Causes of the Soviet-Finnish War. Why did the USSR enter the Finnish war?

The topic of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940 has now become a fairly popular topic of discussion in Russia. Many call it a disgrace to the Soviet army - in 105 days, from November 30, 1939 to March 13, 1940, the sides lost more than 150 thousand people in killed alone. 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, there was an artillery attack on Soviet troops stationed near the Finnish border, as a result of which 4 soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded.

The Finns proposed creating a joint commission to investigate the incident, which the Soviet side refused and stated that it no longer considered itself bound by the Soviet-Finnish non-aggression pact. Was the shooting staged?

“I got acquainted with documents that had recently been classified,” says military historian Miroslav Morozov. — In the divisional combat log, the pages with entries about artillery shelling have a noticeably later origin.

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

Since Finland declared independence in December 1917, territorial claims have constantly arisen between it and the USSR. But they more often became the subject of negotiations. The situation changed at the end of the 30s, when it became clear that the Second World War would soon begin. The USSR demanded that Finland not participate in the war against the USSR and allow the construction of Soviet military bases on Finnish territory. Finland hesitated and played for time.

The situation worsened 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 Finnish territory began.

In January frosts hit -30 degrees. Soldiers surrounded by 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.

Of almost 7,500 people, 1,500 returned to their own. The division commander, regimental commissar and chief of staff were shot. And the 18th Rifle Division, which found itself in the same conditions, remained in place and was completely destroyed north of Lake Ladoga.

But the Soviet troops suffered the heaviest losses in battles on the main direction - the Karelian Isthmus. The 140-kilometer Mannerheim defensive line covering it on the main defensive line consisted of 210 long-term and 546 wood-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 was no hope left, entered into 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 allowed 1 year, 3 months and 10 days to prepare.

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

A few 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, dreaming of a “Great Finland,” tried to seize the territory of Eastern Karelia.

The wars themselves became a continuation of the bloody Civil War that raged 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 to Finland the polar Pechenga region, 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 the point of outright confrontation. In 1932, the Soviet Union and Finland entered into a non-aggression pact, which was later extended until 1945, but was unilaterally broken by the USSR in the fall of 1939.

3. In 1938-1939, the Soviet government conducted 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, significantly larger in area. The negotiations, however, were unsuccessful.

4. The immediate cause of the war was the so-called “Maynila Incident”: on November 26, 1939, on a section of the border near the village of Maynila, a group of Soviet military personnel was fired upon by artillery. Seven gun shots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, seven privates and two command personnel were wounded.

Modern historians still debate whether the Maynila shelling 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 military operations 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, led by 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 process of forming the Finnish People's Army from Finns and Karelians was underway. 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, the Soviet troops, who did not have the means to destroy such a line of defense, suffered heavy losses during numerous frontal attacks on the fortifications.

7. Finland was simultaneously provided with military assistance by both Nazi Germany and its opponents - England and France. But while Germany was limited to unofficial military supplies, the Anglo-French forces were considering plans for military intervention against the Soviet Union. However, these plans were never implemented due to fears that the USSR in such a case might 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 the 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. A 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 sq. km. 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 vivid artistic reminder of the Soviet-Finnish war:

From a shabby notebook

Two lines about a boy fighter,

What happened in the forties

Killed on ice in Finland.

It lay somehow awkwardly

Childishly small body.

The frost pressed the overcoat to the ice,

The hat flew far away.

It seemed that the boy was not lying down,

And he was still running

Yes, he held the ice behind the floor...

Among the great cruel war,

I can’t imagine why,

I feel sorry for that distant fate

Like dead, alone,

It's like I'm lying there

Frozen, small, killed

In that unknown war,

Forgotten, small, lying.

Photos of the “unfamous” war

Hero of the Soviet Union Lieutenant M.I. Sipovich and captain Korovin at a 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.

A house burning after a bombing 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 up a Finnish border post near the Mainila border post.

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

Soviet border guards inspect captured Finnish weapons.

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

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.

Prisoners of the Red Army captured by the Finns in the winter of 1940.

Finnish soldiers in the forest try to disperse after noticing the approach of Soviet aircraft.

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

Red Army soldiers of the 44th Infantry Division frozen in a trench.

A Soviet wounded man lies on a plastering table made from improvised materials.

Three Corners Park in Helsinki with open gaps dug to provide shelter for the population in the event of an air raid.

Blood transfusion before surgery in a Soviet military hospital.

Finnish women sew winter camouflage coats at a 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 welcome tankers of the 20th Tank Brigade on T-28 tanks returning from the Karelian Isthmus/

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

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

Finnish crew of the Maxim anti-aircraft machine gun.

Finnish Vickers tanks knocked out near Pero station.

Finnish soldiers at the 152-mm Kane gun.

Finnish civilians who fled their homes during the Winter War.

A 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 after a Soviet air raid.

View of a Helsinki street after a 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 captured Red Army soldiers changing clothes.

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 carry a wounded comrade on a dog sled.

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

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

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

Finnish soldiers dismantle captured Soviet military equipment.

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

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

Soviet T-28 tank, destroyed on the Karelian Isthmus near height 65.5.

Finnish tankman next to a captured Soviet T-28 tank.

Residents of Leningrad greet the tankers of the 20th heavy tank brigade.

Soviet officers against the backdrop of Vyborg Castle.

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

Finnish ski battalion with reindeer and drags.

A Swedish volunteer in position during the Soviet-Finnish War.

Crew of a Soviet 122 mm howitzer in position during the Winter War.

A messenger on a motorcycle conveys a message to the crew of a Soviet armored car BA-10.

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

Finnish propaganda from the Soviet-Finnish War

Finnish propaganda promised a carefree life to the surrendered Red Army soldiers: bread and butter, cigars, vodka and dancing to the accordion. They paid generously for the weapons they brought with them, they made a reservation, they promised to pay: for a revolver - 100 rubles, for a machine gun - 1,500 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 USSR government sent a note of protest to the Finnish government regarding the artillery shelling, which, according to the Soviet side, was carried out from Finnish territory. Responsibility for the outbreak of hostilities was placed entirely on 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 thousand Finnish residents were forcibly resettled by Finland from the front-line areas inland and lost their property.

According to a number of historians, this offensive operation of the USSR against Finland dates back to the Second World War. In Soviet historiography, this war was viewed as a separate bilateral local conflict, not part of the Second World War, 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 of 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, were opposed by the “whites”, supported by Germany and Sweden. The war ended with the victory of the “whites”. After the victory in Finland, the Finnish “White” troops provided support to the separatist movement in Eastern Karelia. The first Soviet-Finnish war that began during the already civil war in Russia lasted until 1920, when the Tartu (Yuryev) Peace Treaty was concluded. Some Finnish politicians, such as Juho Paasikivi, regarded the treaty as "too good a peace", believing that great powers would only compromise when absolutely necessary. K. Mannerheim, former activists and leaders of separatists in Karelia, on the contrary, considered this world a disgrace and a betrayal of compatriots, and the representative of Rebol Hans Haakon (Bobi) Siven (Finnish: H. H. (Bobi) Siven) shot himself in protest. Mannerheim, in his “oath of the sword,” publicly spoke out for the conquest of Eastern Karelia, which was not previously 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 transferred 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 weapons. In Finland, the government and the majority of parliament members have consistently cut spending on defense and weapons. Since 1927, to save money, no military exercises have been held at all. The allocated money was barely enough to maintain the army. The parliament did not consider the cost of providing weapons. There were no tanks or military aircraft.

However, the Defense Council was created, which was headed by Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim on July 10, 1931. He was firmly convinced that as long as the Bolshevik government was in power in the USSR, the situation there was fraught with the most serious consequences for the whole world, primarily for Finland: “The plague coming from the east could be contagious.” In a conversation that same year with Risto Ryti, then the governor of the Bank of Finland and a well-known figure in the Progressive Party of Finland, Mannerheim outlined his thoughts on the need to quickly create a military program and finance it. However, Ryti, after listening to the argument, asked the question: “But what is the benefit of providing the military department with such large sums if no war is expected?”

