war. At Lake Ladoga, the 168th Infantry Division, which was advancing on Sortavala, was also surrounded until the end of the war. In the same place, in South Lemetti, in late December and early January, the 18th Infantry Division of General Kondrashov, along with the 34th Tank Brigade of Brigade Commander Kondratiev, were surrounded. Already at the end of the war, on February 28, they tried to break out of the encirclement, but at the exit they were defeated in the so-called "valley of death" near the city of Pitkyaranta, where one of the two outgoing columns completely perished. As a result, out of 15,000 people, 1,237 people left the encirclement, half of them wounded and frostbite. The brigade commander Kondratiev shot himself, Kondrashov managed to get out, but was soon shot, and the division was disbanded due to the loss of the banner. The death toll in the "valley of death" was 10% of the total number of deaths in the entire Soviet-Finnish war. These episodes were vivid manifestations of the tactics of the Finns, called mottitaktiikka, the tactics of motti - “ticks” (literally, motti is a log of firewood that is placed in the forest in groups, but at a certain distance from each other). Taking advantage of the advantage in mobility, detachments of Finnish skiers blocked the roads clogged with sprawling Soviet columns, cut off the advancing groups and then exhausted them with unexpected attacks from all sides, trying to destroy them. At the same time, the encircled groups, unable, unlike the Finns, to fight off the roads, usually huddled together and occupied a passive all-round defense, without making any attempts to actively resist the attacks of the Finnish partisan detachments. Only the lack of mortars and heavy weapons in general made it difficult for the Finns to completely destroy them.

On the Karelian Isthmus, the front stabilized by December 26. Soviet troops began thorough preparations for breaking through the main fortifications of the "Mannerheim Line", conducted reconnaissance of the defense line. At this time, the Finns unsuccessfully tried to disrupt the preparations for a new offensive with counterattacks. So, on December 28, the Finns attacked the central units of the 7th Army, but were repulsed with heavy losses.

On January 3, 1940, at the northern tip of the island of Gotland (Sweden), with 50 crew members, the Soviet submarine S-2 under the command of Lieutenant Commander I. A. Sokolov sank (probably hit a mine). S-2 was the only RKKF ship lost by the USSR.

On the basis of the directive of the Headquarters of the Main Military Council of the Red Army No. 01447 of January 30, 1940, the entire remaining Finnish population was subject to eviction from the territory occupied by Soviet troops. By the end of February, 2080 people were evicted from the regions of Finland occupied by the Red Army in the zone of combat operations of the 8th, 9th, 15th armies, of which: men - 402, women - 583, children under 16 years old - 1095. All resettled Finnish citizens were placed in three villages of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic: in the Interposyolka of the Pryazhinsky district, in the village of Kovgora-Goimay of the Kondopoga region, in the village of Kintezma of the Kalevalsky district. They lived in barracks and without fail worked in the forest at logging sites. They were allowed to return to Finland only in June 1940, after the end of the war.

February offensive of the Red Army

On February 1, 1940, the Red Army, having brought up reinforcements, resumed the offensive on the Karelian Isthmus along the entire width of the front of the 2nd Army Corps. The main blow was inflicted in the direction of the Sum. Art preparations also began. From that day on, every day for several days, the troops of the North-Western Front under the command of S. Timoshenko brought down 12 thousand shells on the fortifications of the Mannerheim Line. Five divisions of the 7th and 13th armies carried out a private offensive, but could not succeed.

On February 6, the offensive began on the Summa strip. In the following days, the front of the offensive expanded both to the west and to the east.

On February 9, the commander of the troops of the North-Western Front, commander of the first rank S. Timoshenko, sent directive No. 04606 to the troops, according to which, on February 11, after powerful artillery preparation, the troops of the North-Western Front were to go on the offensive.

On February 11, after ten days of artillery preparation, the general offensive of the Red Army began. The main forces were concentrated on the Karelian Isthmus. In this offensive, ships of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla, created in October 1939, operated together with the ground units of the North-Western Front.

Since the attacks of the Soviet troops on the Summa region did not bring success, the main blow was moved to the east, to the Lyakhde direction. In this place, the defending side suffered huge losses from artillery preparation and the Soviet troops managed to break through the defense.

During three days of intense fighting, the troops of the 7th Army broke through the first line of defense of the Mannerheim Line, introduced tank formations into the breakthrough, which began to develop success. By February 17, units of the Finnish army were withdrawn to the second line of defense, as there was a threat of encirclement.

On February 18, the Finns closed the Saimaa Canal with the Kivikoski dam, and the next day the water began to rise in Kärstilänjärvi.

By February 21, the 7th Army reached the second line of defense, and the 13th Army - to the main line of defense north of Muolaa. By February 24, units of the 7th Army, interacting with coastal detachments of sailors of the Baltic Fleet, captured several coastal islands. On February 28, both armies of the Northwestern Front launched an offensive in the zone from Lake Vuoksa to Vyborg Bay. Seeing the impossibility of stopping the offensive, the Finnish troops retreated.

At the final stage of the operation, the 13th Army advanced in the direction of Antrea (modern Kamennogorsk), the 7th - to Vyborg. The Finns offered fierce resistance, but were forced to retreat.

England and France: plans for military operations against the USSR

Great Britain has provided assistance to Finland from the very beginning. On the one hand, the British government tried to avoid turning the USSR into an enemy, on the other hand, it was widely believed that because of the conflict in the Balkans with the USSR, "you would have to fight one way or another." The Finnish representative in London, Georg Achates Gripenberg, approached Halifax on December 1, 1939, with a request to allow war materials to be shipped to Finland, on the condition that they not be re-exported to Nazi Germany (with which Britain was at war). The head of the North Department (en: Northern Department) Laurence Collier (en: Laurence Collier) at the same time believed that British and German goals in Finland could be compatible and wanted to involve Germany and Italy in the war against the USSR, while speaking, however, against the proposed Finland used the Polish fleet (then under British control) to destroy Soviet ships. Thomas Snow (English) Thomas Snow), the British representative in Helsinki, continued to support the idea of ​​​​an anti-Soviet alliance (with Italy and Japan), which he expressed before the war.

Against the backdrop of government disagreements, the British Army began supplying armaments in December 1939, including artillery and tanks (while Germany refrained from supplying heavy weapons to Finland).

When Finland requested the supply of bombers to attack Moscow and Leningrad, and to destroy the railroad to Murmansk, the latter idea received support from Fitzroy MacLean in the Department of the North: helping the Finns to destroy the road would allow the UK to "avoid the same operation later, independently and under less favorable conditions. McLean's superiors, Collier and Cadogan, agreed with McLean's reasoning and requested additional delivery of Blenheim aircraft to Finland.

According to Craig Gerrard, the plans for intervention in the war against the USSR, which were then being born in Great Britain, illustrated the ease with which British politicians forgot about the war they were currently waging with Germany. By the beginning of 1940, the view prevailed in the Department of the North that the use of force against the USSR was inevitable. Collier, as before, continued to insist that it was wrong to appease the aggressors; now the enemy, in contrast to his previous position, was not Germany, but the USSR. Gerrard explains the position of MacLean and Collier not with ideological, but with humanitarian considerations.

