Part 6 Could the Winter War have been avoided

Could the Winter War have been avoided?

The question if the Winter War could have been avoider has been a recurring theme in Finnish debate during the past 65 years. It seems everyone from political fanatics to ex-presidents have voiced their opinion in this matter. A real analysis of the question has mostly been notable by its absence. Generally those answering the question with a “Yes” have argued that it was Finland’s recalcitrance that forced the war upon the country and that the fear that Stalin’s real intention was to annex Finland after first making it unable to defend itself was uncalled for. Unfortunately this theory has an uncanny likeness to that which proposes to solve the problem of rape by suggesting that the solution is that the attacked woman acquiesces, then it’s obviously not rape any more. In other words it is a “solution” that doesn’t solve any problem but rather performs some semantic buffoonery.
A possible analysis is the following: The Russians had a legitimate need to safeguard Leningrad. To that effect they saw a need to move the border with Finland at least so much that the inner defence lines of Leningrad were not within artillery range from Finnish soil and further to gain military bases on the northern, as well as on the southern, shore of the Gulf of Finland in order to control the sea approaches to this, their second largest, city. The fact that at least the demand for north-shore bases was strategically based on obsolete doctrines doesn’t change the fact that that was what was deemed necessary by the Russian leadership at that time. Russia had confidence in neither Finland’s political will nor its military capability to take on responsibility for any defence tasks for Leningrad. As Finland didn’t agree to any of their demands Russia used force to get what it thought as being of key importance to itself.
If one disregards the possibility of Finland completely acquiescing to the Russian demands one can see that the only possibility to avoid war would have been for Finland to convince Russia that Finland was quite capable and willing, perhaps with Russian-supplied equipment, to safeguard Leningrad from attacks through Finnish territory. If such an change of attitude at all could have been possible (It’s difficult to envision a major world power entrusting part of its defences to a minor neighbour!) it would have necessitated years of confidence-building and quite another tone in the relationship between the two states. Regretfully one can just note that the politicians of neither state would at that time have been capable of building such a relationship, and nor did they even try. Furthermore one has to note, as already said above, that as to the Finnish military capability neither did the Soviet Union nor any other state, for the matter, believe that Finland could, and would, successfully resist a major power.

Conclusion
The answer on the question if the Winter War was unavoidable has consequently to be “Yes”, there was no practical way in which it could have been avoided, bar complete subservience by Finland.. The irony is that if the outcome of the war had been known beforehand it could perhaps have been avoided. So it seems there had to be a war in order to prove that a war was not necessary. Unfair and tragic, but history is seldom fair and very often tragic.