November 30, 1939 in the morning, at 8 hours 30 minutes, several hundred thousand soldiers of the Red Army crossed the Soviet-Finnish border along its entire length. One of the most shameful wars in the history of the twentieth century began.
The war, which in Soviet and post-Soviet historiography was called the Soviet-Finnish, and in the works of Western historians - Winter, since the hostilities took place in winter: peace was concluded on March 13, 1940.
Stalinist propaganda piled mountains of lies around this war - about its causes, and the incident that became the immediate cause for it, and the course of hostilities, and about the losses of the parties and the circumstances of the conclusion of peace. After 1940, until the very collapse of the USSR, official Soviet historiography preferred not to mention this, as the poet Alexander Tvardovsky said, “unfamous” war at all.
And if they did remember, they did it “patter”, without going into details. Nothing fundamentally changed after the collapse of the USSR. Despite the fact that in the 90s of the last century a number of fairly objective studies devoted to this topic appeared, the general tone and assessments of the Winter War remained basically unchanged. The opinion is still being imposed that Stalin's decision to start a war against Finland was due to "objective necessity". “On the northwestern borders of the USSR, the task was to ensure the security of Leningrad,” this is how the textbook for entering universities “The History of Russia from Ancient Times to the End of the 20th Century” edited by V. Kerov, 2008 edition, explains to Russian applicants the main reason for the Soviet-Finnish war.
Now, after the publication in May of this year. decree of Dmitry Medvedev "On the Commission under the President of the Russian Federation on countering attempts to falsify history to the detriment of Russia's interests", an objective study of one of the most shameful pages in the history of the USSR is becoming increasingly problematic for our northeastern neighbors.
Attempts to justify the aggression against little Finland have become part of the ideological justification of the imperial-nationalist hysteria, which the current Kremlin leadership is diligently (and not unsuccessfully) fanning. It proclaimed itself the heir to the USSR, but does not want to bear any, even moral, responsibility for the criminal actions of this state in the international arena. Last year's "operation to force Georgia to peace" clearly demonstrated that Moscow, for the sake of "improving the geopolitical situation," again does not hesitate to use armed force against neighboring sovereign states.
Today it is already well known that, according to the secret protocols to the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact (Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact) signed on August 23, 1939, the two totalitarian regimes divided the spheres of influence in Eastern Europe between them. The Treaty of September 28, 1939 on friendship and border formalized the de facto alliance between Hitler and Stalin, and also allowed the latter to "exchange" the Lublin and part of the Warsaw provinces of Poland for Lithuania, which belonged to the USSR in accordance with the August agreements.
Modern Russian historiography prefers to view the Soviet-Finnish War as a "separate episode" not directly related to the events of World War II. However, it was precisely in fulfillment of allied obligations to Hitler that on September 17, 1939, Soviet troops struck in the back of Poland, which was still resisting Nazi Germany. At the same time, the Soviet Union, in an ultimatum form, offered Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland to conclude "treaties of friendship and mutual assistance." According to them, it was supposed to introduce "limited" contingents of Soviet troops into these countries, thereby putting an end to the "anti-Soviet policy", and in fact - turning these states into Soviet satellites. It was clear that this was only the first step towards their complete annexation by the Soviet Union. The leaders of the Baltic states rushed to seek help and support from both Germany and Britain and France, which at that time were already at war with each other, but were not actively fighting. The Nazis rudely replied that the Baltics should agree to Stalin's "proposal", while the French and British protested. However, Moscow ignored them. On September 28, Estonia, on October 5, Latvia and on October 10, 1939, Lithuania capitulated to Stalin, signing enslaving treaties. The leaders of these countries reassured themselves: “there is no other way out anyway”, there is no way to resist the Soviet military machine. They were severely punished for their weakness and desire to "somehow agree" - almost the entire pre-war political elite of the Baltic states died in Siberian camps, and the peoples suffered inhuman suffering during the 50 years of Soviet occupation. Already in the summer of 1940, the Baltic states were deprived of statehood and annexed by the Soviet Union. The capitulatory position of their leadership gave rise to the myth of "voluntary reunification" with the USSR.
And only Finland flatly refused to sign an agreement that would actually turn it into a Soviet colony. It was October 5, 1939 - the same day that Latvia capitulated. Stalin did not expect such obstinacy from a country that was 55 times (!) inferior to the Soviet Union in terms of population. However, already
On October 14, the Kremlin offered Helsinki a "compromise" option: lease the Finnish port of Hanko for 30 years to develop a Soviet naval base there; transfer to the USSR several islands in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, most of the Karelian Isthmus and the Rybachy Peninsula - a total of 2761 square meters. km in exchange for 5529 sq. km of Soviet territory in Karelia. For the most densely populated regions of the country, deserted forests and swamps in Karelia were offered. But the most unpleasant thing was that Stalin wanted to get the Mannerheim Line on the Karelian Isthmus without a fight. It turned out that the already low chances of the Finnish army to provide successful resistance in the event of Soviet aggression were reduced to almost zero. Stalin tried to use the experience of his ally Hitler, who a year earlier forced Czechoslovakia to “voluntarily” first abandon the Sudetenland, along with its super-powerful defensive structures, and six months later, freely captured the entire country.