In August 1931, after inspecting the defensive structures of the Enckel Line, created in the 1920s, Mannerheim became convinced of its unsuitability for 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 a non-aggression pact with the USSR in August 1932, the article on the construction of defensive structures on the Karelian Isthmus was crossed out.

V. Tanner noted that the Social Democratic faction of the parliament “...still believes that a prerequisite for maintaining the country’s independence 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 pipe filled with resin.” It seemed to him that all his initiatives to unite the Finnish people in order to take care of their home and ensure their future were met with a blank wall of misunderstanding and indifference. And he filed a petition for removal from his position.

Negotiations 1938-1939

Yartsev's negotiations in 1938-1939

The negotiations were started at the initiative of the USSR; initially they were conducted in secret, which suited both sides: the Soviet Union preferred to officially maintain “free hands” 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 from the point of view of domestic politics, since the population of Finland had a generally negative attitude towards the USSR.

On April 14, 1938, Second Secretary Boris Yartsev arrived in Helsinki, at the USSR Embassy in Finland. 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 attack through Finland. That is why Finland’s attitude towards the landing of German troops is so important for the USSR. The Red Army will not wait on the border if Finland allows the landing. On the other hand, if Finland resists the Germans, the USSR will provide it with military and economic assistance, since Finland itself is not able to repel the German landing. Over the next five months, he held numerous conversations, including with Prime Minister Kajander and Minister of Finance Väinö Tanner. The Finnish side's guarantees that Finland would not allow its territorial integrity to be violated and Soviet Russia to be invaded through its territory were not enough for the USSR. The USSR demanded a secret agreement, obligatory 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 placement of Soviet military bases for the fleet and aviation on the island of Hogland (Finnish: Suursaari). No territorial demands were made. 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 Moshchny), Tyutyarsaari and Seskar for 30 years. Later, as compensation, they offered Finland 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, negotiations were fruitless and ended on April 6, 1939.

On August 23, 1939, the USSR and Germany entered into a Non-Aggression Treaty. According to the secret additional protocol to the Treaty, Finland was included in the sphere of interests of the USSR. Thus, the contracting parties - Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union - provided each other with guarantees of non-interference in the event of war. Germany began World War II by attacking Poland a week later, on September 1, 1939. USSR troops entered Polish territory on September 17.

From September 28 to October 10, the USSR concluded mutual assistance agreements 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 Finnish government 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 had already eliminated the main reason for the Soviet Union's demands on Finland - the danger of a German attack through Finnish territory.

Moscow negotiations on the territory of Finland

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

For the first time, Finland was represented by the envoy, State Councilor J. K. Paasikivi, the 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. On the third trip, State Councilor R. Hakkarainen was added.

At these negotiations, the proximity of the border to Leningrad was discussed for the first time. Joseph Stalin remarked: “We can’t do anything about geography, just like you... Since Leningrad cannot be moved, we will have to move the border further away from it.”

The version of the agreement presented by the Soviet side looked like this:

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 four-thousand-strong military contingent there for its defense.

The Soviet navy is provided with ports on the Hanko Peninsula in Hanko itself and in Lappohja (Finnish) Russian.

Finland transfers the islands of Gogland, Laavansaari (now Moshchny), Tytjarsaari 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 disarm their fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus.

The USSR transfers to Finland territory in Karelia with a total area twice as large as the Finnish one received (5,529 km²).

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

The USSR proposed a territorial exchange in which Finland would receive larger territories in Eastern Karelia in Reboli and Porajärvi.

The USSR made its demands public before the third meeting in Moscow. Germany, which had concluded a non-aggression pact with the USSR, advised the Finns to agree to them. Hermann Goering made it clear to Finnish Foreign Minister Erkko that demands for military bases should be accepted and that there was no point in hoping for German help.

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

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

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

Since mid-1939, military preparations began in the USSR. In June-July, the Main Military Council of the USSR discussed the operational plan for the attack on Finland, 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, where they practiced repelling aggression from the USSR. All military attaches were invited, except the Soviet one.

The Finnish government refused to accept 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 achieve a Soviet-Finnish trade agreement and Soviet consent to armament of the Åland Islands, the demilitarized status of which 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 position, although on October 23-24, Stalin somewhat softened his position regarding the territory of the Karelian Isthmus and the size of the proposed garrison of the Hanko Peninsula. But these proposals were also rejected. “Do you want to provoke a conflict?” /IN. Molotov/. Mannerheim, with the support of Paasikivi, continued to insist to his parliament on the need to find a compromise, declaring 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 third-party states. The Finnish public, having first learned about the demands of the Soviet side, categorically opposed any concessions.

Negotiations resumed in Moscow on November 3 immediately reached a dead end. The Soviet side followed with a statement: “We civilians have made no progress. Now the floor will be given to the soldiers.”

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

On November 3, 1939, the Soviet newspaper Pravda wrote: “We will throw to hell every game of political gamblers and go our own way, no matter what, we will ensure the security of the USSR, no matter what, breaking down all and every obstacle on the way to the goal.” " On the same day, the troops of the Leningrad Military District and the Baltic Fleet received directives to prepare for military operations against Finland. At the last meeting, Stalin, at least outwardly, showed a sincere desire to achieve a compromise on the issue of military bases. But the Finns refused to discuss it, and on November 13 they left for Helsinki.

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

On November 26, Pravda published an article “A buffoon at the post of Prime Minister,” which became the signal for the start of an anti-Finnish propaganda campaign. On the same day, there was an artillery shelling of the territory of the USSR near the village of Maynila. The USSR leadership blamed Finland for this incident. In Soviet information agencies, a new one was added to the terms “White Guard”, “White Pole”, “White emigrant” widely used to name hostile elements - “White Finn”.

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

Causes of the war

According to statements from the Soviet side, the USSR's goal 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 even in the event of war breaking out (in which Finland was ready to provide its territory to the enemies of the USSR as a springboard) would inevitably be 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 subordinate to the Leningrad City Council was also the border between the USSR and Finland.

“Did the Government and Party do the right thing by declaring war on Finland? This question specifically concerns the Red Army.

Could it be possible to do without war? 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 yield 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 04/17/1940"

True, the very first demands of the USSR in 1938 did not mention Leningrad and did not require moving the border. Demands for the lease of Hanko, located hundreds of kilometers to the west, increased the security of Leningrad. The only constant in the demands was the following: to obtain 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, two concepts emerged that are still being debated: one, that the USSR pursued its stated goals (ensuring the security of Leningrad), the second, that the true goal of the USSR was the Sovietization of Finland.

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, represents the USSR as a peace-loving country or as an aggressor and ally of Germany. Moreover, according to these concepts, the Sovietization of Finland was only a cover for the USSR’s preparation for a lightning invasion and the liberation of Europe from German occupation with the subsequent 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. The USSR, in turn, knew about the activities of ultranationalist 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 agreed to, in turn, because it saw the USSR as the main threat to itself. Finnish President P. E. Svinhuvud said in Berlin in 1937 that “the enemy of Russia must always be the 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) it began partial mobilization in the Leningrad Military District, which clearly indicated that a forceful solution was being prepared.

According to A. Shubin, before the signing of the Soviet-German Pact, the USSR undoubtedly sought only to ensure the security of Leningrad. Helsinki’s assurances of its neutrality did not satisfy Stalin, 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 itself did not guarantee that they could not be used as a springboard for attack (as a result of occupation). After the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the demands of the USSR became stricter, and here the question arises of what Stalin was really striving for 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 while maintaining formal signs of independence and political pluralism (as was done after the war in the Eastern European so-called “people's democracies”, or in) Stalin could only plan for now to strengthen his positions on the northern flank of a potential theater of military operations, without risking yet interfering in the internal affairs of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. M. Semiryaga believes that to determine the nature of the war against Finland, “it is not necessary to analyze the negotiations in the fall 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 were previously part of the Russian Empire... And the goals were to annex all of Finland as a whole. And there is no point in talking about 35 kilometers to Leningrad, 25 kilometers to Leningrad...” Finnish historian O. Manninen believes that Stalin sought to deal with Finland according to the same scenario, which was ultimately implemented with the Baltic countries. “Stalin’s desire to “resolve issues peacefully” was the desire to peacefully create a socialist regime in Finland. And at the end of November, starting the war, he wanted to achieve the same thing through occupation. “The workers themselves had to decide whether to join the USSR or found their own socialist state.” However, O. Manninen notes, since these plans of Stalin were not formally recorded, this view will always remain in the status of an assumption and 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 Sovietization of Finland as the goal of the war is the fact that on the second day of the war, a puppet Terijoki government was created on the territory of the USSR, headed by the Finnish communist Otto Kuusinen. On December 2, the Soviet government signed a mutual assistance agreement with the Kuusinen government and, according to Ryti, refused any contact with the legitimate government of Finland led by Risto Ryti.

