A World at Arms (23 page)

In their invasion of Poland the Russians moved troops into that portion of eastern Poland around Vilna which they had previously agreed with Germany should be added to Lithuania as a part of Germany’s share of Eastern Europe. The exchange of Lithuania for central Poland in the German–Soviet negotiations, culminating in von
Ribbentrop’s second trip to Moscow on September 28, meant that Stalin was now free to pressure the Lithuanian government into an analogous mutual assistance pact. In fact, he could hold out the cession of Vilna, long desired by Lithuanians anxious to reclaim the historic capital of the country, as an inducement for the treaty signed on October 10. The Soviets also told the Lithuanians about the strip of territory that they were to lose to Germany,
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thus removing any Lithuanian inclination to throw in their lot with that country. They also promised the Germans not to station troops in that strip in southwest Lithuania which had been promised to Germany when they occupied the whole country as both Germany and the Soviet Union anticipated. There is simply no evidence on the subject of why the two powers did not move to a “permanent” partition and occupation of Lithuania in the fall of 1939 as they had done with Poland.
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This issue would come back to haunt both Moscow and Berlin in 1940.

THE SOVIET–FINNISH WAR

Simultaneously with these moves into Poland and the three Baltic States, the Soviet Union also began to apply pressure on Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, the countries south of Poland in which she wished to expand her influence under the umbrella of the agreement with Germany. In regard to Romania, the first designs of Stalin were territorial. In 1878 the Russians had insisted on Romania’s ceding Bessarabia to them, although Romania had fought hard alongside Russia in the war against the Ottoman empire which preceded the new settlement. At the end of World War I, the Romanians had reclaimed the lost province, but the Soviet Union had always refused to recognize the new border; this was the only one of the post-1917 borders of Russia which the Soviet government had never recognized.
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Since the majority of the population in the area between the Pruth and Dniestr rivers was non-Slavic by everybody’s reckoning, one can only conclude that the major factor motivating Soviet policy toward the area before as during Stalin’s rule was strategic. The annexation of Bessarabia would not only bring the Soviet Union to the mouth of the Danube. It would bring her so close to Bulgaria–especially if that country could reclaim some of its territory lost to Romania–that any Soviet-Bulgarian tie would practically choke off Romania from the Black Sea and come close to providing the Soviet Union with a direct route overland to the Straits at Istanbul. Whether in 1939 Stalin already had territorial ambitions in this direction, going beyond Bessarabia to other
portions of Romania, as became clear in 1940, is not known, but might be revealed as the archives of the former Soviet Union are opened. In any case, the development of Soviet pressure for territorial concessions by Romania to Russia, in terms then still publicly referred to only as Bessarabia, began in late 1939.
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At the same time, the Moscow government was initiating steps to establish itself in Bulgaria. It urged Bulgaria to sign a mutual assistance pact, though the terms initially proposed did not provide for the stationing of Soviet troops in the country, presumably because, unlike the Baltic States, Bulgaria had no common border with the Soviet Union.
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There was, from the perspective of Bulgaria, always the possibility of gaining territory from Romania in conjunction with Russia’s territorial demands on that country, as well as a remnant of Bulgarian friendship for Russia harking back to the time when the latter had aided her in attaining her independence from the Ottoman empire. Nevertheless, the government in Sofia was reluctant to commit itself to a pact of mutual assistance with Moscow. There was always the possibility that any “assisters” would not leave. A non-aggression and friendship treaty was suggested by the Bulgarians instead.
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Still another country was being urged to sign a pact of mutual assistance by Moscow at the same time: Turkey. Here too there was reluctance. If Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey were all spared greater pressure in the last months of 1939, this was certainly not due to German influence. Turkey signed with Britain and France as we have already seen. In the secret negotiations in Moscow, Germany had agreed to the Soviet demand for Bessarabia and had promised to disinterest itself politically in the rest of the area. Von Ribbentrop had been authorized to sign over to the Soviet Union everything all the way to the Straits, but Stalin had not thought to ask for that much.
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What saved Romania and Bulgaria for a while was the outcome of the simultaneous Soviet pressure on Finland.

The Soviet Union had repeatedly discussed with the Finnish government in 1938 and 1939 the possibility of territorial adjustments in favor of the Soviet Union which would, it was asserted, facilitate the defense of Leningrad. No settlement had been reached in these talks.
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Now that the Soviets had assured themselves of German agreement that Finland, like East Poland and first two and subsequently all three Baltic States, was in their sphere, Moscow moved in regard to Finland at the same time as the Baltic States.
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In both cases, negotiators were summoned to Moscow to receive the Soviet demands. Like those placed
before the others, these included a demand for a pact of mutual assistance, but in other respects there were important differences. Only one, not several, military bases in Finland was demanded; in addition, the Russians demanded a substantial territorial concession in the Karelian area north of Leningrad and the western part of the Rybachi peninsula in the north but offered substantial territory in eastern Karelia to Finland in exchange.