But long before that, in conditions of extreme secrecy, the formation of the "Finnish People's Army" began. Its basis was the Soviet 106th Mountain Rifle Division, to which all Soviet Finns and Karelians were transferred in a fire order. They were dressed in captured Polish uniforms with Finnish distinctions. After the defeat of the Finnish state, the "People's Army" were to become a stronghold of the occupying forces in the conquered country. In three and a half months, four divisions of the "people's army" were formed, united in the 1st Rifle Corps. However, the necessary number of Finns, Karelians, Vepsians and Izhors in the USSR simply did not exist, and already
On February 1, 1940, the FNA command received permission to be equipped with Russians as well. Then fighters with such “Finnish” surnames as Tazhibaev, Polyansky, Ustimenko appeared in it ... The headquarters of the corps was headed by brigade commander Romanov, who has since become Raikas, and the political department - Tereshkin, from October 1939 to April 1940 was called Tervonen. Only the commander of the FNA was the real Finn Aksel Anttila, a regular officer of the Red Army, who was repressed in 1937, and in 1939 was urgently returned from the Gulag. Not a single (!) Of the almost a thousand Finnish soldiers who were captured by the Soviets during the Winter War agreed to join the ranks of this "army", despite the terrible pressure from the Soviet Chekists.
The combat capability of her "soldiers" was extremely low. During the entire period of the war, they practically did not participate in hostilities. They were kept for the "liberators" parade in occupied Helsinki. Therefore, the assertion of modern Russian historians that the cause of the Soviet-Finnish war was the uncompromising position of Helsinki regarding the mentioned "territorial proposals" of the Soviet side is completely untrue. Stalin's plan to "exchange territories in order to move the border away from Leningrad" was just a smokescreen - back in October, he decided to capture all of Finland.
In the 20th of November, reports appeared in Soviet newspapers about "the constant provocations of the White Finnish military on the Soviet border", about the "uprising of the Finnish working people against the bourgeois regime." BUT
On November 26, the NKVD organized a provocation near the Soviet village of Mainil on the border with Finland - the location of the Soviet 68th regiment was fired from mortars. According to false Soviet statements, four Red Army soldiers were killed and nine wounded. But in fact, there were no losses - in
In the 1990s, the Russian historian Aptekar found in the archives information and reports from the 70th Rifle Division, which included the 68th Regiment. There are no reports of shelling from the Finnish side, and no losses were recorded on November 25-28 in the division. On November 28, the Soviet Union unilaterally terminated the non-aggression pact with Finland, and on November 30 it launched a war.
On December 1, in the first settlement of Finland captured by the USSR - the holiday village of Terijoki, directly on the Soviet border, a "people's government" was created, headed by the Comintern leader Otto Kuusinen. Already on December 2, the USSR recognized its puppets as the only legitimate government of Finland and concluded a “friendship agreement” with it. It is curious that all the above information is taken from open sources - Soviet central newspapers
November-December 1939. But since then, not a single Soviet source has ever mentioned the "people's government", to whose "help" the Soviet "liberators" went. The heroic popular resistance offered to the self-proclaimed "liberators" by the small nation made this propaganda version completely unacceptable.
Stalin ordered the troops of the Leningrad Military District to break the resistance of the Finnish army within two weeks and occupy the country. The Soviet grouping, concentrated before the start of the war on the Finnish border, outnumbered its armed forces in terms of personnel by 1.6 times, in terms of the number of guns and mortars - by 5.4, aircraft - by 9.1, tanks - by 88 (!) times ! The Finns managed to put up 265 thousand militias against the aggressor. Only 38 thousand of them were military personnel. Many mobilized did not even have a military uniform - only a military buckle on a "home" belt and a cockade on a civilian hat. The Soviet "liberators", having taken such a militia prisoner, shot him as a "bandit". The poorly armed Finnish army felt a shortage of ammunition: a supply of cartridges - only for two and a half months of fighting, artillery shells and mines - for one month.
And despite this, the troops of Marshal Mannerheim offered heroic resistance for three and a half months. Only in the battle of Suomussalve in December 1939 - January 1940 were the 163rd and 44th Soviet infantry divisions surrounded and almost completely destroyed. As a result, the Soviet troops lost more than 27 thousand killed, frozen and captured, and the losses of the Finns amounted to only 900 people. Stalin, who had been in a state of euphoria after the victorious march of Soviet troops through Western Ukraine and Belarus a few months earlier and after the crushing defeat inflicted on the Japanese at Khalkhin Gol, fell into a cold shower. On January 7, 1940, the Northern Front was created, troops and equipment were driven to the Karelian Isthmus in an endless stream. In the end, the huge numerical and technical advantage of the Soviet troops brought results - after three and a half months of fierce fighting, all lanes of the Mannerheim line in its western part were broken through, and on March 13, Soviet troops took the city of Viipuri (which turned into the "Russian city of Vyborg") - further direct road to Helsinki. However, Stalin took into account the Finnish government's request for a cessation of hostilities, and on March 12 (the day before the capture of Viipuri) the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty was signed, virtually without discussion, "without reading". Under its terms, Finland lost the entire Karelian Isthmus and the coast of Lake Ladoga, some areas in Karelia and in the North, leased the Khanko Peninsula to the USSR. It would seem that Stalin won the war, having received more than he demanded in November 1939. Then why did he refuse to completely conquer Finland?
