Finland

[soso17]

Okay, so if this has already been discussed on RevLeft, just tell me where to look.

I see so much about the fSU invading Poland, but what about Finland? Was the USSR just taking back territory it had lost, or was it a further "buffer zone" against Germany? Facts, thoughts, opinions appreciated.

--soso

[Red Commissar]

As far as I know while Lenin supported the right of Finnish independence, it was under the assumption presumably that the Finnish Civil War would be settled in the favor of the communists and they would join with the RSFSR. This was the position taken on the other former parts of the Russian Empire that had declared independence in the end years of WWI and the years following it that workers there would too rise up and succeed in their revolutions. This didn't happen and Finland became a bourgeois nation of course, as did many of these other nations. The Finnish government and Soviet Union weren't on the best of terms either early on, with the victorious White Government letting forces go over the border to cause problems for the Soviets in the Russian Civil War and the Soviets responding in kind by trying to rekindle the civil war later in another cross-border incident.

There was already conflicting claims on one another. While the borders of Finland roughly matched those of the Grand Duchy of Finland, there were some that envisioned a "Greater Finland" which included parts of Karelia that ended up on the Soviet end of the border and the Kola Peninsula.

As for why the USSR decided to initiate the Winter War, most of the time it was, as far as I could understand, acting out of a perceived security risk. They were seeking buffer zones against a potential route of attack from there that would threaten Leningrad due to that city's proximity to the border with Finland. Though the argument could also be made that the whole war itself is what pushed Finland firmly into the Axis camp and made it a threat in the first place. One could take that a step further and point out that the lackluster performance of the Red Army against Finland is what accelerated Germany's decision to invade the Soviet Union in the first place.

At any rate, it was similar to the situation with Eastern Poland (with respect to western Ukraine and Belarus), the Baltic states, and Bessarbia, where the government took the position that these regions were rightfully part of the Soviet Union but were created by western powers on areas Germany received from the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. There was also ideological positions that the government of Finland was reactionary and a bulwark of anti-Communism in the region, much as the position was with the Baltic states and Poland.

These claims were outstanding enough that the Soviets had Germans recognize their sphere (which didn't just have Karelia and some border provinces but the whole nation of Finland) in the protocols of the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union.

On a last note, in the zones the Soviets manage to hold in the Winter War, they had created a rival Finnish government ("Finnish Democratic Republic") which would have been the roots of a pro-Soviet Finland once the government buckled under the weight of the invasion, as well as the assumption that public opinion in Finland wasn't completely united behind the government. The people who headed this government were figures who went into exile after the end of the Finnish Civil War.

This didn't happen as we know, and instead those zones were merged with the already existing Karelian ASSR as the "Karelo-Finnish SSR"- a name which indicates to me that they were still intent at some point in integrating Finland entirely into the USSR like with Ukraine, Central Asia, the Baltic States, etc. This term was abandoned in 1956 and it was renamed back the Karelian ASSR and demoted as a part of the RSFSR as it was before.

[svenne]

There's some discussion about Finland in this thread: http://www.revleft.com/vb/soviet-empire-t168447/index.html?t=168447

[l'Enfermé]

Hardly a buffer zone against Germany. In fact, Hitler was very helpful in aiding the USSR in their attempt to annex Finland. Blockading Finland to prevent arms shipments, threatening Sweden to discourage them from allowing the allies to use Swedish territory to aid Finland, etc, etc.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Finland was part of Russia until Brest-Litovsk, and the Soviet invasion 20 years later is a retaking of old Russian territory. It was both a strategic move in creating a "buffer zone" around Leningrad, and also retaking territory "lost" during the Revolution.

[Igor]

Finland was part of Russia until Brest-Litovsk, and the Soviet invasion 20 years later is a retaking of old Russian territory. It was both a strategic move in creating a "buffer zone" around Leningrad, and also retaking territory "lost" during the Revolution.

Kinda nitpicking but Finland became independent well before Brest-Litovsk; by the time of Brest-Litovsk, independent Finland's very first civil war had mostly been fought already. Finland declared independence in Dec 1917 and was recognized by Russia about a month later.