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The Soviet Union has a very strong image in recent history, and they paid the price of more than 27 million people killed in World War II and helped the anti-fascist war achieve the final victory.
But in fact, the Soviet Union also committed many evil acts of aggression and plunder. In addition to the most popular partition of Poland with Germany, the Soviet Union also had a decades-long conflict with a neighbor on its border, which ultimately resulted in millions of casualties.
This country with a "blood feud" with the Soviet Union is Finland, and the contradictions between the two countries are also a history worth recalling......
(War)
1. Immovable Leningrad
Historically, Finland has been a country that has suffered a long period of rule, and until the Northern War of 1700, Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden for a long time, not an independent state. After the end of the Northern War, Sweden was defeated by Russia, and had no choice but to hand over Finland to Russia as territorial compensation.
After harvesting Finland, the Russians created the Grand Duchy of Finland as a buffer state between Russia and Sweden.
In the beginning, Tsar Alexander I granted Finland a high degree of autonomy, and Finland existed almost as an independent state. But as soon as Tsar Alexander III took office, he set about changing the situation by forcing Finland to Russify in order to increase cohesion within the Russian Empire.
(Map)
This move chilled the hearts of the Finns, who felt that Finland's own culture was under serious threat, and that the sense of independence had never been higher.
In November 1917, the unprecedented October Revolution broke out in Russia, and the position of tsar officially withdrew from the stage of history. Taking advantage of the chaos of the nascent Soviet power, the Finnish Senate directly declared Finland independent and no longer under the jurisdiction of the Russians.
In order to ensure that the Soviet Union had harmonious relations with its neighbors in the early stages of its development, Lenin ostensibly agreed to Finland's demand for independence, but he always regarded Finland as a thorn in his side.
(Web image)
Geographically, Finland shares a direct border with the Soviet Union, and there are many similarities in the cultures of the two countries. If Finland deliberately provoked contradictions with the Soviet Union, then the extremely close distance between the two countries would inevitably pose a great danger to the Soviet Union.
More importantly, Leningrad (St. Petersburg), the second largest city in the Soviet Union, was so close to Finland that the Finns could easily threaten half of the Soviet Union's political center in the event of a conflict between the two countries.
That's why Stalin said later: Leningrad can't be moved, so the border between the USSR and Finland must be moved!
(Leningrad is close to Finland)
Such a mustard hidden in the shadows eventually became the fuse of the contradiction between the two countries, bringing about a vicious war on the snowfields of the northern country......
2. The outbreak of bloody wars
The signing of the Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1932 ostensibly eased the contradictions between the two countries. But the Soviets had been working in the shadows to keep Finland firmly in control and create a new buffer zone for Leningrad and the western part of the Soviet Union.
In the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact signed in 1939, there was a secret content that Finland was directly assigned to the Soviet Union.
(Soviet-German partition of Poland)
After the outbreak of World War II, the Soviets took advantage of the tense situation in Europe to find Finland, and the two sides held a round of negotiations in Moscow on October 11, 1939. During the negotiations, the Soviet Union directly demanded the adjustment of Finnish territory for the Soviet Union to lease the Hank Peninsula to the Soviet Union for a value of 8 million Finnish marks.
As far as a sovereign country is concerned, such a demand is obviously unreasonable, and the Hank Peninsula is Finland's defense against the Soviet Union, so how can it be handed over to others? As a result, Finland directly rejected the Soviet Union's demand at the negotiating table, and the relations between the two countries once again ushered in a downward slope.
In November 1939, the Soviet Union tore the Soviet-Finnish Non-Aggression Pact to pieces, and on the 30th, it sent 20 divisions with a total of 450,000 troops to attack Finland.
(War)
In addition to 450,000 soldiers, the Soviet Union sent 2,000 combat vehicles and more than 1,000 combat aircraft, and shouted the slogan of "liberating" Finland for three days.
From the Soviet point of view, the war was a no-brainer, because Finland was, after all, a small country with a small population. At the outbreak of the war, Finland had a population of only 3.7 million people, and the Wehrmacht had only 33,000 people, and there were even a large number of firearms and artillery used in the troops during the First World War.
With such a huge gap, how could Finland resist the Soviet offensive?