In fact, the war ended in a shameful defeat for the USSR. Finnish troops lost 26,600 people dead (a very significant loss for such a small country - almost 1% of the population). Stalin at the end of the war announced 48,475 deaths from the USSR. According to the lists of names compiled in 1949-1951 by the Main Directorate of Personnel of the USSR Ministry of Defense, Soviet losses in this war amounted to 126,875 people killed, died of wounds, diseases and missing. Meanwhile, most Western historians consider these figures too low and estimate the number of dead Soviet servicemen at 150-200 thousand. Hundreds of thousands more wounded and frostbitten. The version about the voluntary entry of the “Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic” into the USSR, about workers and peasants, with tears of joy in the eyes of the Soviet soldiers-liberators, no longer passed. The Sovietization of Finland was delayed. Fortunately, forever.
The winter war of 1939-1940, in which Finland defended its independence, had rather tangible consequences for the USSR: as an aggressor, it was expelled from the League of Nations. Frustrated by the huge losses and the inability to quickly defeat a weaker enemy, Stalin expelled Kliment Voroshilov from his post as People's Commissar for Defense. And Hitler, who closely followed the "successes" of his new ally on the Karelian Isthmus, following the results of the Winter War, said: "The Soviet Union is a colossus with feet of clay without a head." If, they say, the small and poorly armed Finnish army was able to resist the Red Army for so long and successfully, then the Wehrmacht will smash it to smithereens in a few weeks. It was as a result of the Winter War that Hitler got rid of the panic fear of fighting on two fronts - in the West and East at the same time. It can be assumed that if it were not for the “wise” Stalinist decision to attack Finland and the shame that the “invincible and legendary” Red Army covered itself on the Karelian Isthmus, Hitler would not have dared to attack the USSR until the final victory over Britain.
The immediate consequence of the Winter War was the continuation war - in 1941-1944, the Finns fought against the USSR already in alliance with Germany, seeking to return their lands. Today it has already been proven that on the eve and at the beginning of World War II, the greatest desire of the Finnish elite, in particular Mannerheim, was to remain neutral, to "sit out", just as the Swedes managed to do. These hopes of the Finns were trampled underfoot by Stalin. Without the war of 1939-1940 against Finland, there would have been no blockade of Leningrad (the Finns closed the ring around the city from the north), and hence the death from starvation of hundreds of thousands of Leningraders ...
In the 18th century, a Catholic priest from Hungary, Janos Shainovich, discovered a relationship between the languages of several Finno-Ugric peoples. Now the Finno-Ugric "family" has 24 peoples, three of them - Hungarians, Estonians and Finns - have created independent states. 17 peoples live on the territory of Russia. Some of them are endangered. Several nationalities have disappeared altogether.
Finno-Ugric peoples in Russian chronicles
Anthropologists consider the Finno-Ugric peoples to be the oldest permanent residents of Europe and the oldest surviving peoples living in North-Eastern Europe. In the northeast of Russia, Finno-Ugric tribes lived even before the colonization of these lands by the Slavs. The tribes interacted peacefully - the territories were large, and the population density was low. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions such tribes as Chud, Merya, Vesya, Muroma. In the 800s, there are still no Russians in the annals, but there are a number of Slavic tribes: Krivichi, Slovenes.
The Varangians collected tribute from the Slavic and Finno-Ugric tribes living in the northeast. Chud and Merya later participated in the campaign of Prince Oleg against Byzantium. Detachments gathered for other campaigns. For example, representatives of the Chud participated in Vladimir's campaign against the Polotsk prince Rogvolod. The Russians called the Finns "wonder".
Since the XII century, according to the chronicle, there has been a gradual assimilation of the Finno-Ugric peoples. For the chroniclers, they are no longer so much independent tribes as part of the Russian people. In fact, the tribal structure persisted, although it faded into the background. Around this time, the further expansion of the Russians to the northeast began. There are reports of conflicts with local tribes. For example, "Yaroslav fought with the Mordovians, on the 4th day of March, and Yaroslav was defeated."
In the late introduction to The Tale of Bygone Years, presumably created in 1113, data on the places of residence of the Finno-Ugric tribes are systematized: “And on Beloozero sits all, and on Lake Rostov - Merya, and on Lake Kleshchina - also Merya. And along the Oka River, where it flows into the Volga, there are Muroma speaking their own language, and Cheremis speaking their own language, and Mordovians speaking their own language.