The Soviet ambassadors in London and Paris reported that there was a desire in "circles close to the government" to support Finland in order to reconcile with Germany and send Hitler to the East. Nick Smart believes, however, that on a conscious level, the arguments for intervention did not come from an attempt to trade one war for another, but from the assumption that German and Soviet plans were closely linked.

From the French point of view, the anti-Soviet orientation also made sense because of the collapse of plans to prevent the strengthening of Germany with the help of a blockade. Soviet deliveries of raw materials caused the German economy to continue to grow, and the French began to realize that after a while, as a result of this growth, winning the war against Germany would become impossible. In such a situation, although the transfer of the war to Scandinavia presented a certain risk, inaction was an even worse alternative. The chief of the French General Staff, Gamelin, gave instructions for planning an operation against the USSR with the aim of waging war outside French territory; plans were soon prepared.

Britain did not support some French plans: for example, an attack on the oil fields in Baku, an attack on Petsamo using Polish troops (the Polish government in exile in London was formally at war with the USSR). However, Great Britain was also approaching the opening of a second front against the USSR.

On February 5, 1940, at a joint war council (at which Churchill was present but did not speak) it was decided to seek the consent of Norway and Sweden for a British-led operation in which the expeditionary force was to land in Norway and move east.

French plans, as the situation in Finland worsened, became more and more one-sided.

On March 2, 1940, Daladier announced his readiness to send 50,000 French soldiers and 100 bombers to Finland for the war against the USSR. The British government was not informed in advance of Daladier's statement, but agreed to send 50 British bombers to Finland. The coordination meeting was scheduled for March 12, 1940, but due to the end of the war, the plans remained unfulfilled.

The end of the war and the conclusion of peace

By March 1940, the Finnish government realized that, despite the demands for continued resistance, Finland would not receive any military assistance other than volunteers and weapons from the allies. After breaking through the Mannerheim Line, Finland was obviously unable to hold back the advance of the Red Army. There was a real threat of a complete seizure of the country, followed by either joining the USSR or changing the government to a pro-Soviet one.

Therefore, the Finnish government turned to the USSR with a proposal to start peace negotiations. On March 7, a Finnish delegation arrived in Moscow, and already on March 12, a peace treaty was concluded, according to which hostilities ceased at 12 o'clock on March 13, 1940. Despite the fact that Vyborg, according to the agreement, retreated to the USSR, Soviet troops stormed the city on the morning of March 13.

According to J. Roberts, Stalin's conclusion of peace on relatively moderate terms could be caused by the realization of the fact that an attempt to forcibly sovietize Finland would run into massive resistance from the Finnish population and the danger of Anglo-French intervention to help the Finns. As a result, the Soviet Union risked being drawn into a war against the Western powers on the side of Germany.

For participation in the Finnish war, the title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to 412 servicemen, over 50 thousand were awarded orders and medals.

The results of the war

All officially declared territorial claims of the USSR were satisfied. According to Stalin, the war ended after 3 months and 12 days, only because our army did a good job, because our political boom set before Finland turned out to be right».

The USSR gained full control over the waters of Lake Ladoga and secured Murmansk, which was located near Finnish territory (Rybachy Peninsula).

In addition, under the peace treaty, Finland assumed the obligation to build on its territory a railway connecting the Kola Peninsula through Alakurtti with the Gulf of Bothnia (Tornio). But this road was never built.

On October 11, 1940, the Agreement between the USSR and Finland on the Aland Islands was signed in Moscow, according to which the USSR had the right to place its consulate on the islands, and the archipelago was declared a demilitarized zone.

For unleashing the war on December 14, 1939, the USSR was expelled from the League of Nations. The immediate reason for the expulsion was the mass protests of the international community about the systematic bombing of civilian targets by Soviet aircraft, including with the use of incendiary bombs. US President Roosevelt also joined the protests.

US President Roosevelt declared a "moral embargo" on the Soviet Union in December. On March 29, 1940, Molotov told the Supreme Soviet that Soviet imports from the United States had even increased compared to the previous year, despite the obstacles put in place by the American authorities. In particular, the Soviet side complained about the obstacles to Soviet engineers with admission to aircraft factories. In addition, under various trade agreements in the period 1939-1941. The Soviet Union received 6,430 machine tools from Germany for 85.4 million marks, which compensated for the decline in supplies of equipment from the United States.

Another negative result for the USSR was the formation among the leadership of a number of countries of the idea of ​​the weakness of the Red Army. Information about the course, circumstances and results (a significant excess of Soviet losses over Finnish ones) of the Winter War strengthened the positions of supporters of the war against the USSR in Germany. In early January 1940, the German envoy to Helsinki, Blucher, presented a memorandum to the Foreign Ministry with the following assessments: despite superiority in manpower and equipment, the Red Army suffered one defeat after another, left thousands of people in captivity, lost hundreds of guns, tanks, aircraft and decisively failed to conquer the territory. In this regard, German ideas about Bolshevik Russia should be reconsidered. The Germans were making false assumptions when they thought that Russia was a first-class military factor. But in reality the Red Army has so many shortcomings that it cannot cope even with a small country. In reality, Russia does not pose a danger to such a great power as Germany, the rear in the East is safe, and therefore it will be possible to speak with the gentlemen in the Kremlin in a completely different language than it was in August - September 1939. For his part, Hitler, following the results Winter War, called the USSR a colossus with feet of clay.

W. Churchill testifies that "failure of the Soviet troops" aroused in public opinion in England "contempt"; “In English circles, many congratulated themselves on the fact that we did not try very zealously to win the Soviets over to our side.<во время переговоров лета 1939 г.>and were proud of their foresight. People too hastily concluded that the purge ruined the Russian army and that all this confirmed the organic rottenness and decline of the state and social system of the Russians..

On the other hand, the Soviet Union gained experience in waging war in the winter, on a wooded and marshy territory, the experience of breaking through long-term fortifications and fighting an enemy using guerrilla warfare tactics. In clashes with Finnish troops equipped with the Suomi submachine gun, the importance of submachine guns that had been removed from service before was clarified: the production of PPD was hastily restored and the terms of reference were given to create a new submachine gun system, resulting in the appearance of PPSh.

Germany was bound by an agreement with the USSR and could not publicly support Finland, which she made clear even before the outbreak of hostilities. The situation changed after the major defeats of the Red Army. In February 1940, Toivo Kivimäki (later ambassador) was sent to Berlin to probe possible changes. Relations were cool at first, but changed dramatically when Kivimäki announced Finland's intention to accept help from the Western Allies. On February 22, the Finnish envoy was urgently arranged for a meeting with Hermann Göring, the second man in the Reich. According to the memoirs of R. Nordström of the late 1940s, Goering unofficially promised Kivimäki that Germany would attack the USSR in the future: “ Remember that you should make peace on any terms. I guarantee that when in a short time we go to war against Russia, you will get everything back with interest". Kivimäki immediately reported this to Helsinki.

The results of the Soviet-Finnish war became one of the factors that determined the rapprochement between Finland and Germany; in addition, they could in a certain way influence the leadership of the Reich in relation to plans to attack the USSR. For Finland, rapprochement with Germany became a means of containing the growing political pressure from the USSR. Finland's participation in World War II on the side of the Axis was called the "Continuation War" in Finnish historiography, in order to show the relationship with the Winter War.