We can assume with a great deal of confidence: if things at the front had gone according to the operational plan, then this “government” would have arrived 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.” Kuusinen’s address to the soldiers of the Finnish People’s Army directly stated that they were entrusted with the honor of hoisting the banner of the Democratic Republic of Finland on the building of the Presidential 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 agree to a final agreement with the “government” of Kuusinen

M. I. Semiryaga. "Secrets of Stalin's diplomacy. 1941-1945"

A number of other measures were also taken, in particular, among the Soviet documents on the eve of the war there are detailed instructions on the organization of the “Popular Front” in the occupied territories. M. Meltyukhov, on this basis, sees in Soviet actions a desire to Sovietize Finland through an intermediate stage of a left-wing “people's government”. S. Belyaev believes that the decision to Sovietize Finland is not evidence of the original plan to seize 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 a minimum program - ensuring the security of Leningrad, and a maximum program - establishing control over Finland. Stalin did not strive directly for the Sovietization of Finland, as well as the Baltic countries, at that moment, since he did not know how the war would end in the West (indeed, in the Baltics decisive steps towards Sovietization were taken only in June 1940, that is, immediately after how the defeat of France took place). Finland's resistance to Soviet demands forced him to resort to a tough military option at an unfavorable moment for him (in winter). Ultimately, he ensured that he at least completed the minimum program.

According to Yu. A. Zhdanov, back in the mid-1930s, Stalin in a private conversation announced a plan (“distant future”) to move the capital to Leningrad, 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 military operations in three directions. The first of them was on the Karelian Isthmus, where it was planned to conduct 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 planned here, in the Suomussalmi-Raate area, to cut the country's territory in two and enter the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia into the city of Oulu. The selected and well-equipped 44th Division was intended for the parade in the city.

Finally, in order to prevent counterattacks and possible landings of Finland's Western allies from the Barents Sea, it was planned 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 defense line (or bypassing the line from the north), the Red Army received the opportunity to wage war on a territory convenient for tanks to operate, which did not have serious long-term fortifications. In such conditions, a significant advantage in manpower and an overwhelming advantage in technology could manifest itself in the most complete way. After breaking through the fortifications, it was planned to launch an attack on Helsinki and achieve a complete cessation of resistance. At the same time, the actions of the Baltic Fleet and access to the Norwegian border in the Arctic were planned. This would make it possible to ensure a quick capture of Norway in the future and 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 estimate 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, and by the beginning of the war they had only “sketchy intelligence information” about them. Thus, even at the height of the fighting on the Karelian Isthmus, Meretskov doubted that the Finns had long-term structures, although he was reported about the existence of the Poppius (Sj4) and Millionaire (Sj5) pillboxes.

Finland plan

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

The Finnish defense plan north of Lake Ladoga was to stop the enemy on the line Kitelya (Pitkäranta area) - Lemetti (near Lake Syskujarvi). If necessary, the Russians were to be stopped further north at Lake Suoyarvi in ​​echelon positions. Before the war, a railway line from the Leningrad-Murmansk railway was built here and large reserves of ammunition and fuel were created. Therefore, the Finns were surprised when seven divisions were brought into battle on the northern shore of Ladoga, the number of which was increased to 10.

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

Armed forces of opponents

The Finnish army entered the war poorly armed - the list below indicates how many days of the war the supplies available in warehouses lasted:

• 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 Finnish military industry was represented by one state-owned 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 communications company, one engineer company, one quartermaster company.
The Soviet division included: three infantry regiments, one field artillery regiment, one howitzer artillery regiment, one battery of anti-tank guns, 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 was twice as powerful as the Finnish division in terms of the total firepower of machine guns and mortars, and three times as powerful in artillery firepower. The Red Army did not have submachine guns in service, but this was partially compensated 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 line of defense was the “Mannerheim Line,” consisting of several fortified defensive lines with concrete and wood-earth firing points, communication trenches, and anti-tank barriers. In a state of combat readiness there were 74 old (since 1924) single-embrasure machine-gun bunkers for frontal fire, 48 new and modernized bunkers that had from one to four machine-gun embrasures for flanking fire, 7 artillery bunkers and one machine-gun-artillery caponier. In total, 130 long-term fire structures were located along a line about 140 km long from the shore 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 state’s financial capabilities, and the people called them “millionaires” due to their high cost.

The northern coast of the Gulf of Finland was fortified with numerous artillery batteries on the shore and on the coastal islands. A secret agreement was concluded between Finland and Estonia on military cooperation. One of the elements was to coordinate the fire of Finnish and Estonian batteries with the aim of completely blocking the Soviet fleet. This plan did not work: by the beginning of the war, Estonia had provided its territories for military bases of the USSR, which were used by Soviet aviation 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: wooded and swampy terrain, where the normal use of military equipment is impossible, narrow dirt roads and ice-covered lakes, where enemy troops are very vulnerable. At the end of the 30s, many airfields were built in Finland to accommodate aircraft from the Western Allies.

Finland began building its navy with coastal defense ironclads (sometimes incorrectly called "battleships"), equipped for maneuvering and fighting in skerries. Their main dimensions: displacement - 4000 tons, speed - 15.5 knots, armament - 4x254 mm, 8x105 mm. The battleships Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen were laid down in August 1929 and accepted into the Finnish Navy in December 1932.

Cause of war and breakdown of relations

The official reason for the war was the Maynila Incident: on November 26, 1939, the Soviet government addressed the Finnish government 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. A total of seven gun shots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, seven privates and two command personnel were wounded. Soviet troops, having strict orders not to succumb to provocation, refrained from returning fire.". The note was drawn up in moderate terms and demanded the withdrawal of Finnish troops 20-25 km from the border in order to avoid a repetition of incidents. Meanwhile, Finnish border guards hastily conducted an investigation into the incident, especially since border posts witnessed the shelling. In a response note, 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 to the southeast of the place where the shells fell, that on the border the Finns only have border guards troops and no guns, especially long-range ones, but that Helsinki is ready to begin negotiations on the mutual withdrawal of troops and begin a joint investigation of the incident. The USSR's response note read: “The denial on the part of the Finnish government of the fact of the outrageous artillery shelling of Soviet troops by Finnish troops, which resulted in casualties, cannot be explained otherwise than by a desire to mislead public opinion and mock the victims of the shelling.<…>The refusal of the Finnish government to withdraw troops who carried out a villainous attack on Soviet troops, and the demand for the simultaneous withdrawal of Finnish and Soviet troops, formally based on the principle of equality of arms, exposes the hostile desire of the Finnish government to keep Leningrad under threat.”. The USSR announced its withdrawal from the Non-Aggression Pact with Finland, citing the fact that the concentration of Finnish troops near Leningrad created a threat to the city and was a violation of the pact.

On the evening of November 29, the Finnish envoy in Moscow Aarno Yrjö-Koskinen (Finnish) 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 rests with the Finnish government, the USSR government 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 at Petsamo.

On the morning of November 30, the last step was taken. As stated in the official statement, “by order of the High Command of the Red Army, in view of new armed provocations on the part of the Finnish military, troops of the Leningrad Military District at 8 o’clock in the morning on November 30 crossed the border of Finland on the Karelian Isthmus and in a number of other areas”. That same day, Soviet aircraft bombed and machine-gunned Helsinki; At the same time, as a result of the pilots' error, mainly residential working areas were damaged. In response to protests from European diplomats, Molotov stated 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, responsibility for the outbreak of the war was placed on Finland and Western countries: “ The imperialists were able to achieve some temporary success in Finland. At the end of 1939 they managed to provoke Finnish reactionaries to war against the USSR».