The Izhora as a tribe has been mentioned in the annals since the 13th century, although, along with the Vod, they have inhabited the northwestern part of the current Leningrad region since ancient times. They fought together with the Novgorodians. In 1240, an Izhorian elder discovered a flotilla of Swedes and reported this to Prince Alexander Nevsky. Then the Izhors were close to the Karelians. The disunity occurred in 1323, when, after the signing of the Orekhovets peace treaty, the territory of the Karelians went to Sweden, and the Izhora remained in the possession of Novgorod.
The Izhora Upland is named after the Finno-Ugric people - the area south of the Neva and the Izhora River.
What did the Finno-Ugric peoples of the northeast do?
Arriving on the territory of the Finno-Ugric peoples, the Slavs quickly began to build cities. Among the Permian, Volga-Finnish and small Baltic-Finnish peoples, urban culture did not develop. They - representatives of the agrarian culture - were engaged in agriculture, hunting and fishing, weaving baskets, making pottery.
Life in the villages for a long time helped to preserve originality in clothing, food, construction of dwellings. Marriages were mostly concluded between their own, their languages were preserved.
Holidays were also celebrated within the people. As they said, "without noise and quarrel, and if someone is noisy or squabbling, then they drag him into the water and dip him so that he is humble." They had their own customs. So, at the Izhora, immediately after the wedding, the young people separated and went to celebrate with their relatives. Apart. They only met the next day.
The Izhora and Vod tribes retained their language until the middle of the 20th century. Ethnographers of that time noted that the Izhors did not speak Russian well, although they had Russian names and surnames. There was even writing based on the Latin alphabet, but in 1937 the publication of books was discontinued.
Izhora is one of the most singing Finno-Ugric peoples. They have saved over 125,000 songs. One of the main songwriters was Larin Paraske, who knew 1152 songs and more than 32 thousand poems.
Gradually, the Russian Finno-Ugric peoples adopted the Orthodox faith. So, the baptism of the Karelians took place in 1227. Many Christian terms in the Baltic-Finnish languages are of East Slavic origin.
For a long time, Orthodoxy among the Finno-Ugric peoples (for example, among the Izhora) existed on a par with paganism. In 1354, Archbishop Macarius informed Prince Ivan Vasilyevich that Chuds, Korelas, and Izhoras still had "bad idol prayer places." Until now, paganism has survived only among the Mari and Udmurts. Some northern peoples still practice shamanism.
recent history
Many Finno-Ugric peoples voluntarily assimilated with the Russians: they moved to cities, went to work in factories and workshops, women went to nannies. But until the 1920s, more than 90% of the Izhora were rural residents.
After the revolution, many Finno-Ugric peoples were granted national autonomy. There was even the Karelian-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (despite the fact that Karelians and Finns in that territory were about 20%). During the Soviet-Finnish war, many Finno-Ugric peoples moved to Finland. And during World War II, Izhors were sent to work in Finland forcibly.
In 1944, the Soviet authorities deported most of the returning Izhors to the Yaroslavl, Pskov, and Novgorod regions. Not all have returned to their original places of residence. The same fate befell the representatives of the Vod people.
In total, more than half a million Russian Finno-Ugric peoples were assimilated in the 20th century. According to the 2010 census, 266 Izhora now live in Russia. Once a large and strong Vod tribe now consists of about 60 people, and there are only a few who speak the Vot language. And for some, it is not native - people learn it in order to preserve it. Votic writing did not exist, but folklorists recorded songs and incantations.
In the former Vodka villages between Narva and Kingisepp (and to the east of it), only Russians have long lived. Only the names of settlements remind of the Votic heritage.
Probably, the number of representatives of disappearing nationalities is greater, but many already record themselves as Russians. If the trends continue, soon many small Finno-Ugric peoples and their languages will disappear forever.
This public organization of local historians and historians made a significant contribution to the study of Finno-Ugric subjects, the history of Russia in the 20th century. One of the active leaders of the Moscow branch of the Society for the Study of the Komi Territory (MO OIKK) was Professor Vasily Ilyich Lytkin, who later became a well-known Finno-Ugric scholar. It is unlikely that Lytkin knew about this, but, as it became known today, there were other rather strange approaches to studying the subject in Finno-Ugric studies...
By order of the Fuhrer
December 1941. Fierce battles between our troops and the Nazis are taking place on a vast territory from Leningrad to the Crimea. The fate of Moscow is being decided. The Germans are standing 30 kilometers from the Kremlin. The German Nazi army "Center" is commanded by Field Marshal Fedor von Bock (an unusual Russian name with Greek roots for a hereditary German military) ...
