This headind is aimed to explain Finnish and Soviet Union wars during 1939-44 for the English speaking readers of Aamukampa by Santti, who is an civilian person but an old reserve soldier of the Finnish army.

70 years have now passed from 30th of November 1939 when the red army forces attacked to Finland. Before starting the war Stalin invited Finnish negotiators to discuss about occupation of Finnish main land and islands near Lengingrad. The demand was not accepted by the Finns and Stalin said that "Let the guns speak".

So the guns spoke, and much more than Stalin had expected and with result that he expected even less.
We were close to collapse, but it was enough.
And it was not enough.

So it was, but I start the story much earlier, in the beginning of 1930. Then it was raising time of two dictators Stalin and Hitler.

Hitler took the power in Germany and started to make its strong army against the peace treaty. Germany had good relations with Finland and one of the Finnish contributions to Germany was U-boats, which were first built in Finland as a secret project.

Stalin took the power in Soviet Union and started his pressure against minority citisens of Soviet Union. He killed about 10.000-30.000 Karelians or Finns in the Soviet Union part of Karelia (Karelia was populated by Finns from the old days) in prison camps or by just murdering them. He also killed most of his generals. But he was not ready for the war against Germany.

Finland was not ready for the war and its population was less tan 4 million against Soviet Union 150 million.

Thus the strategy of Finland was to stay as independet as Sweden. But Sweden did not have this 1600 km of frontier agains SU.

Discussions with Finland and Sweden about joining army forces and policies were abandoned by the Swedes, who did not want to be mixed with any actions against any nation. However, some of the Swedes thougt that, if Finland will be occupied, Sweden will be in danger.

The attitude of the Swedes against joining the armies was also influeced by Germans and Russians who both did not want that kind of Swedish-Finnish koalition.

Germany approached to Finland and wanted to sign and agreement with them, but Finland denied this. Insteadt, Finland and Soviet Union signed an agreement with stated both parties would not attact to the other and will not let any other party to attact throug his country agains the other party.

In my opinion, this was a big mistake, because Stalin was not serious in this. He wanted only to cut the good relations with Germany and Finland. In my opinion, Finland should have signed agreement with Germany in the first place. Then Stalin would not attaced to Finland.

If is very funny that now 70 years later, Sweden says to us again that they will help Finland, if Russia will attack. This comes from the European Union new Lissabon treaty, which came into force in 1.12.2009.

Thus situation is now differet. Finland has joined to 500 million people EU block, which has this Lissabon treaty. Russia has only 150 million people. Thus the relation is now 3 to 1 in favour to EU. But in 1939 the ratio was 4 to 150 or 1 to 35 in favour to SU.

This ratio of forces was an misunderstanding which Stalin made. He did not understand that forces in forest fight would be near 1:1. The German army forces occupied Poland within two weeks. But Finland is not Poland. Mechanical army cannot be used here. This was also found by the Germans in Lapland in 1941.

Fixed "Finglish-isms"

The second world war was started by the Soviet Union and Germany, who signed an agreement in summer 1939. They divided Europe as was done by Russian Tsar Alexander and Napoleon in Tilsit in year 1808.

According to the agreement Finland, Poland and the Baltic countries belong to the Russian interest. Hilter made this agreement with Stalin, because his interest was to protect his back, when attacing to the France and England at the first place. As a matter of fact Hitler hated kommunism as he had writed in his book "Mein Kampf" earlier.

Thus Stalin got free hands from Germany. He can do here in Finland, what he wanted. Stalin's plan was to occupy Finland and Baltic countries. Stalin want to be as powerful as the Tsars hunder year earlier.

There were negotiations between Stalin and Finnish leaders in Moscow. Stalin claimed that Finland should give them about 100 km more land near Leningrad, which was 30 km from Finnish border. Additionally, Stalin wanted some islands in the Gulf of Finland and Hanko, which was souther harbour in Gulf of Finland.

Finland could not give the land, which was agreed in Tarto treaty in 1920. Thus Stalin said, that let the soldiers speak. Finland collected some 300.000 soldiers to Soviet border. One of them was my father, who fighted in the border in Taipale, which was on the Finnish side of the river Vuoksi.