Territorial changes

1. Karelian Isthmus and Western Karelia. As a result of the loss of the Karelian Isthmus, Finland lost its existing defense system and began to build fortifications along the new border line (Salpa Line) at an accelerated pace, thereby moving the border from Leningrad from 18 to 150 km.
2. Part of Lapland (Old Salla).
3. Part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas (the Petsamo (Pechenga) region, occupied by the Red Army during the war, was returned to Finland).
4. Islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland (Gogland Island).
5. Lease of the Hanko (Gangut) peninsula for 30 years.

In total, as a result of the Soviet-Finnish war, the Soviet Union acquired about 40 thousand km² of Finnish territories. Finland again occupied these territories in 1941, in the early stages of the Great Patriotic War, and in 1944 they again went to the USSR (see the Soviet-Finnish War (1941-1944)).

Finnish losses

Military

According to 1991 data:

• killed - ok. 26 thousand people (according to Soviet data in 1940 - 85 thousand people);
• wounded - 40 thousand people. (according to Soviet data in 1940 - 250 thousand people);
• prisoners - 1000 people.

Thus, the total losses in the Finnish troops during the war amounted to 67 thousand people. Brief information about each of the victims from the Finnish side is published in a number of Finnish publications.

Up-to-date information on the circumstances of the death of Finnish military personnel:

• 16,725 died in action, remains evacuated;
• 3433 died in action, the remains were not evacuated;
• 3671 died in hospitals from wounds;
• 715 died for non-combat reasons (including from disease);
• 28 died in captivity;
• 1727 missing and declared dead;
• the cause of death of 363 military personnel is unknown.

A total of 26,662 Finnish soldiers died.

Civil

According to official Finnish data, during the air raids and bombing of Finnish cities (including Helsinki), 956 people were killed, 540 were seriously and 1300 slightly injured, 256 stone and about 1800 wooden buildings were destroyed.

Losses of foreign volunteers

During the war, the Swedish Volunteer Corps lost 33 people dead and 185 wounded and frostbite (with frostbite being the vast majority - about 140 people).

Two Danes were killed - pilots who fought in the LLv-24 fighter air group, and one Italian who fought in the LLv-26.

USSR losses

Monument to the Fallen in the Soviet-Finnish War (St. Petersburg, near the Military Medical Academy)

The first official figures of Soviet losses in the war were made public at the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 26, 1940: 48,475 dead and 158,863 wounded, sick and frostbite.

According to reports from the troops on 03/15/1940:

• wounded, sick, frostbitten - 248,090;
• killed and died at the stages of sanitary evacuation - 65,384;
• died in hospitals - 15,921;
• missing - 14,043;
• total irretrievable losses - 95,348.

name lists

According to the lists of names compiled in 1949-1951 by the Main Directorate of Personnel of the USSR Ministry of Defense and the Main Headquarters of the Ground Forces, the losses of the Red Army in the war were as follows:

• died and died from wounds at the stages of sanitary evacuation - 71,214;
• died in hospitals from wounds and diseases - 16,292;
• missing - 39,369.

In total, according to these lists, irretrievable losses amounted to 126,875 military personnel.

Other loss estimates

In the period from 1990 to 1995, new, often contradictory data on the losses of both the Soviet and Finnish armies appeared in Russian historical literature and in journal publications, and the general trend of these publications was an increase in the number of Soviet losses from 1990 to 1995 and a decrease in Finnish ones. So, for example, in the articles of M.I. Semiryaga (1989), the number of killed Soviet soldiers was indicated at 53.5 thousand, in the articles of A.M. Aptekar in 1995 - 131.5 thousand. As for the Soviet wounded, according to P. A. Aptekar, their number is more than double the results of the study of Semiryaga and Noskov - up to 400 thousand people. According to the data of the Soviet military archives and hospitals, sanitary losses amounted (by name) to 264,908 people. It is estimated that about 22 percent of the losses were from frostbite.

Losses in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. based on the two-volume “History of Russia. XX century»:

"Karelian question"

After the war, the local Finnish authorities, the provincial organizations of the Karelian Union, created in order to protect the rights and interests of the evacuated residents of Karelia, tried to find a solution to the issue of returning the lost territories. During the Cold War, Finnish President Urho Kekkonen repeatedly negotiated with the Soviet leadership, but these negotiations were unsuccessful. The Finnish side did not openly demand the return of these territories. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issue of transferring territories to Finland was raised again.

In matters relating to the return of the ceded territories, the Karelian Union acts jointly with the foreign policy leadership of Finland and through it. In accordance with the program "Karelia" adopted in 2005 at the congress of the Karelian Union, the Karelian Union seeks to encourage the political leadership of Finland to actively monitor the situation in Russia and start negotiations with Russia on the return of the ceded territories of Karelia as soon as a real basis arises. and both sides will be ready for it.

Propaganda during the war

At the beginning of the war, the tone of the Soviet press was bravura - the Red Army looked perfect and victorious, while the Finns were portrayed as a frivolous enemy. On December 2 (2 days after the start of the war), Leningradskaya Pravda writes:

You involuntarily admire the valiant fighters of the Red Army, armed with the latest sniper rifles, shiny automatic light machine guns. The armies of the two worlds collided. The Red Army is the most peaceful, the most heroic, powerful, equipped with advanced technology, and the army of the corrupt Finnish government, which the capitalists are forcing to saber-rattling. And the weapon is, frankly, old, worn. Not enough for more powder.

However, a month later the tone of the Soviet press changed. They began to talk about the power of the "Mannerheim Line", difficult terrain and frost - the Red Army, losing tens of thousands killed and frostbite, got stuck in the Finnish forests. Starting with Molotov's report on March 29, 1940, the myth of the impregnable "Mannerheim Line", similar to the "Maginot Line" and "Siegfried Line", begins to live, which so far have not been crushed by any army. Anastas Mikoyan later wrote: “ Stalin, an intelligent, capable person, in order to justify the failures during the war with Finland, invented the reason that we “suddenly” discovered the well-equipped Mannerheim Line. A special motion picture was released showing these installations to justify that it was difficult to fight against such a line and quickly win.».

If Finnish propaganda depicted the war as defending the homeland from cruel and merciless invaders, connecting communist terrorism with traditional Russian great power (for example, in the song “No, Molotov!”, the head of the Soviet government is compared with the tsarist Governor-General of Finland Nikolai Bobrikov, known for his Russification policy and struggle against autonomy), then the Soviet Agitprop presented the war as a struggle against the oppressors of the Finnish people for the sake of the freedom of the latter. The term White Finns, which was used to designate the enemy, was intended to emphasize not the interstate and not the interethnic, but the class nature of the confrontation. “Your homeland has been taken away more than once - we are coming to return it”, says the song "Take us, beautiful Suomi", in an attempt to fend off accusations of capturing Finland. The order for the LenVO troops dated November 29, signed by Meretskov and Zhdanov, states:

We are going to Finland not as conquerors, but as friends and liberators of the Finnish people from the oppression of the landlords and capitalists.