In December 1941, von Bock receives a very strange directive from Hitler. The Fuhrer categorically forbids him any shelling and air bombardment in a five-mile zone along the Oka River, starting from Ryazan and towards Murom. Moreover, this directive requires von Bock to provide reliable cover for a special search and archaeological group, which will be thrown into the forests of the Ryazan region. The group was sent by the Ahnenerbe organization, the purpose of the search was not disclosed.
Graphic symbol of the Ahnenerbe unit
Goths in Ryazan?
What could the Nazis look for in Ryazan land? Most likely, the "Ahnenerbe" (the so-called German Society for the Study of Ancient Germanic History and Heritage of Ancestors), which methodically plundered the cultural values of the occupied countries and subjected these values to analysis from the point of view of Nazi racial theory and the German-Scandinavian mythology adopted by the Nazis, abandoned a special archaeological group to study the Oka chain of mounds that stretch along the Oka from Ryazan to Murom itself. There were precedents for such research during the occupation of the Leningrad region. Also known is the purposeful activity of "Ahnenerbe" in three regions of the USSR - in the Crimea, on the Kola Peninsula and in the Ryazan region. But the thing is that the peoples of the Finno-Ugric group have been living on the territory of the modern Ryazan region since ancient times to this day ... Perhaps the special group "Ahnenerbe" was going to look in the mounds of the Ryazan region for traces and random connections of the descendants of the Aryans, Germans, with local pre-Slavic tribes?
Was there a military alliance?
In any case, the excavations of Russian archaeologists around 2005 at the site of the settlement of Old Ryazan, which is 60-70 kilometers from modern Ryazan, established the “Ryazan-Oka” tribes that once lived there (as the researchers called them), which belonged to the Volga-Finnish branch Finno-Ugric peoples - this is evidenced by their material culture. In the process of ethnogenesis, they could capture part of the Ugric tribes, the ancestors of modern Hungarians. The Ryazano-Oktsy were not natives of Poochye. They came here shortly before the beginning of our era. From the point of view of archeology, their arrival can be traced very well. And it also characterizes the new settlers well.
The local tribes of the so-called Gorodets culture (they are considered the ancestors of the Mordovians, also a Volga-Finnish people) in this zone of the Oka were, as it turned out, barbarously exterminated. Collective burials, or, more simply, pits with chopped up remains, accompany almost every Gorodets settlement. There is a layer of ash on the places of settlements - they were burned, and no one else lived there. Aggressive aliens took control of the vast territory of Poochya - almost from the modern borders of the Moscow Region to Kasimov ...
... Scientists suggest that the Ryazan-Oka inhabitants came to the Oka from the east. But throughout their almost thousand-year history, they were closely connected with the south, with the German tribes of the Goths. At the beginning of the 1st millennium, the Goths roamed the Don, from where they later left for Western Europe. There are many Gothic elements in the national costume of the Ryazan-Oktsy. Their weapons largely copy the German ones, and the crowns of the ancestral princelings repeat the patterns of the crowns of the early Gothic kings. There is even an assumption about the military alliance of the Ryazan-Oktsy and the Goths - that they were a kind of northern phalanx of the military Gothic empire, which kept half of Eastern Europe at bay ...
Lost in the Ryazan forests
... The Ryazan-Oktsy have a clearly visible military elite, into which from the 4th-5th centuries. AD women began to enter. Some of the women were buried with weapons and a horse bridle, leaving no room for an ambiguous understanding of their occupation. These representatives of the fair sex fought on an equal footing with men, which, according to archaeologists, was caused by a difficult military-political situation. However, by the end of the seventh century there are no such burials anymore - life has changed, and the Ryazan-Oka women returned to their former occupations.
Concluding the description of the “Nazi approach” in the search for cultures related to the Goths in the Ryazan region, it should be noted that the fate of all those involved in this case in December 1941 turned out to be tragic: the Ahnenerbe special group, abandoned in the dead of winter behind enemy lines, disappeared in the Ryazan forests. Fedor von Bock, who went to offer his services to the new government in the last days of the war, died during an air raid.
However, we also know a different - bright - approach to the study of Finno-Ugric peoples as one of the main ethnic pillars of the Russian superethnos. Perhaps the last significant representative of this approach, we can name our fellow countryman - an outstanding Soviet Komi poet, translator, linguist, Finno-Ugric scholar, Doctor of Philology, Academician of the Finnish Academy of Sciences (1969), laureate of the State Prize of the Komi ASSR. Kuratov, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of the RSFSR and Komi ASSR Vasily Ilyich Lytkin. The long life of this ascetic of science was filled with a considerable number of hardships and victories. It is also remarkable that during his professional maturity in 1949-1959. Vasily Ilyich held a professorship at the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute.
On November 30, 1939, the Winter (or Soviet-Finnish) War started. For a long time, the position about the bloody Stalin, who tried to capture harmless Finland, dominated. And the alliance of the Finns with Nazi Germany was considered to be a necessary measure in order to confront the Soviet "Evil Empire". But it is enough to recall some well-known facts of Finnish history to understand that not everything was so simple.
