Negotiations
In August 1939 Stalin pulled off a major diplomatic coup. Almost in
front of the gaping mouths of delegations from Britain and France he
signed the “Ribbentrop-agreement” with the arch-enemy Germany! At
one stroke the whole balance of power in Europe had changed, something
Finland and the Baltic States would soon be made aware of. In a secret
subsidiary protocol to the main agreement Russia had been given a free
hand by Germany to arrange its relations with, amongst others, these
states. Very soon they were asked to send delegations to Moscow for
discussions on mutual defense matters and shortly thereafter there were
Russian troops stationed in certain areas of all three of the Baltic
States. Only Finland did not bend. The Finnish negotiators pointed out
that given the developments in weaponry a military presence on the
northern coast of the Finnish Gulf was unnecessary in order to safeguard
the maritime road to Leningrad. The Russians pushed aside this argument.
Their thinking was obviously along the lines that what was proper for
Peter the Great in the 18th century was good enough for the Soviet Union
in the 1940ies. (Military minds are well known to often prepare today to
fight yesterday’s war!) In 1941 the Finnish negotiators argument was
proven right; when the Germans occupied Estonia and got control of the
southern shore the Russians voluntarily abandoned their hard-won Hanko-base
on the north coast, as both unsupportable and unnecessary.
War breaks out.
Faced with the Finnish intractability the Soviet Union finally decided
to take by force what it could not get through negotiations. On November
30 1939 Russian troops entered Finland in a multitude of locations.
Russia, and the world, expected a quick overrun-type operation. In a
couple of weeks everything should be over.
Almost immediately the Soviets put in place a Finnish puppet government
and declared that this was the only legal representative of Finland they
recognized hereafter. This government was located in the freshly
conquered Finnish border town Terijoki and led by the Finnish communist
O-W Kuusinen, a long-term member of the Russian politburo. This action
has often been taken as an indication that the true purpose of Stalin
had all the time been to create a “Soviet-Finland” that could then
at the appropriate moment be “invited” to join the Soviet Union.
That is of course entirely possible but it could as well be that Stalin
foresaw such a development as the only natural outcome when the
victorious Red Army had occupied the country and the “repressed
Finnish proletariat” demanded a change of government.
Now, however, that same proletariat stood up in the best “Sven Dufva”
tradition (Note below) and “didn’t let a devil pass the bridge”
with such an determination that even three months later the fighting
along the borders was still going on and in the Finnish woods and on the
Carelian isthmus the frozen bodies of almost a quarter of a million
Russian soldiers lay witness to how gravely Stalin had misjudged
Finland’s intention to defend its borders and independence.
Note
“Sven Dufva” is one of the characters in the epic “The Tales of
Ensign Stål” (by Finland’s national poet, J. L. Runeberg,
1804-1877), a work depicting some of the key characters and events in
the war of 1808-09 between Russia and Sweden which resulted in Sweden
being forced to secede Finland to Russia. It had great influence on the
Finnish mind-set immediately after its publication in 1848 up to modern
times as it provided the then Grand Duchy Finland with the heroes to
worship, so essential for a nation-in-being. Sven Dufva was the classic
tragic hero figure, weak in mind but strong in sense of duty. His great
day came when, as usual misunderstanding a command, he interpreted
“Retreat” as “Stand fast” and single-handedly defended a key
bridge with such a stubborn determination that he gained enough time for
reinforcements to arrive just before he fell from “a bullet that
sought his feeble head but left his noble heart well alone”. This
tragicomic figure has forever become a symbol for the Finnish soldier
fighting for his land with a determination far surpassing any
intellectual reasoning.
Addendum added Oct.11:
It seems I was a bit too free-handed when rounding the number of Russian
casualties upwards. Different sources give different values but around
150 000 seems to be average. When comparing this with the Finnish losses
of some 20 000 soldiers killed one gets the astonishing ratio of 1 to
7.5.
The word “kill-ratio”, although quite appropriate here, in this
context has a sinister meaning, Whatever word one chooses the bottom
line is that in three months in 1939-1940 some 170 000 men, mostly
young, lost their lives because some other men, mostly old, erroneously
thought that the safety of their country demanded that a border should
be moved a bit. For us that, like me, experienced those months, one way
or another, and now are starting to feel the various ailments of
oncoming old age it pays to remember the words below:
Don’t regret growing older. It’s a privilege denied to many.
(Author unknown)