(Weapons)
But what everyone didn't expect was that Finland did not bow its head in the face of the powerful Soviet Union, but went directly into the snow-capped mountains and forests, giving full play to its own terrain advantages and starting a tug-of-war with the Soviet Union.
In order to avoid a direct confrontation with Soviet heavy firepower units, Finnish soldiers raised submachine guns, stepped on sleds and organized ski detachments. They showed unparalleled mobility in the harsh winter snow and ice, disturbing the Soviet reserves.
Finnish snipers also played a very important role in the war, most notably an ace sniper named Simon Heyer, who shot and killed 542 Soviet soldiers in just four months using a Mosin Nagant rifle, which had been mass-produced since 1891.
(Finnish sniper Simon Heyer)
According to the memories of the surviving Soviet soldiers, Finnish snipers could effectively snipe from a distance of 700 meters, and the Soviets could not hide themselves even if they were lying on the snow.
The Finnish sniper team led by Simon Heyer destroyed the pride of the Soviet Union, and what seemed like a one-sided war suddenly became confusing.
3. The nightmare of the Soviet Union
As the war progressed, the situation faced by the Soviets became worse and worse, the temperature in Finland in winter could reach below minus 35 degrees, and the Soviet army, lacking logistical supplies, almost had its blood coagulated.
(War)
In just two weeks of fighting, the 163rd and 44th divisions of the Soviet army were completely annihilated, and a large number of heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery were also captured by the Finns.
On top of that, Finland's patriotic population was also conscripted, the total number of the Wehrmacht went from 33,000 to 400,000, and the Soviet soldiers were unable to move an inch in Finland, and the intensity of guerrilla warfare left them dizzy and numb.
Under these circumstances, Stalin was furious, and he mobilized a heavy group of 40 divisions to launch a major offensive in Calelia, Finland, using a large number of artillery to carpet bombard Finnish positions.
(War)
However, due to the low level of artillery training of the Soviet soldiers, the hour-long bombardment did not destroy any of the Finnish soldiers' fortifications, and the 2,000-millimeter-thick concrete trenches of the Finnish army were like a moat, claiming the lives of tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers.
For the Soviet Union, the nature of the war had already changed, and if they could not defeat Finland, the Soviet Union's own international standing would be dealt a huge blow. The League of Nations had already expelled the Soviet Union in January 1940, and the whole of Europe was watching the Soviet joke.
It is precisely for this reason that the Soviet Union must win the war at all costs, not only to create a buffer zone for Leningrad, but also to give the Soviet Union a chance to survive as a great power in European politics in the future.
(Finnish Luge Infantry)
On February 12, 1940, the Soviets mobilized a rapid cluster of armor and spent a lot of money on the Finnish battlefield, crushing and breaking through the Finnish defense line with firepower all the way. After four months of bloody fighting, the Soviet Union finally won the game and brought the Finnish representatives to the negotiating table.
In this war, the Finnish army paid the price of more than 70,000 casualties, while the Soviet Union's casualty figure reached an eye-popping 600,000, and according to the recollection of Khrushchev, the former secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union actually lost millions of combat strength in this war......
According to statistics, the ratio of casualties between the Soviet Union and Finland in this war can reach 20:7, and the final victory of the Soviet Union is completely piled up with the lives of ordinary soldiers.
(Fighter)
There is no doubt that the Soviets reaped a resounding victory, and although they succeeded in ceding Finland to pay reparations and creating a buffer zone for Leningrad, they also greatly damaged the international image of the Soviet Union.
After the war, Finland was recognized as one of the Nordic powers, but they also experienced the cruelty of the war and did not seek revenge on the Soviet Union in the future.
(Web image)
Perhaps to reassure Leningrad in the Soviet Union, Finland became a neutral country after World War II, and in 1948 the Soviet-Finnish Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed with the Soviet Union.
The Soviet-Finnish Winter War can be called the nightmare of the Soviet Union, the first Waterloo that the Soviet army encountered after the founding of the state. The Soviet Union, which was a tough hegemon, finally paid the price because of its own conceit.
(War)
Resources
Historical Review: Soviet-Finnish War.World War II Military Base.2009-01-26 [cited 2012-10-11]
CCTV: The Soviet Union lost more than one million people in the bloody battle of the Soviet Union and Finland in the harsh winter (Photos). [OL].2008.03.13.