Privileges for Finns within the Russian Empire
Until 1809 Finland was a province of the Swedes. The colonized Finnish tribes had neither administrative nor cultural autonomy for a long time. The official language spoken by the nobles was Swedish. After joining the Russian Empire in the status of the Grand Duchy, the Finns were given wide autonomy with their own diet and participation in the adoption of laws by the emperor. In addition, they were released from compulsory military service, but the Finns had their own army.
Under the Swedes, the status of the Finns was not high, and the educated wealthy class was represented by Germans and Swedes. Under Russian rule, the situation has changed significantly in favor of the Finnish inhabitants. Finnish also became the official language. With all these allowances, the Russian government rarely interfered in the internal affairs of the principality. The resettlement of representatives of Russians to Finland was not encouraged either.
In 1811, as a generous offering, Alexander I transferred the Vyborg province, recaptured by the Russians from the Swedes in the 18th century, to the Grand Duchy of Finland. It should be noted that Vyborg itself had a serious military and strategic importance in relation to St. Petersburg - at that time the Russian capital. So the position of the Finns in the Russian "prison of peoples" was not the most deplorable, especially against the backdrop of the Russians themselves, dragging out all the hardships of maintaining and defending the empire.
Ethnic politics in Finnish
The collapse of the Russian Empire gave the Finns independence. The October Revolution proclaimed the right of every nation to self-determination. Finland was at the forefront of this opportunity. At this time, not without the participation of the Swedish stratum dreaming of revanchism in Finland, the development of self-consciousness and national culture was outlined. This was expressed mainly in the formation of nationalist and separatist sentiments.
The apogee of these trends was the voluntary participation of the Finns in the battles of the First World War against Russia under the German wing. In the future, it was these volunteers, the so-called "Finnish huntsmen", who took a particularly active part in the bloody ethnic cleansing among the Russian population that unfolded on the territory of the former principality. On the commemorative coin issued for the 100th anniversary of the Independence of the Republic of Finland, the scene of the execution of the peaceful Russian population by Finnish punishers was depicted. This inhumane episode of the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Finnish nationalist troops is safely hushed up by modern chroniclers.
The massacre of the "Reds" began in Finland in January 1918. Russians were mercilessly destroyed regardless of political preferences and class affiliation. In April 1918, at least 200 Russian civilians were killed in Tampere. But the most terrible tragedy of that period occurred in the very "Russian" city of Vyborg, occupied by rangers. On that day, Finnish radicals killed every Russian they met.
A witness of that terrible tragedy, Katonsky, told how the “whites”, shouting “shoot the Russians”, broke into apartments, took unarmed residents to the ramparts and shot them. According to various sources, the Finnish "liberators" took the lives of 300 to 500 unarmed civilians, including women and children. It is still not known exactly how many Russians fell victim to ethnic cleansing, because the atrocities of the Finnish nationalists continued until the very 1920s.
Territorial claims of the Finns and "Greater Finland"
The Finnish elite sought to create the so-called "Great Finland". The Finns no longer wanted to get involved with Sweden, but they expressed claims to Russian territories that were larger than Finland itself in area. The demands of the radicals were exorbitant, but first of all they set out to capture Karelia. The Civil War, which weakened Russia, played into the hands. In February 1918, the Finnish General Mannerheim promised that he would not stop until he liberated the lands of Eastern Karelia from the Bolsheviks.
Mannerheim wanted to seize Russian territories along the line of the White Sea, Lake Onega, the Svir River and Lake Ladoga. It was also planned to include the Kola Peninsula with the Pechenga region into Greater Finland. Petrograd was given the role of a "free city" like Danzig. On May 15, 1918, the Finns declared war on Russia. The attempts of the Finns to put Russia on the shoulder blades with the help of any of its enemies continued until 1920, when the RSFSR signed a peace treaty with Finland.
Finland was left with vast territories to which they historically never had rights. But peace did not follow for a long time. Already in 1921, Finland again tried to resolve the Karelian issue by force. Volunteers, without declaring war, invaded the Soviet borders, unleashing the Second Soviet-Finnish War. And only by February 1922 Karelia was completely liberated from the Finnish invaders. In March, an agreement was signed on ensuring the inviolability of the common border. But the situation in the border zone was still tense.
"Mainil incident" and a new war
According to Per Evind Svinhufvud, Prime Minister of Finland, every enemy of Russia can become a Finnish friend. The nationalist Finnish press was full of calls to attack the USSR and seize its territories. On this basis, the Finns even made friends with Japan, accepting its officers for training. But the hopes for a Russo-Japanese conflict did not come true, and then a course was taken towards rapprochement with Germany.
Within the framework of the military-technical union in Finland, the Cellarius Bureau was created - a German center whose task was anti-Russian intelligence work. By 1939, with the support of German specialists, the Finns had built a network of military airfields ready to receive dozens of times more aircraft than the local Air Force had. As a result, on the eve of World War II, a hostile state was formed on the northwestern border of Russia, ready to cooperate with a potential enemy of the Land of Soviets.