We are not going against the Finnish people, but against the Cajander-Erkno government, which oppresses the Finnish people and provoked a war with the USSR.
We respect the freedom and independence of Finland gained by the Finnish people as a result of the October Revolution.

Mannerheim line - alternative

Throughout the war, both Soviet and Finnish propaganda significantly exaggerated the significance of the Mannerheim Line. The first is to justify a long delay in the offensive, and the second is to strengthen the morale of the army and the population. Accordingly, the myth of the "incredibly heavily fortified" "Mannerheim Line" was firmly entrenched in Soviet history and penetrated into some Western sources of information, which is not surprising, given the chanting of the line by the Finnish side in the literal sense - in the song Mannerheimin linjalla("On the Mannerheim Line"). The Belgian General Badu, a technical adviser for the construction of fortifications, who participated in the construction of the Maginot Line, stated:

Nowhere in the world were natural conditions so favorable for the construction of fortified lines as in Karelia. In this narrow place between two bodies of water - Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland - there are impenetrable forests and huge rocks. From wood and granite, and where necessary - from concrete, the famous "Mannerheim Line" was built. The greatest fortress of the "Mannerheim Line" is given by anti-tank obstacles made in granite. Even twenty-five-ton tanks cannot overcome them. In granite, the Finns, with the help of explosions, equipped machine-gun and gun nests, which are not afraid of the most powerful bombs. Where there was not enough granite, the Finns did not spare concrete.

According to the Russian historian A. Isaev, “in reality, the Mannerheim Line was far from the best examples of European fortification. The vast majority of the long-term structures of the Finns were one-story, partially buried reinforced concrete buildings in the form of a bunker, divided into several rooms by internal partitions with armored doors. Three pillboxes of the “millionth” type had two levels, three more pillboxes - three levels. Let me emphasize, exactly the level. That is, their combat casemates and shelters were located at different levels relative to the surface, casemates slightly buried in the ground with embrasures and completely buried, connecting their galleries with barracks. Structures with what can be called floors were negligible.” It was much weaker than the fortifications of the Molotov line, not to mention the Maginot line with multi-storey caponiers equipped with their own power plants, kitchens, rest rooms and all amenities, with underground galleries connecting pillboxes, and even underground narrow gauge railways. Along with the famous gouges made of granite boulders, the Finns used gouges made of low-quality concrete, designed for obsolete Renault tanks and turned out to be weak against the guns of the new Soviet technology. In fact, the "Mannerheim Line" consisted mainly of field fortifications. The bunkers located on the line were small, located at a considerable distance from each other and rarely had cannon weapons.

As O. Mannien notes, the Finns had enough resources to build only 101 concrete bunkers (from low-quality concrete), and they took less concrete than the building of the Helsinki Opera House; the rest of the fortifications of the Mannerheim line were wood-earthen (for comparison: the Maginot line had 5800 concrete fortifications, including multi-storey bunkers).

Mannerheim himself wrote:

... The Russians, even during the war, set in motion the myth of the "Mannerheim Line". It was asserted that our defense on the Karelian Isthmus was based on an unusually strong and state-of-the-art defensive wall, which can be compared with the Maginot and Siegfried lines and which no army has ever broken through. The breakthrough of the Russians was “a feat that has not been equaled in the history of all wars” ... All this is nonsense; in reality, the situation looks completely different ... Of course, there was a defensive line, but it was formed only by rare long-term machine-gun nests and two dozen new pillboxes built at my suggestion, between which trenches were laid. Yes, the defensive line existed, but it lacked depth. The people called this position the Mannerheim Line. Its strength was the result of the stamina and courage of our soldiers, and not the result of the strength of the structures.

- Mannerheim, K. G. Memoirs. - M.: VAGRIUS, 1999. - S. 319-320. - ISBN 5-264-00049-2.

perpetuation of memory

Monuments

• The "Cross of Sorrow" is a commemorative memorial to the Soviet and Finnish soldiers who fell in the Soviet-Finnish War. Opened June 27, 2000. It is located in the Pitkyarantsky district of the Republic of Karelia.
• The Kollasjärvi Memorial is a commemorative memorial to the fallen Soviet and Finnish soldiers. Located in the Suoyarvsky district of the Republic of Karelia.

Museums

• School Museum "Unknown War" - opened on November 20, 2013 in the Municipal Educational Institution "Secondary School No. 34" of the city of Petrozavodsk.
• The Military Museum of the Karelian Isthmus was opened in Vyborg by historian Bair Irincheev.

Artistic works about the war

• Finnish song of the war years "No, Molotov!" (mp3, with Russian translation)
• "Accept us, beautiful Suomi" (mp3, with Finnish translation)
• Song "Talvisota" by Swedish power metal band Sabaton

• "Song of Battalion Commander Ugryumov" - a song about Captain Nikolai Ugryumov, the first Hero of the Soviet Union in the Soviet-Finnish War
• Alexander Tvardovsky."Two lines" (1943) - a poem dedicated to the memory of Soviet soldiers who died during the war
• N. Tikhonov, "Savolak huntsman" - a poem
• Alexander Gorodnitsky, "Finnish Border" - song.
• film "Front girlfriends" (USSR, 1941)
• film "Behind enemy lines" (USSR, 1941)
• film "Mashenka" (USSR, 1942)
• film "Talvisota" (Finland, 1989).
• x / f "Angel's Chapel" (Russia, 2009).
• film "Military Intelligence: Northern Front (TV series)" (Russia, 2012).
• Computer game "Blitzkrieg"
• Computer game Talvisota: Ice Hell.
• Computer game Squad Battles: Winter War.

Documentaries

• "The Living and the Dead". Documentary film about the "Winter War" directed by V. A. Fonarev
• "Mannerheim Line" (USSR, 1940)
• "Winter War" (Russia, Viktor Pravdyuk, 2014)

Flags were flown at half mast in other Finnish cities as well. People walked the streets with tears in their eyes, some even said that the most pleasant sound to hear right now would be an air raid siren. On March 13, 1940, Finland was plunged into mourning. She mourned for her 25,000 dead and 55,000 wounded; she mourned material losses that even the moral victory won at the cost of the stamina and courage of her soldiers on the battlefield could not make up. Now Finland was in the power of Russia, and she again listened to the opinion of the great powers. For example, the passionate words of Winston Churchill were heard:

“Finland alone - in mortal danger, but maintaining its greatness - demonstrates what free people are capable of. The service rendered by Finland to all mankind is invaluable ... We cannot say what the fate of Finland will be, but there is nothing more regrettable for the entire civilized world than the fact that this beautiful northern people must eventually perish or, as a result of terrible injustice fall into a slavery worse than death itself."

Finnish Foreign Minister Väinö Tanner said: “Peace has been restored, but what kind of peace is this? From now on, our country will continue to live, feeling its inferiority.

Soldiers were returning home from the battlefields on skis, many of them, shocked by the conditions of peace, sobbed. They were barely on their feet from exhaustion, but still considered themselves undefeated. Many have been tormented by the question of how they will feel when they have time to rest and think things over.

When the members of the delegation involved in the peace talks returned to Helsinki on March 14, they were confronted by an indifferent city. The world under such conditions seemed unreal ... terrible.