Mannerheim, who as commander-in-chief had the most reliable information about the incident near Maynila, reports:

...And now the provocation that I had been expecting since mid-October happened. 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 border... ...We did not have to wait long for the implementation of Molotov’s words spoken at Moscow negotiations: “Now it will be the soldiers’ turn to talk.” On November 26, the Soviet Union organized a provocation now known as “Shots at Maynila”... During the 1941-1944 war, Russian prisoners described in detail how the clumsy provocation was organized...

N. S. Khrushchev says that in late autumn (meaning November 26) he dined in Stalin’s apartment with Molotov and Kuusinen. There was a conversation between the latter about the implementation of the decision that had already been made - presenting Finland with an ultimatum; At the same time, Stalin announced that Kuusinen would lead the new Karelo-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 it rejects them, military action will have to begin”, noting: “this thing starts today”. Khrushchev himself believed (in agreement with Stalin's sentiments, as he claims) that "It's enough to tell them loudly<финнам>, if they don’t hear, then fire the cannon once, and the Finns will raise their hands up and 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 with Stalin for a long time, waiting for the Finns to answer; everyone was sure that Finland would be scared and agree to Soviet conditions.

It should be noted that internal Soviet propaganda did not advertise the Maynila incident, which served as a frankly formal reason: it emphasized that the Soviet Union was making a liberation campaign in Finland to help Finnish workers and peasants overthrow the oppression of the capitalists. A striking example is the song “Accept us, Suomi-beauty”:

We come to help you deal with it,
Pay with interest for the shame.
Welcome us, Suomi - beauty,
In a necklace of clear lakes!

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

War

After the severance of diplomatic relations, the Finnish government began evacuating the population from the border areas, mainly from the Karelian Isthmus and Northern Ladoga region. The bulk of the population gathered between November 29 and December 4.

The beginning of the battles

The first stage of the war is usually considered to be the period from November 30, 1939 to February 10, 1940. At this stage, the Red Army units were advancing in the territory from the Gulf of Finland to the shores of the Barents Sea.

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

The advance of the 7th Army on the Karelian Isthmus was opposed by the Army of the Isthmus (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 “sketchy intelligence information about the concrete strips of fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus.” As a result, the allocated forces 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 able to overcome only the line support zone and reach the front edge of the main defense line, 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 at Lake Tolvajärvi. Until the end of December, attempts at a breakthrough continued, but were unsuccessful.

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

The advance 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 launched an offensive from White Sea Karelia. It penetrated the enemy’s defenses at 35-45 km, but was stopped. The forces of the 14th Army, advancing on the Petsamo area, 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 try to explain Soviet failures also by the weather: severe frosts (up to −40 °C) and deep snow - up to 2 m. However, both meteorological observation data and other documents refute this: until December 20, 1939, On the Karelian Isthmus, temperatures ranged from +1 to −23.4 °C. Then, until the New Year, the temperature did not drop 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 hindered not only the attackers, but also the defenders, as Mannerheim also wrote about. There was also no deep snow before January 1940. Thus, operational reports of Soviet divisions dated December 15, 1939 indicate a depth of 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 Finland's use of mine-explosive devices, including homemade ones, which were installed not only on the front line, but also in the rear of the Red Army, along troop routes. On January 10, 1940, in the report of the authorized People's Commissariat of Defense, Army Commander II Rank Kovalev, to the People's Commissariat of Defense, it was noted that, along with enemy snipers, the main losses to the infantry were caused by mines. 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 the minefields was 386 km, with In this case, mines were used in combination with non-explosive engineering obstacles.

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

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

Terijoki government

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

On December 2, negotiations took place 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 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, the transfer of significant territories in Soviet Karelia and monetary compensation to Finland was provided. The USSR also pledged to support the Finnish People's Army with weapons, assistance in training specialists, etc. The agreement was concluded for a period of 25 years, and if one year before the expiration of the agreement, neither party declared its termination, it was automatically extended for another 25 years. The agreement 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 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 governing the country. The USSR declared at the League of Nations that from now on it would negotiate only with the new government.

Accepted Comrade Molotov on December 4, the Swedish envoy Mr. Winter announced the desire of the so-called “Finnish government” to begin new negotiations on an agreement with the Soviet Union. Comrade Molotov explained to Mr. Winter that the Soviet government did not recognize the so-called “Finnish government”, which had already left Helsinki and headed in an unknown direction, and therefore there could now be no question of any negotiations with this “government”. The Soviet government recognizes only the people's government of the Finnish Democratic Republic, has concluded an agreement 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 using in propaganda 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 influence the Finnish population, increasing the disintegration 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 “Ingria”, began, which was staffed by Finns and Karelians who served in the troops of the Leningrad Military District.

By November 26, there were 13,405 people in the corps, and in February 1940 - 25 thousand military personnel who wore their national uniform (made of khaki cloth and was similar to the Finnish uniform of the 1927 model; claims that it was a captured Polish uniform army, are mistaken - only part of the overcoats were used from it).

This “people’s” army was supposed to replace the occupation units of the Red Army in Finland and become the military support of the “people’s” government. “Finns” in confederate uniforms 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. The Directorate of Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks prepared a draft instruction “Where to begin the political and organizational work of communists (note: the word “ communists“crossed out by Zhdanov) in areas liberated from white power,” which indicated practical measures to create a popular front in 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 carry out combat missions. Throughout January 1940, scouts from the 5th and 6th regiments of the 3rd SD FNA carried out special sabotage missions in the 8th Army sector: they destroyed ammunition depots in the rear of Finnish troops, blew up railway bridges, and mined roads. FNA units took part in the battles for Lunkulansaari and the capture of Vyborg.

When it became clear that the war was dragging on and the Finnish people did not support the new government, Kuusinen's government faded into the shadows and was no longer mentioned in the official press. When Soviet-Finnish consultations on concluding peace began in January, it was no longer mentioned. Since January 25, the government of the USSR recognizes the government in Helsinki as the legitimate 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 countries. A Finnish source puts the figure at 12 thousand 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 All-Military Union (ROVS) arrived in Finland; after a meeting on January 15, 1940 with Mannerheim, they received permission to form anti-Soviet armed detachments from captured Red Army soldiers. Subsequently, several small “Russian People’s Detachments” were created from the prisoners under the command of six White emigrant officers from the EMRO. 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 supplied Finland with 75 aircraft (24 Blenheim bombers, 30 Gladiator fighters, 11 Hurricane fighters and 11 Lysander reconnaissance aircraft), 114 field guns, 200 anti-tank guns, 124 automatic small arms, 185 thousand artillery pieces shells, 17,700 aerial bombs, 10 thousand anti-tank mines and 70 Boyce anti-tank rifles model 1937.

France decided to supply Finland with 179 aircraft (transfer 49 fighters free of charge and sell another 130 aircraft of various types), but in fact during the war 30 M.S.406C1 fighters were transferred free of charge and six more Caudron C.714 arrived after the end of hostilities and in the war did not participate; Finland also received 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. 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 thousand rifles, 30 thousand 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 "Finland's Cause - Our Cause" campaign to collect donations for Finland, and the Swedish Bank 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 also authorized a campaign to raise funds for Finland.

Italy sent 35 Fiat G.50 fighters to Finland, but five aircraft were destroyed during their transportation and development by personnel. The Italians also transferred 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 made 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 Finland 44 Brewster F2A Buffalo fighters, but they arrived too late and did not have time to take part in hostilities.

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

Italian Foreign Minister G. Ciano in his diary mentions assistance to Finland from the Third Reich: in December 1939, the Finnish envoy to Italy reported that Germany “unofficially” sent to Finland a batch of captured weapons captured during the Polish campaign. In addition, on December 21, 1939, Germany entered into 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 reserves. The agreement caused an increase in the volume of military assistance 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 cartridges were delivered to Finland.