Trying to secure its borders, the Soviet government began to take drastic measures. We agreed with Estonia peacefully, concluding an agreement on the introduction of a military contingent. It was not possible to agree with the Finns. After a series of unsuccessful negotiations, on November 26, 1939, the so-called “Mainil incident” occurred. According to the USSR, the shelling of Russian territories was carried out by Finnish artillery. The Finns call it a Soviet provocation. But one way or another, the non-aggression pact was denounced and another war started.
During the Second World War, Finland again made a desperate attempt to become a state for all Finns. But representatives of these peoples (Karelians, Vepsians, Vods)
Exactly 80 years ago, on November 30, 1939, the Soviet-Finnish war began. Today it is very fashionable to blame this war solely on the then leadership of the Soviet Union, which allegedly launched "unheard of aggression against small and peaceful Finland." But in fact, many reasons led to this war. Including very vicious Finnish nationalism...
As you know, before the revolution, Finland, with the rights of the Grand Duchy, was part of the Russian Empire. The position of Finland in the Russian Empire in general was very surprising - world history simply does not know anything like it! As historian Igor Pykhalov said:
“It was a real state within a state. Russian governor-generals were extremely nominal in the Grand Duchy of Finland. There was a completely autonomous legal system and its own legislative assembly - the Sejm (which met once every five years, and since 1885 - once every three years, while receiving the right to legislative initiative), as well as separate army legislation - they did not take recruits in the Principality of Finland, but the principality had its own army. Plus, separate citizenship, which the rest of the inhabitants of the empire, including Russians, could not obtain. In general, the Russians were very limited in property rights here - it was extremely difficult to buy real estate in the principality. There was also a separate religion, its own post office, customs, a bank and a financial system ... ".
Not only did the tsarist government do everything to help the development of the Finnish national culture. Since 1826, the Finnish language has been taught at the University of Helsingfors (Helsinki). In the same years, Finnish literature began to be published and distributed, and often at public imperial expense. And in 1918, Finland gained independence from the hands of the Bolshevik government under Lenin. However, the question of Finnish independence was considered by the tsarist regime - the First World War interfered ... And what was the gratitude of the Finns? Truly "immeasurable"!
Bloody dreams of a great Finland
At the very beginning of 1918, a short civil war broke out here between the local communists and their white opponents. The Whites won, who staged a simply monstrous massacre not only for their Reds, but also for the Russian population - and indiscriminately! Especially tragic events happened in Vyborg. From the official note of the Soviet government dated May 13, 1918, signed by Deputy People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Georgy Chicherin:
“Here mass executions of innocent residents of Russian origin took place, monstrous atrocities were committed against the peaceful Russian population, even 12-year-old children were shot. In one barn in Vyborg, as the witness reported, the latter saw two hundred corpses, mostly Russian officers and students. The wife of the murdered lieutenant colonel Vysokikh told a witness that she saw how the Russians being destroyed were lined up in one line and shot from machine guns ... One of the witnesses saw the corpses of Russians in two sheds in three tiers - about 500 people. The bodies were mutilated beyond recognition."
However, the young Finnish state did not do away with the genocide of Russians. At that time, his political leadership was dominated by the ideas of Finnish great-power nationalism, according to which Great Finland should unite under its auspices all the Finno-Ugric peoples of northern Russia, up to the Northern Urals. Thus, the Finns set out to seize the territories of present-day Karelia, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk regions. It is noteworthy that the “Greater Finland” project was supported by absolutely all political parties and movements of the country, even the left ones: for example, two social democratic politicians of the country Oskar Tokkola and Voinma Vaino published a very serious study on this topic “Greater Finland within Natural Borders”. And it wasn't just words...
Having barely suppressed his Bolsheviks, General Gustav Mannerheim, the supreme commander of the Finnish army, pronounced the famous “sword oath”, in which he declared that he would “not sheath his sword” before expelling the Bolsheviks from both Finland and Russian East Karelia. After that, gangs of Finnish nationalists began regular invasions of Soviet territory in order to push the Finnish border at least to the White Sea. The Soviet Republic, which at that time was waging a hard struggle with its White Guards and foreign interventionists, fought off these attacks with great difficulty, which literally did not stop for several years.
The last such raid happened at the end of 1921, when another detachment of Finnish regular troops invaded our territory and captured the city of Ukhta, where a puppet Independent Karelian state was proclaimed, which immediately turned to the Finnish government with a request to join Finland. However, by that time the Civil War in Russia was over, and the regular units of the Red Army released their forces to restore order in the border zone. In February 1922, our troops defeated the Finns with several powerful blows, throwing them abroad. Only after that did Finland agree to sign a full-fledged peace treaty with the Soviet Union.
A very cold world
However, the Finns did not rest on this - dreams of a Greater Finland still haunted them. This time, the bet was made on a big war with the Russians by one of the great powers, which Finland could join in order to later take part in the division of Russian lands. This policy was determined by the words spoken by the first Finnish Prime Minister Per Evind Svinhufvud: "Any enemy of Russia must always be a friend of Finland."
