How desperate was the Red Army during the Winter War?

By Jukka Tarkka
     
      A selection of reports of the secret police of the Soviet union shows that its agents were successful in acquiring precise and real-time information about internal discussions of the government of Prime minister Aimo Kaarlo Cajander in the early phases of negotiations with the Soviets in the autumn of 1939, and of meetings of the government of Risto Ryti during the peace negotiations of March 1940.
      This selection of documents does not reveal if Soviet intelligence was able to follow the activities of the Finnish government in any more detail than this, or if these two reports are the only ones of their kind. Finland has grown accustomed to the idea that the Government leaked like a sieve in the direction of Germany during the Continuation War.
     
Front-line soldiers said that the Red Army managed to concentrate nearly unlimited numbers of new forces along the sparse and worn-out Finnish defence lines. Situational and morale reports delivered by the secret police to Stalin and Molotov give a completely different perspective on reality on the Soviet side of the front..
      If these texts are taken literally, the Red Army was almost as close to a disaster at the end of the Winter War as the Finnish Defence Forces were. However, it would not have easily occurred to the Finns, who were pushed to a state of deep anguish, that the massive Soviet war machine might be paralysed by its own internal friction as it pushed forward with irresistible force.
      The logistical chaos of a gigantic army pushed onto a narrow isthmus was nevertheless a geographic and mathematical inevitability. The secret reports show that it was a daily nightmare for the Red Army.
      In addition to the problems caused by the general chaos, the attacker was plagued by constant breakdowns of military equipment and the shocking shortcomings of their supplies. After the purges enacted by Stalin’s terror campaign of the late 1930s, the military leadership of the Red Army could not be expected to show even a moderate amount of professional skill.
     
However, the situation of the Red Army may not have been quite as dismal as the secret reports claimed. Their information about bad weapons technology, helpless leadership, and poor morale seem so obviously tendentious that some of it is likely to have been made up. If only one could know what part.
      Reports about the cluelessness of commanders usually begin with a description of the heroic willingness of the forces to make sacrifices, and their pride in being allowed to implement the wise orders of the great leader. Reports from informers about pacifist and anti-Soviet tendencies, and admiration of the Finns, usually include a statistical reminder: only a small part of the material that has been investigated - usually about ten per cent - contains news of infiltration by the class enemy.
     Material praising Stalin is usually presented anonymously. Incompetent commanders and people spreading rumours downgrading the Soviet Union are usually referred to by name, community, and military unit.
     This was how the traitors who were at fault for the difficulties of the Red Army were singled out. It was important to make sure that their crimes against the Soviet fatherland get the punishments that they deserve, so that the faithful servants of the party can continue on the way mapped out by the great Stalin in spite of the humiliations.
     
Soviet propaganda was too thick even for the Soviets to take in. Those Soviet people who wanted to take the tales that were told about the government-in-exile of Finnish communist Otti Wille Kuusinen set up in Terijoki, confronted the lack of logic displayed by Stalin.
     After all, Kuusinen supposedly liberated Finns from the tyranny of white bandits, signed a treaty of friendship and assistance with the Soviet Union, while Stalin gave the Terijoki government all Finnish land. So what was the war needed for?
     Confusion among the Soviet people reached a peak in March 1940 when the peace treaty was signed with the much-maligned Ryti government, supported by the clique of Väinö Tanner and CGE Mannerheim. Kuusinen’s gift to the suffering Finnish proletariat disappeared onto the ash heap of history. This is not how it was supposed to go.
     The failure of Soviet ideological propaganda confirms what is dictated by common sense. Fantasies raised to the falsetto level crumble under the weight of their own bombastic rhetoric.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 30.11.2009


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Russian historians see Terijoki puppet government as Stalin´s mistake (12.12.2001)

Links:
  Wikipedia: Finnish Democratic Republic (Terijoki Government)
  Seventy years ago, bombs were falling on Helsinki - anniversary of outbreak of Winter War (30.11.2009)
  51 dead on a Sunday afternoon (10.11.2009)
  Otto Wille Kuusinen