In Russia, they say, one of the generals remarked: "We have won back enough land to bury our dead..."

The Russians had plenty of time to develop their plans, choose the time and place for the attack, and vastly outnumbered their neighbor. But, as Khrushchev wrote, “... even in such the most favorable conditions, only with great difficulty and at the cost of huge losses, we were able to win. Winning at this price was actually a moral defeat."

Of the total number of 1.5 million people sent to Finland, the USSR's losses in killed (according to Khrushchev) amounted to 1 million people. The Russians lost about 1,000 aircraft, 2,300 tanks and armored vehicles, as well as a huge amount of various military equipment, including equipment, ammunition, horses, cars and trucks.

The losses of Finland, although disproportionately smaller, were devastating for the 4 million people. Had something similar happened in 1940 in the United States, with a population of more than 130 million, American casualties in just 105 days would have amounted to 2.6 million killed and wounded.

During the discussion of the terms of the peace treaty, Molotov noted: "Since the blood was shed against the wishes of the Soviet government and not through the fault of Russia, the territorial concessions offered by Finland should be significantly greater than those offered by Russia at the negotiations in Moscow in October and November 1939" .

Under the terms of the peace treaty, the following departed to Russia: the second largest city in Finland, Viipuri (now Vyborg. - Ed.); the largest port on the Arctic Ocean, Petsamo; strategically important area of ​​the Hanko peninsula; the largest Lake Ladoga and the entire Karelian Isthmus - the place of residence of 12 percent of the population of Finland.

Finland refused in favor of the Soviet Union from its territory with a total area of ​​22 thousand square kilometers. In addition to Viipuri, she lost such important ports as Uuras, Koivisto, the northern part of Lake Ladoga and the important Saimaa Canal. Two weeks were given for the evacuation of the population and the removal of property; most of the property had to be abandoned or destroyed. A huge loss for the country's economy was the loss of the forest industry of Karelia with its excellent sawmills, woodworking and plywood enterprises. Finland also lost part of the enterprises of the chemical, textile and steel industries. 10 percent of enterprises in these industries were located in the Vuoksa river valley. Almost 100 power plants went to the victorious Soviet Union.

In his radio address to the people of Finland, President Kallio recalled the remaining obligations of all to the families of the dead, war invalids and other victims, as well as to the population of the regions that have now become part of Russia. People living in the territories ceded to the USSR were given the right to decide for themselves whether to leave their homes or remain and become citizens of the Soviet Union.

Not a single Finn chose the latter, although the signed peace treaty turned 450 thousand people in beggars and homeless. The Finnish government requisitioned all available vehicles for the evacuation of refugees and created conditions for their temporary residence in other parts of Finland. Many of these people needed state support, since more than half of them lived off agriculture; 40,000 farms had to be found, and the collective responsibility for this fell on the shoulders of the entire people of Finland. On June 28, 1940, the Emergency Relocation Act was passed to ensure the rights of refugees.

The question of why the USSR signed a peace treaty without serious intentions to occupy Finland was discussed for many years after the war. Khrushchev said that Stalin showed political wisdom here, because he understood that "Finland was not needed at all for the world proletarian revolution."

But the colossal efforts of the Finns to defend their country undoubtedly played an important role in Stalin's decision to abandon his plans. Subjugating this stubborn and hostile people, who would undoubtedly start a guerrilla war that could last no one knows how long, was not an easy task.

More broadly, Stalin simply did not dare to allow the conflict in Finland to escalate into a world war, because his intentions were not to war against the allies on the side of Germany. In conditions when the border of Finland still remained undisturbed, and the allies were preparing to assist her with equipment and weapons, the war could well drag on until spring, and then the victory, apparently, would have gone to the Soviet Union at an immeasurably higher price.

The winter war of 1939-1940 greatly influenced the rapidly changing plans of the great powers. For British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, his government's indecisiveness during the "winter madness" ended with his resignation seven weeks later as the Nazis invaded Norway and Denmark. A week after the invasion of Norway and Denmark, the French government fell, led by Daladier, who was replaced by Pierre Laval, who deftly used the conflict in Finland to come to power.

As for Germany, if the Soviet Union had not appeared in such an unattractive form in the war with Finland, Hitler would hardly have underestimated the military potential of Russia in the way he did. Compared with the enormous efforts expended by the USSR in Finland, the result was far from being so impressive.

Despite the fact that half of the regular Russian divisions stationed in the European part and in Siberia were thrown against a small neighboring country, the Red Army suffered a major failure, and the reasons for this are obvious.

As Marshal Mannerheim wrote, “a typical mistake of the Red High Command was that, during military operations, due attention was not paid to the main factors in the war against Finland: the features of the theater of operations and the power of the enemy.” The latter was weak in terms of material support, but the Russians did not fully realize that the organizational structure of their army was too cumbersome to fight in the wild northern countryside in the dead of winter. Mannerheim points out that they could well have previously conducted exercises in conditions similar to those they would face in Finland, but the Russians did not do this, blindly believing in their superiority in modern technology. To imitate the actions of the Germans on the plains of Poland in the woodlands of Finland was to doom oneself to failure.

Another mistake was the use of commissars in the active army. “The fact that each order first had to be approved by political officers necessarily led to delays and confusion, not to mention weak initiative and fear of responsibility,” Mannerheim wrote. - The blame for the fact that the encircled units refused to surrender, despite the cold and hunger, lies entirely with the commissars. Soldiers were prevented from surrendering because of the threat of reprisals against their families and assurances that they would be shot or tortured if they fell into the hands of the enemy. In many cases, officers and soldiers preferred suicide to surrender.

Although the Russian officers were courageous people, the senior commanders were distinguished by inertia, which precluded the possibility of acting flexibly. “They were struck by their lack of creative imagination where the changing situation required quick decision-making ...” Mannerheim wrote. And even though the Russian soldier demonstrated courage, perseverance and unpretentiousness, he also lacked initiative. "Unlike his Finnish opponent, he was a mass fighter, unable to act independently in the absence of contact with his officers or comrades." Mannerheim attributed this to the ability of Russian people to endure suffering and deprivation, developed in the course of centuries of hard struggle with nature, to an sometimes unnecessary manifestation of courage and fatalism, inaccessible to the understanding of Europeans.

Undoubtedly, the experience gained during the Finnish campaign was fully used by Marshal Timoshenko in his reorganization of the Red Army. According to him, "the Russians learned a lot in this difficult war, in which the Finns fought heroically"

Expressing the official point of view, Marshal S.S. Biryuzov wrote:

“The assault on the Mannerheim Line was considered as a standard of operational and tactical art. The troops learned to overcome the enemy's long-term defense by constantly building up strength and patiently "gnawing" gaps in the enemy's defenses, created in accordance with all the rules of engineering science. But in a rapidly changing environment, insufficient attention was paid to the interaction of various branches of the armed forces. We had to re-learn under enemy fire, paying a high price for the experience and knowledge without which we could not have defeated Hitler's army.

Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov summed up: “We have learned a harsh lesson. And he was supposed to be useful to us. The Finnish campaign showed that the organization of leadership of the armed forces in the center left much to be desired. In the event of a war (large or small), it was necessary to know in advance who would be the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and through which apparatus the work would be carried out; was it supposed to be a specially created body, or was it supposed to be the General Staff, as in peacetime. And these were by no means minor issues.