As Igor Pykhalov writes, adhering to this simple rule, the Finnish leadership was ready to enter into an anti-Russian alliance with anyone - for example, with Japan, which literally teetered on the brink of a full-scale war with our country throughout the 30s. From Soviet diplomatic correspondence, July 1934: “...Finnish Foreign Minister Haxel probed the ground regarding the prospects for our military clash with Japan. At the same time, in confidential conversations, Haxel did not hide the fact that Finland is guided by our defeat in this war "...
By the way, these signals were also confirmed by foreign diplomats. Thus, the Polish envoy to Helsinki, Franz Harvat, reported to Warsaw that Finland's policy is characterized by "aggressiveness against Russia ... The position of Finland towards the USSR is dominated by the question of joining Karelia to Finland." And the Latvian ambassador wrote to his superiors that “the Karelian issue is deeply rooted in the minds of Finnish activists. These circles are looking forward to a conflict between Russia and some great power, formerly with Poland, and now with Germany or Japan, in order to realize their program. The American military attache in the USSR, Colonel Faymonville, reported in September 1937 to Washington: “The most pressing military problem of the Soviet Union is preparation to repel a simultaneous attack by Japan in the East and Germany, together with Finland in the West” ...
So, the reproaches that in 1935 the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union Maxim Litvinov directly expressed to the Finnish ambassador in Moscow are not surprising: “In no other country does the press wage such a systematically hostile campaign as in Finland. In no neighboring country is there such open propaganda for attacking the USSR and seizing its territory as in Finland"...
Tensions did not subside on the Soviet-Finnish border either. The Finns provided their territory for the transfer of White Guard terrorists to the USSR. Once, in June 1927, such a group of saboteurs, accompanied by a Finnish guide, crossed the border, entered Leningrad, where they threw grenades at a meeting of communists, killing and injuring 26 people. After that, the terrorists returned to Finland ... Finns themselves killed ours. Over the years, they have repeatedly shelled our territory with all types of weapons. One of these incidents happened on October 7, 1936 on the Karelian Isthmus, where the Soviet border guard Spirin was shot point-blank by Finnish soldiers ...
What they wanted is what they got
Thus, Finland did not hide her hostility towards our country. This problem became even more aggravated by the end of the 30s, when the world faced a real threat of the outbreak of World War II. For the Soviet leadership, it was obvious that Finland was unlikely to remain a neutral side and, of course, would try, if possible, to join anyone who would fight with Russia. Meanwhile, the Finnish border at that time passed literally in the suburbs of Leningrad, the second capital of our country. And from the Finnish coast of the Baltic Sea it was very convenient to block the actions of the Soviet navy, located in Kronstadt.
Meanwhile, the Finns themselves did not hide the name of their likely ally in the upcoming war. Because it dramatically expanded ties with Nazi Germany - and in all areas, but especially in the military sphere. German warships actually received a second registration in Finnish ports, and in August 1937 they solemnly received a large squadron of German submarines. And in the Finnish capital Helsinki itself, at the very beginning of 1939, the Germans deployed the so-called Cellarius Bureau, a spy office that conducted total espionage against our Baltic Fleet and the troops of the Leningrad Military District ... In general, with all these undisguised threats, something had to be make.
And since 1938, intensive negotiations began between our country and Finland on the exchange of territories. The main proposals from the Soviet Union were: the transfer of the border from Leningrad along the Karelian Isthmus by 90 kilometers, the transfer to our country of a number of strategic islands in the Baltic Sea and the long-term lease of the Finnish peninsula of Hanko, "locking" the entrance and exit to the Gulf of Finland, which is important for our fleet. In exchange, Moscow offered the Finns more extensive lands in Eastern Karelia…
It must be said that the Finns had sensible politicians who understood the Soviet Union's concern for their security and who wanted to leave Finland neutral in the upcoming big war. And they really tried to find a reasonable compromise with Moscow. However, in the end, the more influential war party won the upper hand in Helsinki, which flatly refused to “yield to the Bolsheviks” in anything.
The official reason for the war was the so-called Mainilsky incident, when on November 26, 1939, near the village of Mainila, Soviet troops were unexpectedly fired from Finnish territory with artillery fire. In total, seven cannon shots were fired, as a result of which three privates and one junior commander were killed, nine people were wounded. Today, Finnish historians, and even some of our liberals, are trying to prove that it was allegedly a purely Soviet provocation, but they cannot provide any serious evidence. And if you consider that such shelling by the Finns happened before, then everything falls into place.
The shelling was clearly perpetrated by local Russophobes from among the military in their usual manner to spoil our country in the borderlands. They just didn’t take into account that this time the Soviet Union was set up more decisively than before. And on November 30, the war, which the supporters of Great Finland so dreamed of, really began. Only the Finns had to fight without powerful allies, so their defeat in 1940 became quite natural ...