Fighting in December - January

The course of hostilities revealed serious gaps in the organization of command and supply of the Red Army troops, poor preparedness of the command staff, and the lack of specific skills among the troops necessary to wage war in winter in Finland. By the end of December it became clear that fruitless attempts to continue the offensive would lead nowhere. There was relative calm at the front. Throughout January and early February, troops were reinforced, material supplies were replenished, and units and formations were reorganized. Units of skiers were created, methods of overcoming mined areas and obstacles, methods of combating defensive structures were developed, 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 member of the Leningrad Military Council Zhdanov. The front included the 7th and 13th armies. In the border areas, a huge amount of work was carried out on the hasty construction and re-equipment of communication routes for uninterrupted supply of the active army. The total number of personnel was increased to 760.5 thousand people.

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

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

The Battle of Suomussalmi became widely known in Finland and abroad. 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 Oulu, reaching the Gulf of Bothnia and, as a result, cutting Finland in half. However, the division was subsequently surrounded by (smaller) Finnish forces and cut off from supplies. The 44th Infantry Division was sent 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 its approach, the 163rd Division at the end of December, under constant attacks from the Finns, was forced to break out of the encirclement, losing 30% of its personnel and most of its equipment and heavy weapons. After which the Finns transferred the released forces to encircle and liquidate 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 personnel managed to escape from the encirclement, abandoning all equipment and convoys (the Finns received 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 the enemy (11 thousand, according to other sources - 17 thousand) people with 11 guns versus 45-55 thousand with 335 guns, more than 100 tanks and 50 armored vehicles. The command of both divisions was placed under 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 (brigade commander A.I. Vinogradov, regimental commissar Pakhomenko and chief of staff Volkov) was shot.

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 Soviet troops in this area that they did not take active action until the very end of the war.

At the same time, south of Suomussalmi, in the Kuhmo area, the Soviet 54th Infantry Division was surrounded. The winner of Suomussalmi, Colonel Hjalmar Siilsavuo, was promoted to major general, but he was never able to liquidate the division, which remained surrounded until the end of the war. The 168th Rifle Division, which was advancing on Sortavala, was surrounded at Lake Ladoga and was also surrounded until the end of the war. There, in South Lemetti, at the end of December and beginning of January, the 18th Infantry Division of General Kondrashov, along with the 34th Tank Brigade of Brigade Commander Kondratyev, was surrounded. Already at the end of the war, on February 28, they tried to break out of the encirclement, but upon exiting they were defeated in the so-called “valley of death” near the city of Pitkäranta, where one of the two exiting columns was completely destroyed. As a result, out of 15,000 people, 1,237 people left the encirclement, half of them wounded and frostbitten. Brigade commander Kondratyev shot himself, Kondrashov managed to get out, but was soon shot, and the division was disbanded due to the loss of the banner. The number of deaths in the “valley of death” amounted to 10% of the total number of deaths in the entire Soviet-Finnish war. These episodes were vivid manifestations of the Finnish tactics, called mottitaktiikka, the tactics of motti - “pincers” (literally motti - a pile of firewood that is placed in the forest in groups, but at a certain distance from each other). Taking advantage of their advantage in mobility, detachments of Finnish skiers blocked roads clogged with sprawling Soviet columns, cut off the advancing groups and then wore them down with unexpected attacks from all sides, trying to destroy them. At the same time, the surrounded groups, unable, unlike the Finns, to fight off roads, usually huddled together and occupied a passive all-round defense, making no attempt to actively resist the attacks of Finnish partisan detachments. Their complete destruction was made difficult for the Finns only by the lack of mortars and heavy weapons in general.

On the Karelian Isthmus the front stabilized by December 26. Soviet troops began careful preparations for breaking through the main fortifications of the Mannerheim Line and 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, off the northern tip of the island of Gotland (Sweden), with 50 crew members, the Soviet submarine S-2 sank (probably hit a mine) under the command of Lieutenant Commander I. A. Sokolov. S-2 was the only RKKF ship lost by the USSR.

Based on 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 areas of Finland occupied by the Red Army in the combat zone 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 Interposelok, Pryazhinsky district, in the village of Kovgora-Goimae, Kondopozhsky district, in the village of Kintezma, Kalevalsky district. They lived in barracks and were required to work 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 its offensive on the Karelian Isthmus across the entire width of the front of the 2nd Army Corps. The main blow was delivered in the direction of Summa. Artillery preparation also began. From that day on, every day for several days the troops of the North-Western Front under the command of S. Timoshenko rained 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 were unable to achieve success.

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

On February 9, the commander of the troops of the North-Western Front, Army 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, acted together with the ground units of the North-Western Front.

Since the attacks of Soviet troops on the Summa region were not successful, the main attack was moved east, to the direction of Lyakhde. At this point, the defending side suffered huge losses from artillery bombardment and Soviet troops managed to break through the defense.

During three days of intense battles, 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 their 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 defense line, and the 13th Army reached the main defense line 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 began an offensive in the zone from Lake Vuoksa to the 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 Army - towards Vyborg. The Finns put up fierce resistance, but were forced to retreat.

England and France: plans for military operations against the USSR

Great Britain 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, “we would have to fight one way or another.” The Finnish representative in London, Georg Achates Gripenberg, approached Halifax on December 1, 1939, asking for permission to ship war materials to Finland, on the condition that they would not be re-exported to Nazi Germany (with which Britain was at war). The head of the Northern Department, Laurence Collier, 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 opposing, however, 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 had expressed before the war.

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

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

According to Craig Gerrard, plans for intervention in the war against the USSR, then emerging 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 prevailing view in the Department of the North was that the use of force against the USSR was inevitable. Collier, as before, continued to insist that appeasement of the aggressors was wrong; Now the enemy, unlike his previous position, was not Germany, but the USSR. Gerrard explains the position of MacLean and Collier not on ideological, but on humanitarian grounds.

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

From the French point of view, the anti-Soviet orientation also made sense due to the collapse of plans to prevent the strengthening of Germany through a blockade. Soviet supplies of raw materials meant that the German economy continued to grow, and the French began to realize that after some time, as a result of this growth, winning the war against Germany would become impossible. In such a situation, although moving the war to Scandinavia posed a certain risk, inaction was an even worse alternative. The Chief of the French General Staff, Gamelin, ordered the planning of an operation against the USSR with the aim of waging war outside French territory; plans were soon prepared.

Great Britain did not support some French plans: for example, an attack on 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, Britain was also moving closer to opening a second front against the USSR.

On 5 February 1940, at a joint war council (at which Churchill attended but did not speak), it was decided to seek Norwegian and Swedish consent to a British-led operation in which an expeditionary force would land in Norway and move east.

French plans, as Finland's situation 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. A coordination meeting was scheduled for March 12, 1940, but due to the end of the war the plans remained unrealized.

The end of the war and the conclusion of peace

By March 1940, the Finnish government realized that, despite 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 takeover of the country, which would be followed by either joining the USSR or a change of government to a pro-Soviet one.

Therefore, the Finnish government turned to the USSR with a proposal to begin peace negotiations. On March 7, a Finnish delegation arrived in Moscow, and 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, was transferred to the USSR, Soviet troops launched an assault on the city on the morning of March 13.

According to J. Roberts, Stalin's conclusion of peace on relatively moderate terms could have been caused by the awareness of the fact that an attempt to forcefully Sovietize Finland would have encountered 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 German side.

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

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 for Finland turned out to be correct».

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

In addition, according to the peace treaty, Finland assumed the obligation to build a railway on its territory 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 Åland 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 starting 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 over the systematic bombing of civilian targets by Soviet aircraft, including 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 stated in the Supreme Council 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 obstacles to Soviet engineers gaining access to aircraft factories. In addition, under various trade agreements in the period 1939-1941. The Soviet Union received 6,430 machine tools from Germany worth 85.4 million marks, which compensated for the decrease in equipment supplies 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 position of supporters of the war against the USSR in Germany. At the beginning of January 1940, the German envoy in 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 proceeded from false premises when they believed 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. Russia in reality does not pose a threat 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, based on the results Winter War, called the USSR a colossus with feet of clay.

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

On the other hand, the Soviet Union gained experience in waging war in winter, in wooded and swampy areas, experience in 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, previously removed from service, was clarified: the production of PPD was hastily restored and technical specifications were given for the creation of a new submachine gun system, which resulted in the appearance of the PPSh.