As for the far-reaching consequences of the Winter War, which influenced the actions of the Red Army against Hitler, Chief Marshal of Artillery N.N. Voronov wrote:

“At the end of March, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party was held, at which much attention was paid to examining the lessons of the war. He noted serious shortcomings in the actions of our troops, as well as in their theoretical and practical training. We still have not learned how to fully use the potential of new technology. The work of the rear services was criticized. The troops turned out to be ill-prepared for combat operations in the forests, in conditions of frosty weather and impassable roads. The party demanded a thorough study of the experience gained in the battles on Khasan, Khalkhin Gol and the Karelian Isthmus, improvement of weapons and training of troops. There was a need for an urgent revision of the charters and instructions in order to bring them into line with the modern requirements of warfare ... Particular attention was paid to artillery. In frosty weather in Finland, the semi-automatic mechanisms of the guns failed. When the temperature dropped sharply, there were interruptions in the firing of 150 mm howitzers. It required a lot of research work.”

Khrushchev said: “All of us - and first of all Stalin - felt in our victory the defeat inflicted on us by the Finns. It was a dangerous defeat, because it strengthened the confidence of our enemies that the Soviet Union was a colossus with feet of clay ... We had to learn lessons for the near future from what happened.

After winter war the institution of political commissars was officially abolished, and three years later the general and other ranks with all their privileges were reintroduced in the Red Army.

For the Finns, the Winter War of 1939-1940, despite its end in disaster, became a heroic and glorious page in history. In the next 15 months, they had to exist in a position of "half-peace", until finally undisguised hatred of the Soviet Union prevailed over common sense. Russia's almost pathological suspicion of Finland also matched it. During this period, an impenetrable cloak of secrecy surrounded all government activities outside of Finland; censorship deprived the population of the opportunity to receive information about what was happening outside the country's borders. People were convinced that Hitler was completing the defeat of Great Britain, and the Soviet Union was still threatening their country.

Finns' gratitude for Germany's past help in their struggle for independence and for offering much-needed supplies played a significant role in Finland siding with Germany in the hope of regaining lost territories. After several warnings in December 1941, Great Britain declared war on Finland, but the armed forces of the two countries did not have to meet on the battlefield. Formally, Finland was not an ally of Germany; the armies of Finland and Germany fought each under their own command, and cooperation between the armed forces of these countries was practically absent.

Many Finnish soldiers lost their initial enthusiasm during the so-called "following war", when the former borders were restored. In September 1944, the war with Russia ended. The Finns rid their land of the presence of the Germans, but forever lost Karelia, as well as some other areas.

Russian reparations for these wars were huge, but the Finns paid them off. They stoically told themselves: “The East took our men, the Germans took our women, the Swedes took our children. But we still have our military duty.”

Finland's standoff against the Soviet Union during the Winter War must remain among the most exciting events in history.

1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, known in Finland as the Winter War) - an armed conflict between the USSR and Finland from November 30, 1939 to March 12, 1940.

Its reason was the desire of the Soviet leadership to move the Finnish border away from Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) in order to strengthen the security of the northwestern borders of the USSR, and the refusal of the Finnish side to do this. The Soviet government asked to lease parts of the Hanko peninsula and some islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for a large Soviet territory in Karelia, followed by the conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement.

The Finnish government believed that the acceptance of Soviet demands would weaken the strategic position of the state, lead to the loss of neutrality by Finland and its subordination to the USSR. The Soviet leadership, in turn, did not want to give up its demands, which, in its opinion, were necessary to ensure the security of Leningrad.

The Soviet-Finnish border on the Karelian Isthmus (Western Karelia) was only 32 kilometers from Leningrad, the largest center of Soviet industry and the second largest city in the country.

The reason for the start of the Soviet-Finnish war was the so-called Mainil incident. According to the Soviet version, on November 26, 1939, at 15.45, Finnish artillery in the Mainila area fired seven shells at the positions of the 68th Infantry Regiment on Soviet territory. Allegedly, three Red Army soldiers and one junior commander were killed. On the same day, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR addressed a note of protest to the government of Finland and demanded the withdrawal of Finnish troops from the border by 20-25 kilometers.

The Finnish government denied the shelling of Soviet territory and proposed that not only Finnish, but also Soviet troops be withdrawn 25 kilometers from the border. This formally equal demand was not feasible, because then the Soviet troops would have to be withdrawn from Leningrad.

On November 29, 1939, the Finnish envoy in Moscow was presented with a note about the severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Finland. On November 30, at 8 o'clock in the morning, the troops of the Leningrad Front received an order to cross the border with Finland. On the same day, Finnish President Kyösti Kallio declared war on the USSR.

During the "perestroika" several versions of the Mainilsky incident became known. According to one of them, the shelling of the positions of the 68th regiment was carried out by a secret NKVD unit. According to another, there was no shooting at all, and in the 68th regiment on November 26 there were neither killed nor wounded. There were other versions that did not receive documentary evidence.

From the very beginning of the war, the advantage in forces was on the side of the USSR. The Soviet command concentrated 21 rifle divisions, one tank corps, three separate tank brigades (a total of 425 thousand people, about 1.6 thousand guns, 1476 tanks and about 1200 aircraft) near the border with Finland. To support the ground forces, it was planned to attract about 500 aircraft and more than 200 ships from the Northern and Baltic fleets. 40% of Soviet forces were deployed on the Karelian Isthmus.

The grouping of Finnish troops had about 300 thousand people, 768 guns, 26 tanks, 114 aircraft and 14 warships. The Finnish command concentrated 42% of its forces on the Karelian Isthmus, deploying the Isthmus Army there. The rest of the troops covered separate areas from the Barents Sea to Lake Ladoga.

The main line of defense of Finland was the "Mannerheim Line" - unique, impregnable fortifications. The main architect of the Mannerheim line was nature itself. Its flanks rested on the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The coast of the Gulf of Finland was covered by large-caliber coastal batteries, and in the Taipale region on the shores of Lake Ladoga, reinforced concrete forts with eight 120- and 152-mm coastal guns were created.

"Mannerheim Line" had a frontal width of 135 kilometers, a depth of up to 95 kilometers and consisted of a support strip (depth 15-60 kilometers), a main strip (depth 7-10 kilometers), a second strip, 2-15 kilometers away from the main one, and the rear (Vyborg) line of defense. Over two thousand long-term firing structures (DOS) and wood-and-earth firing structures (DZOS) were erected, which were combined into strong points of 2-3 DOS and 3-5 DZOS each, and the latter - into resistance nodes (3-4 item). The main line of defense consisted of 25 nodes of resistance, numbering 280 DOS and 800 DZOS. The strongholds were defended by permanent garrisons (from a company to a battalion in each). Between the strongholds and nodes of resistance were positions for field troops. The strongholds and positions of the field troops were covered by anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers. Only in the security zone, 220 kilometers of wire barriers in 15-45 rows, 200 kilometers of forest debris, 80 kilometers of granite gouges up to 12 rows, anti-tank ditches, scarps (anti-tank walls) and numerous minefields were created.

