The Giant's Ultimatum

In the autumn of 1939, with Europe already at war and the Nazi-Soviet Pact having divided Eastern Europe into spheres of influence, Stalin turned his attention to Finland. The problem, from Moscow's perspective, was simple and strategic: the Finnish border was only 32 kilometers from Leningrad, the Soviet Union's second city and its most important industrial and cultural center. In Soviet military doctrine, this proximity was intolerable — a hostile power or a power occupied by a hostile power could shell Leningrad from Finnish soil. Stalin wanted a buffer. He wanted territory.

Beginning in October 1939, Soviet negotiators invited Finnish delegations to Moscow and presented a series of escalating demands: Finland should cede the Karelian Isthmus including the ancient city of Viipuri, lease the Hanko Peninsula as a Soviet naval base, and exchange certain islands in the Gulf of Finland. In return, Stalin offered Finnish territory in Soviet Karelia — more land by area, but worthless forests far from Finland's industrial heartland and populated centers. The Finnish government, led by Prime Minister Risto Ryti and President Kyösti Kallio, refused. They had watched Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania accept Soviet 'mutual assistance pacts' and seen those countries' independence gradually erased. Finland would not be next.

Stalin was reportedly enraged by the Finnish refusal. He and his inner circle — particularly Defense Commissar Kliment Voroshilov — were supremely confident that Finnish resistance would be brief. The Red Army was the largest in the world. Finland had a population of 3.7 million. Soviet military planners expected Finland to collapse within two weeks, perhaps three. A puppet Finnish government — the Finnish Democratic Republic, led by Communist Otto Wille Kuusinen — was prepared in advance, ready to be installed in Helsinki once the Finnish military was broken. Stalin even had the treaty of annexation drafted.

At 6:00 AM on November 30, 1939, the Red Army crossed the Finnish border at multiple points along a 1,300-kilometer front. Soviet aircraft bombed Helsinki, Turku, and Tampere simultaneously. Foreign Minister Molotov informed the world that the Soviet Union was not invading Finland but responding to Finnish military provocations — and that Soviet bombers were dropping bread to starving Finns, not bombs. The Finns, with their characteristic dark humor, named their anti-tank Molotov cocktail bottles in bitter response: if Molotov was sending bread, they would send a drink to go with it. The Winter War had begun.