Eighty years ago, on November 30, 1939, the Soviet-Finnish War broke out, and Soviet troops began to attack the Isthmus of Karelia, Finland. According to the Soviet side, it was to retake the huge concessions made by the Soviet Russia in the Soviet-Finnish peace agreement in 1920 in response to the civil war, and to completely solve the security problems of Leningrad. The Soviets fought an undeclared war, airstrikes on targets such as Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and then the Soviets crossed the border, a war that lasted 105 days and ended in a crushing Soviet victory. Eventually, through the Moscow Peace Agreement of 12 March 1940, Finland lost Karelia and its second largest city, Vyborg. Pictured here is the 1940 Soviet Air Force Pep-2 bomber group air raid on Finnish army positions.
When introducing the Soviet-Finnish war, many media at home and abroad always like to be preconceived and smear the Soviet Union as political correctness. In fact, there are too many factors involved in geohistory and politics, and jumping to conclusions too arbitrarily will certainly simplify the problem. Karelia is located in the northwesternmost part of the European part of Russia, part of which is within the Arctic Circle, and the climate is extremely cold. Inhabited by Karelians and Finns, it has always been a strategic point of contention between Finland and Russia, carrying Finland's enmity with Russia. In 1939, Soviet troops assembled near Ino fort in the Karelian Isthmus.
The feud between Finland and Russia dates back to the Middle Ages, when the Kingdom of Sweden and Tsarist Russia, two emerging regional hegemons, waged successive wars on the Karelian Isthmus and the Baltic Sea coast, with repeated tug-of-war between the two sides, leading to tug-of-war on national borders. Pictured here is General Trenty Fomich Shtiv (center) inspecting the rifles of Soviet soldiers in 1939.
In 1293, the Kingdom of Sweden continued to expand its power in the Karelian Isthmus and the Baltic Sea coast by strengthening Vyborg. Finland was then the sphere of influence of the Kingdom of Sweden, which ruled Finland for 600 years. With the rise of Tsarist Russia, the border between the two countries began to move in the direction of Sweden. Pictured in 1940, Soviet logistics convoys are transporting supplies to the front.
After the defeat of the Kingdom of Sweden in its last major war against Tsarist Russia in 1808-1809, Sweden lost its dependency of Finland, where Tsarist Russia established the Grand Duchy of Finland. The then Tsar Alexander I granted considerable autonomy and administrative powers to the Grand Duchy of Finland and visited Vyborg to celebrate the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1939, commanders give orders to a group of ski scouts.
At the end of the 19th century, the new Tsar Alexander III decided to unify the country's language, government, institutions, etc., and thus withdrew many of the autonomy privileges granted by Alexander I to Finland. The Grand Duchy of Finland saw this as a violation of its autonomy, and the national independence movement soon broke out and spread throughout the country. The picture shows the Soviet armored train on the Su-Finnish front in 1940.
On November 7, 1917, the "October Revolution" overthrew Tsarist Russia, and Finland took the opportunity to gain its first independence on December 6, 1917, completely breaking away from Tsarist Russia. This does not mean that Finland has ushered in true peace. When the Finnish Civil War broke out in 1918, the Swedish and German-backed White Army fought in the same room as the Soviet-supported Red Army, and the Red Army was defeated. Pictured is a Soviet soldier in a trench in 1939.
During the Finnish Civil War, Mannerheim, commander-in-chief of the Finnish White Army, proposed that Finland would fight to the end as long as The Soviet Union did not return the eastern part of the Karelian Isthmus. From 1918 to 1920, the Finnish White Army repeatedly attacked the Soviet Red Army stationed in the eastern part of the Karelian Isthmus, but did not expect that the local residents were afraid of the retaliation of the White Army and firmly sided with the Red Army to resist the Attack of the White Army. In 1939, soldiers of the Soviet ski unit prepare to shoot.
After the end of the Finnish Civil War in 1920, Russia signed a peace treaty with Finland. At that time, Soviet Russia was busy dealing with the civil war, making major concessions in the peace agreement, recognizing Finland's independence, and not thinking too much about the demarcation of the Karelian Isthmus border with an important strategic position. Petrograd, the holy site of the October Revolution in Russia, was only 32 kilometers from the border, which was also an important reason why Lenin moved the capital of Soviet Russia from Petrograd to Moscow. The picture shows the Soviet occupation of Terioki in 1939, removing the perimeter anti-tank barrier to facilitate the passage of convoys. Terioki was the first Finnish city occupied by the Soviets.
The peace agreement between Soviet Russia and Finland was only a stopgap measure, and the ideological confrontation between the two countries, the brutal rule history of Tsarist Russia in the past, and the fierce anti-Russian sentiment in Finland have made the relations between the two countries have always been very stiff. As the Soviet Union's military power grew, Stalin began to demand that Finland lease the Hanko Peninsula as a naval base, redraw the border, assign the entire Karelian Isthmus, including Vyborg, to the Soviet Union, and was willing to compensate for three times the territory of the Karelian Isthmus. Pictured here are Soviet soldiers fighting in the Karelian Isthmus in 1939.
But that meant Finland lost the Karelian Isthmus, an important bastion, and Vyborg, the second largest city. The two sides held several rounds of negotiations, but none of them ended. In early November 1939, the Soviet Union decided to get Finland to hand over Karelia by war. On November 26, 1939, the Soviet Union claimed that the Finnish shelling of the border village of Maynella killed seven Red Army fighters. It also called on the Soviet army to completely eliminate the regimes of neighboring countries that caused the trouble, claiming that the Red Army was liberating the toiling people oppressed by Finland and returning Finland to freedom and democracy. In 1939, Soviet commanders read to soldiers an order declaring war on Finland.
The Soviet-Finnish war ended in a crushing Soviet victory, and in order to completely preserve this blood-soaked land, the Soviet Union replaced the population of Karelia, and the Russians moved in in large numbers, completely changing the demographic structure of the region. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Karelia remained stable, and Finland, although it wanted to take advantage of the opportunity, could not take advantage of it. Karelia, which carries too much of Finland's grudge with Russia, may belong to Russia forever. The picture shows the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish War at 8:00 a.m. on November 30, 1939, and Soviet artillery fires at Finnish army positions.