Falling into the trap that is wikipedia and clicking on all sorts of links, I have arrived on the Winter War page and I am sort of confused. What did the Soviets want?
Was it outright and complete conquest and integration of Finland into the Union like with the Baltic states?
Was it "just" the concessions of land and the like they supposedly originally wanted, with the Soviets actually managing to get a bit more than that after the Winter War?
Or perhaps something in between and no one, not even the Soviet leadership, knew completely for sure?
Hiya! Sorry for the delayed response – I’ve had a busy day or two and only now have the time to sit down and answer your question. Also, as noted, I got part of the way through my explanation once, and then hit the wrong button and deleted more than two hours of work. You’re asking the right questions for understanding the Soviet Union’s intentions towards Finland prior to and during the Winter War, and you clearly grasp that it was a complex political and strategic situation with no simple explanation. I’ll do my best to provide some background to Soviet-Finnish relations and to discuss in detail Soviet-Finnish relations prior to and during the Second World War. My discussion is based heavily in Max Jakobson’s critical work The Diplomacy of the Winter War, which despite its age continues to be the premier English language account of the political side of the conflict.
The Soviet Union’s intentions towards Finland changed several times throughout the period 1930-1940, and indeed during the period March 1939 – March 1940. In the period 1930-1937, relations between the two states were characterised by quiet hostility, but there was little likelihood of open confrontation. Despite a considerable warming of Soviet-Finnish relations under a new Finnish administration in 1937, the deteriorating strategic and political climate of Europe soon made the status quo untenable for both sides. Finland, increasingly aware of the possibility of becoming a battleground between Germany and the USSR, attempted to integrate itself with the Scandinavian neutral bloc. At the same time the Soviets, keenly aware of the strategic threat posed by a possible Finnish alliance with Germany, sought strategic and diplomatic concessions from Finland through 1938 which would prove incompatible with Finnish neutrality. As war loomed across the continent, the urgency of Soviet attempts to secure Finnish concessions increased, while Finland’s isolation from the Scandinavian bloc and consignment to Soviet influence by Nazi Germany by August 1939 introduced the very real possibility of Soviet annexation of Finland. Negotiations for territorial concessions throughout October 1939 remain unclear in their intent, but a number of misunderstandings, Soviet aggression and Finnish obstinacy soon lead to a breakdown that signalled imminent conflict. With the invasion of November 30, 1939, the Kremlin had set its heart on the annexation of Finland, but the disastrous opening weeks of the conflict and the massive rally of international support behind Finland soon made this goal unrealistic and extremely risky. The fierce Finnish resistance bought time for peace-talks to begin in earnest between the two countries, and ultimately, the Soviets leveraged their decisive position by March, 1940 to draw harsh concessions from the Finns. Nonetheless, these harsh concessions should be viewed as relative to the intended annexation of the country, and the very fact that Finland maintained its sovereignty in the aftermath of the conflict should itself be considered a remarkable feat.
Finland’s Strategic Significance and Context
The importance of Finland in Soviet strategic thinking was nothing new. The extreme proximity of the Finnish border to the city of St Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad, as well as Finland’s strategic significance in the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic had posed a security problem for the Russian Empire since the city’s founding – a dilemma solved through the annexation of Finland in 1809. With the secession of Finland from the disintegrating Russian Empire in 1918 and its subsequent alignment against Communism following the Finnish Civil War, this dilemma once against reared its ugly head and became an important topic of discussion for Soviet planners. On her own, Finland posed little threat to the USSR, but throughout the 1930s the possibility of a Finnish alignment with a hostile Great Power – namely Germany – was a very real one. The conservative administration of Pehr Edvin Svinhufvud was decidedly pro-German and anti-Bolshevik in its orientation, though this inclination had no profound effect on Finnish policy during the period. Nonetheless, it did little to assuage the concerns of the Soviets, who saw a hostile Finland as a vector for a Great Power invasion of the northern USSR. Consequently, throughout the early-mid 30s, Soviet Finnish relations were decidedly cool, with little room for rapprochement under a conservative Finnish administration.