Germany was bound by a treaty with the USSR and could not publicly support Finland, which it made clear even before the outbreak of hostilities. The situation changed after major defeats of the Red Army. In February 1940, Toivo Kivimäki (later ambassador) was sent to Berlin to test out possible changes. Relations were initially cool, but changed dramatically when Kivimäki announced Finland's intention to accept help from the Western Allies. On February 22, the Finnish envoy was urgently organized a meeting with Hermann Goering, the second man in the Reich. According to the memoirs of R. Nordström at the end of the 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 regarding plans for an attack on 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 powers 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 rapidly build fortifications along the new border (Salpa Line), 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. Rent 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 reoccupied these territories in 1941, in the early stages of the Great Patriotic War, and in 1944 they again ceded to the USSR (see 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 on the Finnish side was published in a number of Finnish publications.

Modern information about the circumstances of the death of Finnish military personnel:

• 16,725 killed in action, remains evacuated;
• 3,433 killed in action, remains not evacuated;
• 3671 died in hospitals from wounds;
• 715 died from non-combat causes (including diseases);
• 28 died in captivity;
• 1,727 missing and declared dead;
• The cause of death for 363 military personnel is unknown.

In total, 26,662 Finnish military personnel were killed.

Civil

According to official Finnish data, during air raids and bombings of Finnish cities (including Helsinki), 956 people were killed, 540 were seriously and 1,300 slightly injured, 256 stone and about 1,800 wooden buildings were destroyed.

Losses of foreign volunteers

During the war, the Swedish Volunteer Corps lost 33 people killed and 185 wounded and frostbite (with frostbite making up 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 as part of the LLv-26.

USSR losses

Monument to those who fell in the Soviet-Finnish war (St. Petersburg, near the Military Medical Academy)

The first official figures for Soviet casualties in the war were published at a session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on March 26, 1940: 48,475 dead and 158,863 wounded, sick and frostbitten.

According to reports from the troops on March 15, 1940:

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

Name lists

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

• died and died from wounds during the sanitary evacuation stages - 71,214;
• died in hospitals from wounds and illnesses - 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 about 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 increasing number of Soviet losses and a decrease in Finnish ones from 1990 to 1995. So, for example, in the articles of M. I. Semiryagi (1989) the number of killed Soviet soldiers was indicated at 53.5 thousand, in the articles of A. M. Noskov, a year later - 72.5 thousand, and in the articles of P. A Aptekar in 1995 - 131.5 thousand. As for the Soviet wounded, then, according to P. A. Aptekar, their number is more than double the results of the study by Semiryagi and Noskov - up to 400 thousand people. According to data from Soviet military archives and hospitals, sanitary losses amounted to (by name) 264,908 people. It is estimated that about 22 percent of the losses were due to 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, local Finnish authorities and provincial organizations of the Karelian Union, created to protect the rights and interests of the evacuated residents of Karelia, tried to find a solution to the issue of returning 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 ceded territories, the Karelian Union acts together with and through the foreign policy leadership of Finland. In accordance with the “Karelia” program adopted in 2005 at the congress of the Karelian Union, the Karelian Union seeks to ensure that the political leadership of Finland actively monitors the situation in Russia and begins negotiations with Russia on the issue of the return of the ceded territories of Karelia as soon as a real basis arises and both sides will be ready for this.

Propaganda during the war

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

You can’t help but admire the valiant soldiers of the Red Army, armed with the latest sniper rifles and shiny automatic light machine guns. The armies of two worlds collided. The Red Army is the most peace-loving, the most heroic, powerful, equipped with advanced technology, and the army of the corrupt Finnish government, which the capitalists force to rattle their sabers. And the weapon, let’s be honest, is old and worn. There is not enough gunpowder for more.

However, within a month 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 frostbitten, was 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 the “Siegfried Line”, begins to live. which have not yet been crushed by any army. Later Anastas Mikoyan wrote: “ Stalin, an intelligent, capable man, in order to justify the failures during the war with Finland, invented the reason that we “suddenly” discovered a well-equipped Mannerheim line. A special film was released showing these structures to justify that it was difficult to fight against such a line and quickly win a victory.».

If Finnish propaganda portrayed the war as the defense of the homeland from cruel and merciless invaders, combining 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 fight against autonomy), then Soviet Agitprop presented the war as a struggle against the oppressors of the Finnish people for the sake of the latter’s freedom. The term White Finns, used to designate the enemy, was intended to emphasize not the interstate or 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 "Receive us, Suomi beauty", in an attempt to fend off accusations of taking over Finland. The order for 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 landowners and capitalists.

We are not going against the Finnish people, but against the government of Kajander-Erkno, 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 the 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 strongly fortified” “Mannerheim Line” was firmly entrenched in Soviet history and penetrated into some Western sources of information, which is not surprising, given the glorification of the line by the Finnish side literally - in song Mannerheimin linjalla(“On the Mannerheim Line”). The Belgian General Badu, a technical adviser on the construction of fortifications, a participant in the construction of the Maginot Line, stated:

Nowhere in the world were natural conditions as favorable for the construction of fortified lines as in Karelia. At this narrow place between two bodies of water - Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland - there are impenetrable forests and huge rocks. The famous “Mannerheim Line” was built from wood and granite, and where necessary from concrete. The anti-tank obstacles made in granite give the Mannerheim Line its greatest strength. Even twenty-five ton tanks cannot overcome them. Using explosions, the Finns built machine-gun and artillery nests in the granite, which were resistant to the most powerful bombs. Where there was a shortage of 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 long-term Finnish structures were one-story, partially buried reinforced concrete structures in the form of a bunker, divided into several rooms by internal partitions with armored doors. Three bunkers of the “million-dollar” type had two levels, another three bunkers had three levels. Let me emphasize, precisely 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 the barracks. There were negligibly few buildings with what could be called floors.” It was much weaker than the fortifications of the Molotov Line, not to mention the Maginot Line with multi-story 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 outdated Renault tanks and which turned out to be weak against the guns of new Soviet technology. In fact, the Mannerheim Line consisted mainly of field fortifications. The bunkers located along the line were small, located at a considerable distance from each other, and rarely had cannon armament.

As O. Mannien notes, the Finns had enough resources to build only 101 concrete bunkers (from low-quality concrete), and they used less concrete than the building of the Helsinki Opera House; the rest of the fortifications of the Mannerheim line were wood and earthen (for comparison: the Maginot line had 5,800 concrete fortifications, including multi-story bunkers).

Mannerheim himself wrote:

... Even during the war, the Russians floated the myth of the “Mannerheim Line.” It was argued that our defense on the Karelian Isthmus relied on an unusually strong defensive rampart built with the latest technology, which can be compared with the Maginot and Siegfried lines and which no army has ever broken through. The Russian breakthrough was “a feat unparalleled in the history of all wars”... All this is nonsense; in reality, the state of things looks completely different... There was a defensive line, of course, 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. - P. 319-320. - ISBN 5-264-00049-2.

Perpetuation of memory

Monuments

• “Cross of Sorrow” is a memorial to Soviet and Finnish soldiers who fell in the Soviet-Finnish War. Opened June 27, 2000. Located in the Pitkyaranta region of the Republic of Karelia.
• The Kollasjärvi Memorial is a memorial to fallen Soviet and Finnish soldiers. Located in the Suoyarvi region of the Republic of Karelia.

Museums

• School Museum “Unknown War” - opened on November 20, 2013 at the municipal educational institution “Secondary School No. 34” in the city of Petrozavodsk.
• The “Military Museum of the Karelian Isthmus” was opened in Vyborg by historian Bair Irincheev.

Fiction about war

• Finnish wartime song “No, Molotov!” (mp3, with Russian translation)
• “Receive us, Suomi beauty” (mp3, with Finnish translation)
• The song "Talvisota" by Swedish power metal band Sabaton

• “Song about 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, “Savolaksky huntsman” - poem
• Alexander Gorodnitsky, “Finnish Border” - song.
• film “Frontline Girlfriends” (USSR, 1941)
• film “Behind Enemy Lines” (USSR, 1941)
• film “Mashenka” (USSR, 1942)
• film “Talvisota” (Finland, 1989).
• film “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)

And other Finnish cities had flags at half-staff. 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 her 25 thousand dead and 55 thousand wounded; she grieved over material losses, which even the moral victory, won at the cost of the steadfastness and courage of her soldiers on the battlefields, could not make up for. Now Finland was at the mercy of Russia, and she again listened to the opinions 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 inestimable... We cannot say what the fate of Finland will be, but nothing is more deplorable to the whole civilized world than that this beautiful northern people should ultimately perish or, as a result of terrible injustice , to fall into 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 on skis from the battlefields, many of them, shocked by the conditions of peace, sobbing. They could barely stand on their feet from fatigue, but still considered themselves invincible. Many were tormented by the question of how they would feel when they had time to rest and think about everything.