Stalin collected some 500.000 soldiers from the Leningrad district. He had collected some tousend of Finnish origin Karelians, who should march in Helsinki after one month from the start of the attact. This march meve happened.

Red army started the winter war 30th of November 1939 without any warnig. The Stalins forces game over the Finnish border at 6:30. During the same day some 16 cities and civilian people were bombed by airplanes all over the Finland.

In the evening Stalin declared in his radio speech that Soviet Unioin wanted to secure borders. He accused Finland that Finland had statred the war (he was one of the biggest liers in history).

During the next day SU had occupied the the village of Terijoki, which was in the Gulf of Finland. There Stalin established a Finnish Terijoki Government and the prime minister Otto Ville Kuusinen, who was a communist expatriot in Stalins cabinet.

This illegal government then invited SU to liberate Finland from the white bandits of Garl Gustav Mannerheim. Mannerheim was the leader of Finnish army, but he had been also earlier a general of Russian army before the revolution.

It would nice if you talk about Lapland War, when we Finns kick SS to Norway. I'm originally from Kemi where German soldiers start disembarkation, I think, or was it Tornio?

I will later. But now we are in autumn 1939 or in the beginning of December.

In 1 st of December 1939 Finland made new government, because SU did not want to negotiate with the old governement. Risto Ryti was asked to be the prime minister and Väinö Tanner his foreign minister. They were by this time more neutral, but were later accused to be war criminals by the allied forces.

Red army forces had their main front line in the Isthmus, which was between Gulf of Finland and lake Ladoga. They used some 250.000 men in this front. The main defence line there was Mannerheim line, which was defenced by about 130.000 Finnish soldiers.

Already 5th of December 1939 the Red army approached Mannerheim line, but it was there were the Red army was stopped. Red army had occupied only some 50 km of Finnish land.

Red army attaced also in the North Ladoga front. The 139. division of the red army with som 19.000 men and 20 tanks was attacting in Tolvajärvi.

Manneheim asked group Talvela to start a counter attact in Tolvajärvi in 12. of December in 1939. Then the whole 139. division had to return back to USSR and they left the 20 tanks and 60 mashinguns in Finnish side.

This was the first win in the winter war by the Finnish army. The tactics used by the Finns was also used alredy 200 years ealier when the Russians were attacing the same region.

Paavo Talvela was also comanding forces in the same region in 1920 against red army force during the revolution times. Thus Talvela knew the areas wery well and did know how to beat the Russians.

The tactics used by the Finns was use small skiing troups, which could surround the enemies and attact from the bushes and run.

Mostly this "army of Kuusinen" consisted of Belorussian people and other Soviet minors that resembled Finnish people, since there were not many actual Finnish or Karelians in Red Army or Bolshevik party to begin with, equipment came from Red Army and uniforms from abolished army of Poland. Finnish People's army, or "army of Kuusinen" as it was called by Finnish army, was abolished after the war, having lost it's meaning of existence.

Raatteen tie

Stil far more to the north 163. division of The Red Army occupied Suomussalmi 7th of December 1939. They wanted to cut Finland into two pieces and march to the city of Oulu in the west part of Finland.

They get additional forces from 44. division, which was formen from Ukrainian soldiers. Thus the forces had altogether about 40.000 men. In January 1940 the forces marched to Suomusalmi.

Genral Jalmari Siilasvuo get the job to stop this march. His troops cut the marching division into pieces and distroyed them one by one. There was lot of snow and Finnish soldiers could ski in thick snow. Thus they used the tactics of the old skiing troops 200 years earlier. The Russian troops were not used to snow and freezind temperatures.

According to the Soviet sources about 3500 men were killed in the Red Army. Finnish capture 4800 rifles, 300 machine guns, 43 tanks, 1170 horses and 1200 prisons of war.

The march to the city of Oulu was over. Western newspapers started to make miracle stories about this.
Russian army was considered as weak, while every newspaper man thought that the Finnish army will be beaten in less than one month.