All fortifications were connected by a system of trenches, underground passages and were supplied with food and ammunition necessary for a long-term autonomous battle.

On November 30, 1939, after a long artillery preparation, Soviet troops crossed the border with Finland and launched an offensive on the front from the Barents Sea to the Gulf of Finland. In 10-13 days, they overcame the zone of operational obstacles in separate directions and reached the main strip of the Mannerheim Line. For more than two weeks, unsuccessful attempts to break through it continued.

At the end of December, the Soviet command decided to stop further offensive on the Karelian Isthmus and begin systematic preparations for breaking through the Mannerheim Line.

The front went on the defensive. The troops were regrouped. The North-Western Front was created on the Karelian Isthmus. Troops have been replenished. As a result, the Soviet troops deployed against Finland numbered more than 1.3 million people, 1.5 thousand tanks, 3.5 thousand guns, and three thousand aircraft. The Finnish side by the beginning of February 1940 had 600 thousand people, 600 guns and 350 aircraft.

On February 11, 1940, the assault on the fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus resumed - the troops of the North-Western Front, after 2-3 hours of artillery preparation, went on the offensive.

Having broken through two lines of defense, on February 28, Soviet troops reached the third. They broke the enemy's resistance, forced him to start a retreat along the entire front and, developing the offensive, captured the Vyborg grouping of Finnish troops from the northeast, captured most of Vyborg, crossed the Vyborg Bay, bypassed the Vyborg fortified area from the northwest, cut the highway to Helsinki.

The fall of the "Mannerheim Line" and the defeat of the main grouping of Finnish troops put the enemy in a difficult position. Under these conditions, Finland turned to the Soviet government with a request for peace.

On the night of March 13, 1940, a peace treaty was signed in Moscow, according to which Finland ceded about a tenth of its territory to the USSR and pledged not to participate in coalitions hostile to the USSR. On March 13, hostilities ceased.

In accordance with the agreement, the border on the Karelian Isthmus was moved away from Leningrad by 120-130 kilometers. The entire Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg, the Vyborg Bay with islands, the western and northern shores of Lake Ladoga, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas went to the Soviet Union. The Hanko Peninsula and the sea area around it were leased by the USSR for 30 years. This improved the position of the Baltic Fleet.

As a result of the Soviet-Finnish war, the main strategic goal pursued by the Soviet leadership was achieved - to secure the northwestern border. However, the international position of the Soviet Union worsened: it was expelled from the League of Nations, relations with England and France became aggravated, and an anti-Soviet campaign was launched in the West.

The losses of the Soviet troops in the war amounted to: irretrievable - about 130 thousand people, sanitary - about 265 thousand people. Irretrievable losses of the Finnish troops - about 23 thousand people, sanitary - over 43 thousand people.

(Additional

(see the beginning in the previous 3 publications)

73 years ago ended one of the most undisclosed wars in which our state took part. The Soviet-Finnish war of 1940, also called the "Winter" war, cost our state very dearly. According to the lists of names compiled by the personnel apparatus of the Red Army already in 1949-1951, the total number of irretrievable losses amounted to 126,875 people. The Finnish side in this conflict lost 26,662 people. Thus, the loss ratio is 1 to 5, which clearly indicates the low quality of management, weapons and skills of the Red Army. Nevertheless, despite such a high level of losses, the Red Army completed all the tasks, albeit with a certain adjustment.

So at the initial stage of this war, the Soviet government was sure of an early victory and the complete capture of Finland. It was on the basis of such prospects that the Soviet authorities formed the "government of the Finnish Democratic Republic" headed by Otto Kuusinen, a former deputy of the Finnish Sejm, a delegate of the Second International. However, as the hostilities developed, appetites had to be reduced, and instead of the premiership of Finland, Kuusinen received the post of chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Council of the newly formed Karelian-Finnish SSR, which lasted until 1956, and remained the head of the supreme council of the Karelian ASSR.

Despite the fact that the entire territory of Finland was never conquered by Soviet troops, the USSR received significant territorial acquisitions. From the new territories and the already existing Karelian Autonomous Republic, the sixteenth republic was formed within the USSR - the Karelian-Finnish SSR.

The stumbling block and reason for starting a war - the Soviet-Finnish border in the Leningrad region was pushed back 150 kilometers. The entire northern coast of Lake Ladoga became part of the Soviet Union, and this body of water became internal to the USSR. In addition, part of Lapland and the islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland went to the USSR. The Hanko Peninsula, which was a kind of key to the Gulf of Finland, was leased to the USSR for 30 years. The Soviet naval base on this peninsula existed at the beginning of December 1941. On June 25, 1941, three days after the attack of Nazi Germany, Finland declared war on the USSR and on the same day Finnish troops began military operations against the Soviet garrison of Hanko. The defense of this territory continued until December 2, 1941. Currently, the Hanko peninsula belongs to Finland. During the Winter War, Soviet troops occupied the Pechenga region, which before the 1917 revolution was part of the Arkhangelsk Territory. After the transfer of this area to Finland in 1920, large reserves of nickel were discovered there. The development of deposits was carried out by French, Canadian and British companies. Largely due to the fact that the nickel mines were controlled by Western capital, in order to maintain good relations with France and Great Britain, following the Finnish war, this site was transferred back to Finland. In 1944, after the completion of the Petsamo-Kirkines operation, Pechenga was occupied by Soviet troops and subsequently became part of the Murmansk region.

The Finns fought selflessly and the result of their resistance was not only heavy losses of personnel of the Red Army, but also significant losses of military equipment. The Red Army lost 640 aircraft, the Finns knocked out 1800 tanks - and all this with the complete dominance of Soviet aviation in the air and the practical absence of anti-tank artillery among the Finns. However, no matter how exotic methods of combating Soviet tanks the Finnish troops came up with, luck was on the side of the “big battalions”.

The whole hope of the Finnish leadership was in the formula "The West will help us." However, even the closest neighbors provided Finland with rather symbolic assistance. 8,000 untrained volunteers arrived from Sweden, but at the same time, Sweden refused to allow 20,000 interned Polish soldiers who were ready to fight on the side of Finland to pass through its territory. Norway was represented by 725 volunteers, and 800 Danes also intended to fight against the USSR. Another trip was set up by Mannerheim and Hitler: the Nazi leader banned the transit of equipment and people through the territory of the Reich. A couple of thousand volunteers (albeit of advanced age) arrived from Great Britain. In total, 11.5 thousand volunteers arrived in Finland, which could not seriously affect the balance of power.

In addition, the exclusion of the USSR from the League of Nations was supposed to bring moral satisfaction to the Finnish side. However, this international organization was only a pathetic forerunner of the modern UN. In total, it included 58 states, and in different years, for various reasons, such countries as Argentina (left in the period 1921-1933), Brazil (withdrew from 1926), Romania (withdrew in 1940), Czechoslovakia (membership terminated March 15, 1939), and so on. In general, one gets the impression that the countries participating in the League of Nations were only engaged in the fact that they entered or left it. For the exclusion of the Soviet Union as an aggressor, such countries “close” to Europe as Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia were especially actively advocating, but the closest neighbors of Finland: Denmark, Sweden and Norway, on the contrary, declared that they would not support any sanctions against the USSR. Not being any serious international institution, the League of Nations was dissolved in 1946 and, ironically, the chairman of the Swedish Storing (parliament) Hambro, the one who had to read out the decision to expel the USSR, at the final assembly of the League of Nations announced a greeting to the founding countries of the UN , among which were the Soviet Union, still headed by Joseph Stalin.