When members of the peace negotiations delegation returned to Helsinki on March 14, they found a city indifferent to everything. The world under such conditions seemed unreal... terrible.

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

The Russians had plenty of time to develop their plans, choose the time and place to attack, and they greatly 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 were we able to win. Victory at such a cost was actually a moral defeat.”

Of the total 1.5 million people sent to Finland, the USSR's loss of lives (according to Khrushchev) was 1 million. 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.

Finland's losses, although disproportionately smaller, were crushing for the 4 million people. If something similar had happened in 1940 in the United States, with its population of more than 130 million, American losses in just 105 days would have amounted to 2.6 million people killed and wounded.

During the discussion of the terms of the peace treaty, Molotov noted: “Since blood was shed against the wishes of the Soviet government and through no 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 were transferred 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 are home to 12 percent of Finland's population.

Finland gave up its territory with a total area of ​​22 thousand square kilometers in favor of the Soviet Union. In addition to Viipuri, it lost such important ports as Uuras, Koivisto, the northern part of Lake Ladoga and the important Saimaa Canal. Two weeks were given to evacuate the population and remove 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, wood processing and plywood enterprises. Finland also lost some of its 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 everyone's remaining obligations to the families of those killed, war veterans 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 are poor 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 required government support, as more than half of them lived off agriculture; 40 thousand 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 at all needed 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. To subdue this stubborn and hostile people, who would undoubtedly start a guerrilla war that could last for who 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 did not include a war against the allies on the side of Germany. In conditions when the Finnish border still remained unviolated, and the allies were preparing to assist it with equipment and weapons, the war could well drag on until the spring, and then victory, most likely, would have been won by 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 indecision during the "winter madness" ended with his resignation seven weeks later when the Nazis invaded Norway and Denmark. A week after the invasion of Norway and Denmark, the French government led by Daladier fell, who was replaced by Pierre Laval, who cleverly used the conflict in Finland to come to power.

As for Germany, if the Soviet Union had not appeared in such an unsightly form in the war with Finland, Hitler would hardly have underestimated Russia's military potential in the way he did. Compared to the enormous efforts expended by the USSR in Finland, the result obtained was far from 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 when conducting military operations, due attention was not paid to the main factors in the war against Finland: the peculiarities of the theater of operations and the power of the enemy.” The latter was weak in terms of logistics, but the Russians did not fully realize that the organizational structure of their army was too cumbersome to fight in the wild northern terrain in the dead of winter. Mannerheim notes that they could well have conducted preliminary exercises in conditions similar to those they would encounter 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 wooded areas of Finland was to doom oneself to failure.

Another mistake was the use of commissars in the active army. “The fact that every order first had to be approved by the political commissars 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 by threats of reprisals against their families and assurances that they would be shot or tortured if they fell into enemy hands. In many cases, officers and soldiers preferred suicide to surrender.”

Although Russian officers were courageous people, senior commanders were characterized by inertia, which precluded the possibility of acting flexibly. “Their lack of creative imagination was striking where the changing situation required quick decision-making...” wrote Mannerheim. And although the Russian soldier demonstrated courage, perseverance and unpretentiousness, he also lacked initiative. "Unlike his Finnish opponent, he was a fighter of the masses, unable to act independently in the absence of contact with his officers or comrades." Mannerheim attributed this to the Russian man’s ability to endure suffering and hardship, developed during centuries of difficult struggle with nature, to the sometimes unnecessary manifestation of courage and fatalism inaccessible to the understanding of Europeans.

Undoubtedly, the experience accumulated 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 from 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 a standard of operational and tactical art. The troops learned to overcome the enemy’s long-term defenses through the constant accumulation of forces and patiently “gnawing” holes in the enemy’s defensive structures, created according to all the rules of engineering science. But in a rapidly changing environment, insufficient attention was paid to the interaction of various types of troops. 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 the results: “We learned a harsh lesson. And he was supposed to be useful to us. The Finnish campaign showed that the organization of the leadership of the armed forces in the center left much to be desired. In the event of a war (big or small), it was necessary to know in advance who would be the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and through what apparatus the work would be carried out; Should it have been a specially created body, or should it have been 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, a Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party was held, at which much attention was paid to considering 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 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 forests, in conditions of frosty weather and impassable roads. The party demanded a thorough study of the experience gained in the battles of Khasan, Khalkhin Gol and the Karelian Isthmus, improvement of weapons and training of troops. There is an urgent need for an urgent revision of regulations and instructions in order to bring them into line with 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. A lot of research work was required.”

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 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 ending in disaster, became a heroic and glorious page in history. Over the next 15 months, they had to exist in a “half-world” situation, until finally undisguised hatred of the Soviet Union prevailed over common sense. Matched by Russia's almost pathological suspicion of Finland. During this period, an impenetrable shroud of secrecy surrounded all government activities outside 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 a threat to their country.

The Finnish gratitude to Germany for its past assistance in their struggle for independence and for the much-needed supplies it offered played a significant role in Finland siding with Germany in the hope of regaining lost territories. After several warnings, Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941, but the two countries' armed forces did not have to meet on the battlefield. Formally, Finland was not an ally of Germany; The armies of Finland and Germany each fought under their own command, and there was virtually no cooperation between the armed forces of these countries.

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

Russia's reparations for these wars were huge, but the Finns paid them. They stoically convinced themselves: “The East took our men, the Germans took our women, the Swedes took our children. But we still have our military debt.”

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

1939-1940 (Soviet-Finnish War, in Finland known 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 larger area of ​​Soviet territory in Karelia, with the subsequent conclusion of a mutual assistance agreement.

The Finnish government believed that accepting Soviet demands would weaken the strategic position of the state and lead to Finland losing its neutrality 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) ran just 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 Maynila 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. Three Red Army soldiers and one junior commander were allegedly killed. On the same day, the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs of the USSR addressed a note of protest to the Finnish government 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 impossible to fulfill, because then Soviet troops would have to be withdrawn from Leningrad.

On November 29, 1939, the Finnish envoy in Moscow was handed a note about the severance of diplomatic relations between the USSR and Finland. On November 30 at 8 a.m., troops of the Leningrad Front received orders to cross the border with Finland. On the same day, Finnish President Kyusti Kallio declared war on the USSR.

During "perestroika" several versions of the Maynila incident became known. According to one of them, the shelling of the positions of the 68th regiment was carried out by a secret unit of the NKVD. 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 confirmation.

From the very beginning of the war, the superiority of 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, 1,476 tanks and about 1,200 aircraft) near the border with Finland. To support the ground forces, it was planned to attract about 500 aircraft and more than 200 ships of the Northern and Baltic fleets. 40% of Soviet forces were deployed on the Karelian Isthmus.

The group 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 remaining troops covered separate directions 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 Mannerheim's line was nature itself. Its flanks rested on the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga. The shore of the Gulf of Finland was covered by large-caliber coastal batteries, and in the Taipale area on the shore of Lake Ladoga, reinforced concrete forts with eight 120- and 152-mm coastal guns were created.

The "Mannerheim Line" had a front 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 from the main one, and rear (Vyborg) defense line. Over two thousand long-term fire structures (DOS) and wood-earth fire structures (DZOS) were erected, which were united into strong points of 2-3 DOS and 3-5 DZOS in each, and the latter - into resistance nodes (3-4 strong points point). The main line of defense consisted of 25 resistance units, numbering 280 DOS and 800 DZOS. Strong points were defended by permanent garrisons (from a company to a battalion in each). In the gaps between the strong points and the nodes of resistance there were positions for field troops. Strongholds and positions of field troops were covered by anti-tank and anti-personnel barriers. In the support zone alone, 220 kilometers of wire barriers in 15-45 rows, 200 kilometers of forest debris, 80 kilometers of granite obstacles 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 and underground passages and were supplied with food and ammunition necessary for long-term independent combat.