With the defeat of the Conservatives in the 1937 elections and the accession of a liberal Finnish administration under President Kyösti Kallio, the Finnish perspective of their diplomatic situation changed. Above-all, the Kallio administration aimed to steer clear of the coming storm of a Nazi-Soviet confrontation – Finland had nothing to gain and a great deal to lose should it become a Great Power battleground. The government recognised the gravity of its predicament – the country’s pro-German, anti-Bolshevik alignment and her strategic importance for the USSR meant it was highly likely that Finland would be dragged into any conflict between the two countries. Consequently, the Kallio administration undertook a foreign policy realignment away from Germany and attempted to integrate itself into the Nordic neutrality movement.
The new government and its realignment were well received by the Soviets, whose goal had remained much the same – ensuring the security of its northern border. In fact, it was received far too well. Contrary to the Finns’ intention of neutrality, its shift away from Germany was interpreted in Moscow as more than simply a thawing of relations, but the precursor to greater Finnish-Soviet cooperation. While the Finns were certainly open to detente, it rapidly became clear that the Soviets had something far more extensive in mind.
Soviet Intentions and Soviet-Finnish Diplomacy, 1938 – April 1939
It soon became clear that even under new management, Finnish foreign policy aims and those of the Soviets were largely incompatible. To effectively integrate themselves with the neutrality movement, the Finns needed to demonstrate total strategic independence from both the USSR and Germany, and as such had no interest in military cooperation with the Soviets. For their part, the Soviets sought, at first nebulously, military cooperation – Finnish assurances of non-aggression were all well and good, but the Soviets were keenly aware that, even if Finland were sincere in such assurances, it might well be unable to defend itself in the event of German aggression, and might fall into German control even against its will. Starting in April 1938, the Soviet government began a secret series of negotiations with the Finns, aiming to secure not only political assurances from Finland that it would not realign with Nazi Germany, but also military transit rights into Finland in the event of German aggression. In the words of Boris Yartsev, the junior-but-influential Soviet diplomat conducting the secret negotiations, the consequences of German military presence on Finnish territory were that
“the Red Army would not remain on the border to wait for the enemy, but would advance as far as possible to meet him.”^1
Despite the initially good-willed conduct of these discussions, nothing came of Yartsev’s negotiations. From the Finnish perspective, the Soviets’ requests were politically and strategically infeasible – such concessions would derail Finland’s efforts to integrate with the neutral Nordic countries, would greatly imperil relations with Germany and provided little guarantee that, in the event of Soviet military intervention in Finland, the Soviets would not simply annex the country. Neither, however, could the status quo remain unaddressed from the Soviet perspective – the northern border remained unsecured as long as Finland were an unaccounted-for variable, and as long as the threat of German dominance over Finland remained.
In the context of the increasingly perilous political climate of Europe following the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the looming possibility of war between the Soviets and Germany, the need for the Soviets to improve security along their norther frontier was becoming more immediate. In March 1939, following the development of what amounted to a Swedish-Finnish joint-defence policy for the Aaland islands and with worsening public relations between the Finns and the USSR, the Soviets dispatched another secret delegation to Finland, this time seeking a different means of improving their security. Under Soviet-Italian ambassador Boris Stein, and with the lure of favourable trade relations with the USSR, Stein proposed a 30 year lease for a series of islands in the gulf of Finland, essentially for use as Soviet naval bases, in exchange for Soviet territory along the Karelian Frontier. The islands were of no strategic use to the Finns in the event of conflict, but would be of great use for the Soviets in improving their security in the Gulf – but Stein’s proposal was rebuffed by senior Finnish government officials, once again because of concerns that concessions would jeopardize Finnish neutrality.
The rejection of Stein’s proposal arguably marked the end of the Soviets’ good-faith negotiations with Finland. Prior to this, Finland still had some bargaining power with the Soviet Union, but the sense of urgency created by the annexation of Czechoslovakia and the clear inability of any country except perhaps Germany to defend Finland in the event of Soviet aggression meant that the Soviets were both capable of and willing to strong-arm Finland if need be. Stein himself made the hardening Soviet position clear in his response to the Finns’ rejection of his proposals:
“The Soviet government does not accept Finland’s negative answer… we will not give up our demand for the islands in the Gulf of Finland.”^2
Oh and - assuming it was the former, why would they ask for the limited concessions first? Would they be content with those had Finland accepted, if only for a while? Had they done the same with the Baltics, ask for a bit first but actually want it all, or had they gone all out in their case?