The aim of this paper is to answer the question, ‘What problems in Soviet planning and organization contributed to the early failure of the Soviet invasion of Finland during the Russo-Finish war?’ This is accomplished using varied sources, namely the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (1939), and Julia Abelev, “Perceptual Realism and the Winter War of 1939” (2009). These viewpoints offer valuable evaluations of the events in and surrounding the Winter War. They are very useful to give information and context to the Russo-Finish war, and to lend insight on the above question.
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (1939) has an origin as a non aggression pact between Joachim von Ribbentrop of Nazi Germany and Vyacheslav Molotov of the USSR. The pact’s purpose was to stop any future fighting with these two states, and to divide up eastern Europe between them. In a secret section of the document the Baltic states (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were given to the USSR. This forms the Russian claim of Finland that eventually led to the invasion of Finland in the winter of 1939. This document is valuable as it gives context as to why Russia decided to invade Finland. With Nazi Germany at their doorstep, the USSR wanted to have more defense, and occupying Finland allowed them to gain this. The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact also shows the relationship between the Russians and the Germans, which becomes important when looking at the Russian adoption of the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg tactic. There are some limitations of this document, mainly the nature of the document. It was written by two foreign ministers who belonged to two controlling nations. Some of the agreements that had been included in this document were later violated. The reliability of Molotov and Ribbentrop are questionable, mainly that Finland would be in Russia’s power, that the Baltic states were to be under Russia's control, and the pact for non-aggression, these parts of the pact were broken. “Perceptual Realism and the Winter War of 1939” is a 2009 article written by Julia Abelev. The purpose of this article is to analyze the actions of leaders of the USSR during the Winter War in the scope of Perceptual Realism. The source investigates the Winter War on the Russian side, detailing their plans, organization, and actions. Then it takes these facts and looks at them and explains them using Perceptual Realism, the idea that the world is how the viewer sees it, being objective and not taking into account subjectivity. Essentially it evaluates how Soviet high command severely overestimated their preparedness in the war. A limitation of this source is its focus, which isn’t entirely on history. It is partially a psychology/philosophy paper, which takes some attention away from history, changing the focus from being purely historical. Another limitation is in its origin. The article was written in 2009, seventy years after the war had started, so there are some limits in its historical accuracy, as it was not written when the war was taking place. This source is valuable because it discusses the decisions and planning of the USSR, and details their problems. This source’s information of precise facts gives very useful quotations that back up information that is given in this paper. It uses sources that include quotes from Soviet leaders and sources that give precise numbers and statistics of the war. Overall it is a very useful source that gives lots of information about the Soviet side of the Winter War.
The Winter War of 1939, known officially as the Russo-Finish war, was the conflict between the USSR and the Republic of Finland. This conflict, which was the result of a Russian invasion of eastern Finland, lasted from November of 1939 to March 1940, ending in a peace treaty between the two states. This war was considered by the USSR to be an easy victory, underestimating the Finnish army. Halfway through the war the Finnish Army had caused massive casualties for the Red army. In the end the Finnish Government signed a peace treaty to allow Russian military to inhabit parts of its southern border with Nazi Germany. By this time the Finnish army had inflicted massive casualties.
The reality of the botched invasion shows the missteps of Russian high command in their planning and carrying out of their invasion of Finland. Most notably the logistical preparations of Russia, from a lack of ammunition to an abundance of tanks and armored trucks that slowed them down in the Finish woodlands. Another mistake of the USSR is in how they prepared to fight the Finns, opting to use blitzkrieg tactics to quickly gain control of Helsinki. Because of these tactics and plans the Red Army suffered an early failure in their invasion of Finland.
The USSR in 1939 had just gained land in Belarus and the Baltic states, meeting in a truce agreement with Germany, “...districts making up the Baltic states (Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the northern border of Lithuania is simultaneously the border of the spheres of interest of Germany and the USSR.” This gain of territory happened rapidly in the autumn of 1939, rewarding Germany with Poland, and the USSR with the Baltic states. During this time the Russians saw the effectiveness of German Blitzkrieg tactics, which allowed them to take over all of Poland in a week.
When the idea of annexing Finland came up, the high command of the Red Army decided to use Blitzkrieg tactics to take Helsinki and gain control of the Finish-German border, shortening the amount of time it would take to annex Finland. Russia decided to adopt this tactic from the Germans, who they saw use Blitzkrieg with remarkable success. Originally the USSR predicted this invasion to last about a week. “General Meretskov, the commander of Leningrad’s forces, even went so far as to publicly claim that the campaign would require two weeks at the most.” The campaign was planned to take a very short amount of time, and they packed supplies accordingly. The amount of supplies was sufficient for a 2-3 week invasion, but in reality the war lasted much longer, ending in march of 1940.
The prolonged length of the war led to an unexpected number of Russian casualties, which required much more manpower than what was originally thought, “Zhdanov was so confident … [That] he believed only the Leningrad forces would be required.” Both the problem with supplies and the problem with manpower greatly impacted the outcome of the early part of the war, affecting the Russian invading force.
Once the invasion had started, the Red army found out that the mobility based Blitzkrieg became difficult without a large interconnected system of roads and flat land to move on, “...German tactics were meant for the tame terrain and modern road systems of Central Europe. Finland, in contrast, had a largely undeveloped network of roads.” The result was a slow march through the Finish woodlands, which turned a week long invasion to a season long war. The lack of roads decreased mobility, and impacted the effectiveness of a Blitzkrieg, which was what the Russians were going to use to push their way to Helsinki.
Most Russian tanks and vehicles were confined to the few roads in Finland, which made transportation of men, food, and firepower difficult. These conditions made the already meager amount of supplies slower to transport and heavily contributed to Russia's early failure.
The USSR during the Russo-Finnish war made a lot of mistakes around their planning to invade Finland. From choosing to adopt the Blitzkrieg tactic, which proved to be useless in the terrain that Finland was defending, to assuming that the invasion would only take a few weeks to conduct. The Russians incurred heavy losses that soured their victory that took place months later. Both of these problems directly lead to an early loss for the Soviets, who only after months of wearing down Finish defenses were able to have a peace treaty signed. The two main problems with the Russians plan to invade Finland were using the wrong tactics, such as tank warfare and Blitzkrieg and were undersupplied due to an underestimation of how long the invasion was going to last, causing them to incur large casualties and fail in the early portion of the Russo-Finish war.
Abelev, Julia “Perceptual Realism and the Winter War of 1939,” intersections 10, no. 3 (2009): 1-19.
(Molotov-Ribbentrop) “Secret Supplementary Protocols of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact, 1939,” September, 1939, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Published in Nazi-Soviet Relations, 1939- 1941: Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110994
Trotter, William R. A Frozen Hell: the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2000.
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