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

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. The troops received reinforcements. As a result, Soviet troops deployed against Finland numbered more than 1.3 million people, 1.5 thousand tanks, 3.5 thousand guns, and three thousand aircraft. By the beginning of February 1940, the Finnish side 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, Soviet troops reached the third on February 28. They broke the enemy's resistance, forced him to begin a retreat along the entire front and, developing an offensive, enveloped the Vyborg group of Finnish troops from the northeast, captured most of Vyborg, crossed the Vyborg Bay, bypassed the Vyborg fortified area from the northwest, and cut the highway to Helsinki.

The fall of the Mannerheim Line and the defeat of the main group of Finnish troops put the enemy in a difficult situation. Under these conditions, Finland turned to the Soviet government asking 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 coasts of Lake Ladoga, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, and part of the Rybachy and Sredny peninsulas went to the Soviet Union. The Hanko Peninsula and the maritime territory around it were leased to 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 worsened, and an anti-Soviet campaign unfolded in the West.

The losses of Soviet troops in the war were: irrevocable - about 130 thousand people, sanitary - about 265 thousand people. Irreversible losses of Finnish troops are about 23 thousand people, sanitary losses are over 43 thousand people.

(Additional

(see the beginning in the previous 3 publications)

73 years ago, one of the most unpublicized wars in which our state took part ended. The Soviet-Finnish War of 1940, also called the “Winter”, 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. However, despite such a high level of losses, the Red Army completed all its tasks, albeit with certain adjustments.

So at the initial stage of this war, the Soviet government was confident of an early victory and the complete capture of Finland. It was based on 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 military operations progressed, 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 existed until 1956, and remained the head of the Supreme Council of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

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

The stumbling block and the reason for the start of the war - the Soviet-Finnish border in the Leningrad region was moved back 150 kilometers. The entire northern coast of Lake Ladoga became part of the Soviet Union, and this body of water became internal for the USSR. In addition, part of Lapland and 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 by 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 region. After the area was transferred to Finland in 1920, large reserves of nickel were discovered there. The development of the 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 large losses of Red Army personnel, but also significant losses of military equipment. The Red Army lost 640 aircraft, the Finns knocked out 1,800 tanks - and all this despite the complete dominance of Soviet aviation in the air and the virtual absence of anti-tank artillery among the Finns. However, no matter what exotic methods of fighting Soviet tanks the Finnish troops came up with, luck was on the side of the “large battalions”.

The whole hope of the Finnish leadership lay in the formula “The West will help us.” However, even the closest neighbors provided Finland with rather symbolic assistance. 8 thousand untrained volunteers arrived from Sweden, but at the same time Sweden refused to allow 20 thousand interned Polish soldiers through its territory, ready to fight on the side of Finland. Norway was represented by 725 volunteers, and 800 Danes also intended to fight against the USSR. Hitler also tripped up Mannerheim again: the Nazi leader banned the transit of equipment and people through the territory of the Reich. A couple of thousand volunteers (though of advanced age) arrived from Great Britain. A total of 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 should have brought 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, countries such as Argentina (withdrew in the period 1921-1933), Brazil (withdrew in 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 did nothing but enter or leave it. The exclusion of the Soviet Union as an aggressor was especially actively advocated by such countries “close” to Europe as Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia, but Finland’s closest neighbors: Denmark, Sweden and Norway, on the contrary, stated 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 same one who had to read out the decision to exclude 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.

Supplies of weapons and ammunition to Philland from European countries were paid for in specie, and at inflated prices, which Mannerheim himself admitted. In the Soviet-Finnish war, profits were made by the concerns of France (which at the same time managed to sell weapons to Hitler’s promising ally Romania), and Great Britain, which sold frankly outdated weapons to the Finns. An obvious opponent of the Anglo-French allies, Italy sold Finland 30 aircraft and anti-aircraft guns. Hungary, which then fought on the side of the Axis, sold anti-aircraft guns, mortars and grenades, and Belgium, which a short time later fell under German attack, sold ammunition. Its closest neighbor, Sweden, sold Finland 85 anti-tank guns, half a million rounds of ammunition, gasoline, and 104 anti-aircraft weapons. Finnish soldiers fought in overcoats made from cloth purchased in Sweden. Some of these purchases were paid for with a $30 million loan provided by the United States. What is most interesting is that most of the equipment arrived “at the end” and did not have time to take part in 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 of 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, Laurencollier, 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. The joint British-French War Council decided on February 5, 1940 to appeal to the governments of Norway and Sweden with a request to provide Norwegian territory for the landing of the British Expeditionary Force. But even the British were surprised by the statement of French Prime Minister Daladier, who unilaterally announced that his country was ready to send 50 thousand soldiers and a hundred bombers to help Finland. By the way, plans for waging war against the USSR, which at that time was assessed 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. Back on 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 actions of the British-French allies against the USSR. Combat operations were 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 southern direction - in the area of ​​Baku, Grozny and Batumi. In these plans, the USSR was considered as a strategic ally of Hitler, supplying him with strategic raw materials - oil. According to the French General Weygand, the strike should have been carried out in June-July 1940. But by the end of April 1940, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain admitted that the Soviet Union adheres to strict neutrality and there is no reason for an 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's troops.

However, all these plans remained only on paper and for more than a hundred days of the Soviet-Finnish war, no significant assistance was provided by the Western powers. Actually, Finland was put in a hopeless situation during the war by its closest neighbors - Sweden and Norway. On the one hand, the Swedes and Norwegians verbally expressed all their support for the Finns, allowing their volunteers to participate in hostilities on the side of the Finnish troops, but on the other hand, these countries blocked a decision that could actually 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 cargo, and otherwise the Western expeditionary force would not have been able to arrive at the theater of operations.

By the way, Finland’s military expenditures in the pre-war period were 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 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. Thus, Finnish military airfields could accommodate ten times more aircraft than were in service with the Finnish Air Force at that time. It is obvious that the entire Finnish military infrastructure was being prepared for foreign expeditionary forces. Typically, 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, almost in full, subsequently fell into the hands of Nazi Germany.

The actual military operations of the Soviet troops began 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 two-faced position. Despite the fact that the American Ambassador to the USSR Steinhardt literally went into hysterics, demanding that sanctions be imposed against the Soviet Union, expel Soviet citizens from US territory and close the Panama Canal to the passage of our ships, US President Franklin Roosevelt limited himself to only introducing a “moral embargo.”

The English historian E. Hughes generally described the support of France and Great Britain for Finland at a time when these countries were already at war with Germany as “the product of a madhouse.” One gets the impression that Western countries were even ready to enter into an alliance with Hitler only so that the Wehrmacht would lead the West’s 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. Before this, our country was viewed as a “terrible child”, an unviable freak, a temporary misunderstanding. Nor should we overestimate the economic potential of Soviet Russia. In 1931, Stalin, at a conference of industrial workers, said that the USSR was 50-100 years behind developed countries and that this distance must be covered by our country in ten years: “Either we do this, or we will be crushed.” The Soviet Union failed to completely eliminate the technological gap by 1941, but it was no longer possible to crush us. As the USSR industrialized, it gradually began to show its teeth to the Western community, beginning to defend its own interests, including through armed means. Throughout the late 1930s, the USSR carried out the restoration of territorial losses that resulted from the collapse of the Russian Empire. The Soviet government methodically pushed state borders further and further beyond the West. Many acquisitions were made almost bloodlessly, mainly by diplomatic methods, but moving the border from Leningrad cost our army many thousands of soldiers' lives. However, such a transfer was largely predetermined by the fact that during the Great Patriotic War, the German army got stuck in the Russian open spaces 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 normalized. The Finnish people and their government realized that it was better for their country to act as a mediator between the worlds of capitalism and socialism, and not to be a bargaining chip in the geopolitical games of world leaders. And even more so, Finnish society has ceased to feel like the vanguard of the Western world, called upon to contain the “communist hell.” This position has led to Finland becoming one of the most prosperous and rapidly developing European countries.