The deliveries of weapons and ammunition to Filandia from European countries were paid for in hard currency, and at inflated prices, which Mannerheim himself admitted. In the Soviet-Finnish war, profits were received by the concerns of France (which at the same time managed to sell weapons to a promising Nazi ally of Romania), Great Britain, which sold frankly outdated weapons to the Finns. A clear opponent of the Anglo-French allies - Italy sold 30 aircraft and anti-aircraft guns to Finland. Hungary, which then fought on the side of the Axis, sold anti-aircraft guns, mortars and grenades, and Belgium, which after a short time fell under German attack, sold ammunition. The closest neighbor - Sweden - sold Finland 85 anti-tank guns, half a million rounds of ammunition, gasoline, 104 anti-aircraft weapons. Finnish soldiers fought in overcoats made from cloth bought in Sweden. Some of these purchases were paid for with a $30 million loan from the United States. What is most interesting is that most of the equipment arrived “before the curtain” and did not have time to take part in the hostilities during the Winter War, but, apparently, it was successfully used by Finland already during the Great Patriotic War in alliance with Nazi Germany.

In general, one gets the impression that at that time (winter 1939-1940) the leading European powers: neither France nor Great Britain had yet decided with whom they would have to fight in the next few years. In any case, the head of the British Department of the North, Lawrencollier, believed that the goals of Germany and Great Britain in this war could be common, and according to eyewitnesses, judging by the French newspapers of that winter, it seemed that France was at war with the Soviet Union, and not with Germany. On February 5, 1940, the Joint British-French War Council decided to ask the governments of Norway and Sweden to provide Norwegian territory for the landing of the British Expeditionary Force. But even the British were surprised by the statement of the French Prime Minister Daladier, who unilaterally announced that his country was ready to send 50,000 soldiers and a hundred bombers to help Finland. By the way, plans for waging war against the USSR, which at that time was estimated by the British and French as a significant supplier of strategic raw materials to Germany, developed even after the signing of peace between Finland and the USSR. As early as March 8, 1940, a few days before the end of the Soviet-Finnish war, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee developed a memorandum that described the future military operations of the British-French allies against the USSR. The fighting was planned on a wide scale: in the north in the Pechenga-Petsamo region, in the Murmansk direction, in the Arkhangelsk region, in the Far East and in the south - in the region of Baku, Grozny and Batumi. In these plans, the USSR was seen as a strategic ally of Hitler, supplying him with strategic raw materials - oil. According to the French General Weygand, the blow should have been delivered in June-July 1940. But by the end of April 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain admitted that the Soviet Union adhered to strict neutrality and there was no reason to attack. In addition, already in June 1940, German tanks entered Paris, and it was then that the joint French-British plans were captured by Hitler troops.

Nevertheless, all these plans remained only on paper, and for more than a hundred days of the Soviet-Finnish won, no significant assistance was provided by the Western powers. Actually, during the war, Finland was put in a hopeless situation by its closest neighbors - Sweden and Norway. On the one hand, the Swedes and Norwegians verbally expressed all support for the Finns, allowed their volunteers to participate in hostilities on the side of the Finnish troops, and on the other hand, these countries blocked a decision that could really change the course of the war. The Swedish and Norwegian governments refused the request of the Western powers to provide their territory for the transit of military personnel and military supplies, and otherwise the Western Expeditionary Force could not have arrived in the theater of operations.

By the way, Finland's military spending in the pre-war period was calculated precisely on the basis of possible Western military assistance. Fortifications on the Mannerheim Line in the period 1932-1939 were not at all the main item of Finnish military spending. The vast majority of them were already completed by 1932, and in the subsequent period, the gigantic (in relative terms it amounted to 25 percent of the entire Finnish budget) Finnish military budget was directed, for example, to such things as the massive construction of military bases, warehouses and airfields. So the military airfields of Finland could accommodate ten times more aircraft than were at that time in service with the Finnish Air Force. Obviously, the entire Finnish military infrastructure was being prepared for foreign expeditionary forces. Tellingly, the massive filling of Finnish warehouses with British and French military equipment began after the end of the Winter War, and all this mass of goods subsequently fell into the hands of Nazi Germany in almost full volume.

Actually, the Soviet troops began combat operations only after the Soviet leadership received guarantees from Great Britain of non-interference in the future Soviet-Finnish conflict. Thus, the fate of Finland in the Winter War was predetermined by precisely this position of the Western allies. The United States has taken a similar duplicitous stance. Despite the fact that the American ambassador to the USSR, Shteingardt, literally went into hysterics, demanding sanctions against the Soviet Union, expel Soviet citizens from the United States and close the Panama Canal for the passage of our ships, US President Franklin Roosevelt limited himself only to imposing a "moral embargo".

The English historian E. Hughes generally described France and Great Britain's support for Finland at a time when these countries were already at war with Germany as a "product of a lunatic asylum." One gets the impression that the Western countries were even ready to enter into an alliance with Hitler only for the Wehrmacht to lead the Western crusade against the USSR. French Prime Minister Daladier, speaking in parliament after the end of the Soviet-Finnish war, said that the results of the Winter War were a disgrace for France, and a “great victory” for Russia.

The events and military conflicts of the late 1930s, in which the Soviet Union participated, became episodes of history in which the USSR for the first time began to act as a subject of international politics. Prior to this, our country was considered as a "terrible child", an unviable freak, a temporary misunderstanding. Nor should we overestimate the economic potential of Soviet Russia. In 1931, at a conference of industrial workers, Stalin said that the USSR was 50-100 years behind the developed countries and that this distance should be covered by our country in ten years: “Either we do it, or we will be crushed.” Even by 1941, the Soviet Union failed to completely eliminate the technological gap, but it was no longer possible to crush us. As the USSR industrialized, it gradually began to show its teeth to the Western community, starting to defend its own interests, including by armed means. Throughout the late 1930s, the USSR carried out the restoration of territorial losses resulting from the collapse of the Russian Empire. The Soviet government methodically pushed the state borders further and further beyond the West. Many acquisitions were made almost bloodlessly, mainly by diplomatic means, but the transfer of the border from Leningrad cost our army many thousands of soldiers' lives. Nevertheless, such a transfer largely predetermined the fact that during the Great Patriotic War the German army got bogged down in the Russian expanses and, in the end, Nazi Germany was defeated.

After almost half a century of constant wars, as a result of the Second World War, relations between our countries have normalized. The Finnish people and their government have realized that it is better for their country to act as an intermediary between the world of capitalism and socialism, and not be a bargaining chip in the geopolitical games of world leaders. And even more so, the Finnish society has ceased to feel like the vanguard of the Western world, designed to contain the "communist hell." This position has led to the fact that Finland has become one of the most prosperous and rapidly developing European states.