In the negotiations which followed during the rest of October and the first days of November 1939, the Finns slightly enlarged their original offer of territorial concessions to the Soviets, while the Soviets agreed to drop the demand for a treaty of mutual assistance and somewhat reduced their territorial demands.
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The Soviet leaders clearly expected an agreement to be reached, and the Finnish negotiators also thought it possible. When the talks were broken off without agreement, however, on November 9, the Finns may have thought that new negotiations might be possible, but the Soviets quickly moved in other directions. As early as November 13 the Moscow government was taking steps to organize a puppet government of Finnish Communist exiles, and military preparations appear to have been begun about the same time, although there had been internal discussion of a possible war with Finland as early as the summer of 1939.
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While the negotiations were in progress, Molotov had included an account of Soviet demands in his speech of October 31, hailing the agreement with Germany, welcoming the territorial acquisitions from Poland, and calling on Britain and France to end their war against Germany.
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The Soviet government had engaged itself in public; it expected prompt agreement; it was not about to let the opportunity slip by.

In a carefully orchestrated sequence, an incident was arranged by Moscow and blamed on the Finns on November 26; on November 29 diplomatic relations with Finland were broken off; the Red Army attacked Finland on November 30; on December 1 a puppet government of Finnish Communists under the leadership of Otto W. Kuusinen was established, nominally in the little town of Terijoki just occupied by the Red Army; and on December 2 the Soviet government signed with this new government a treaty of mutual assistance and friendship, which provided for a border between the two countries along the lines proposed by Stalin in the Moscow negotiations.
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New appeals for peace negotiations
from the government in Helsinki were turned away by Moscow with reference to the fact that the real government of Finland was not at war with the Soviet Union; only the Kuusinen government counted, and it enjoyed excellent relations with its neighbor.

What the hopes and intentions of Stalin at this time were is not known. Were the original demands the first step to the annexation of Finland? Was the attack accompanied by the establishment of the Kuusinen government designed with the same aim in mind? Or was the Soviet leader really trying to improve Soviet security, and, if so, did he really believe this was the way to do it? There is no way to know. The later annexation of the Baltic States, the nature of the Kuusinen government, and the basic thrust of the Nazi–Soviet Pact all point to the intent of eventual annexation. It is possible, however, that Stalin was not at first certain on that aim himself. Assuredly he expected the Finns to concede what he demanded; and when they refused, he may well have changed his own goals, that is, substituted immediate annexation for a more limited rearrangement, whatever was to follow later.

The argument that he wanted to prevent Britain from using Finland as a base, repeatedly voiced by Stalin and Molotov, hardly fits with the return to the Finns of Petsamo–the port through which the British could contact Finland–at the end of the war. The argument that all this was designed against Germany is even sillier: this was the same period when he had just offered the Germans a closer approach to Moscow by ceding central Poland. Whatever Soviet aims at the beginning of the attack on Finland, there can be no doubt that a quick and decisive victory with very little fighting was anticipated.

Stalin was evidently deluded by his own ideology and the dated and misleading assessments of Finnish Communist exiles into believing that a few blasts on the trumpets from Moscow, accompanied by some air raids on the Finnish capital and a substantial display of force on the border, would suffice to install the Kuusinen regime in Helsinki and bring the walls of Finnish resistance tumbling down.
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In this estimation, he was to be horrendously mistaken.

Soviet troops not properly prepared for warfare in the Arctic weather and terrain of much of the front, untrained for serious combat, and led for the most part by the terrified incompetents who had succeeded the officers killed or deported in the purges, launched major offensives on the Karelian Isthmus, north of Lake Ladoga, at central Finland, and at Petsamo in the north.
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Only the landing force at Petsamo succeeded in seizing the town and nickel mines and advancing some distance southward in the portion of Finland previously demilitarized by agreement
with Russia. On the Karelian Isthmus, the main Soviet offensive was halted by the Finns, fighting from field fortifications called the Mannerheim Line after their Commander-in-Chief. The attacks into Finland between Lake Ladoga and Petsamo were either stalled or crushed by Finnish resistance with enormous Soviet casualties. The bitter fighting, clearly going against the Russians, created an international situation no one had anticipated and produced a new series of policies which had their own repercussions.

The real Finnish government while mobilizing its resources hoped to restart negotiations, but it is doubtful whether, even if the Soviet Union had been willing to negotiate in December and January, it could have accepted the terms likely to be offered in the face of a public opinion jubilant over the early victories and unheeding of the danger ahead. Some Swedes came to help their neighbor, but the Swedish government was not about to become involved in war with anyone if it could possibly help it. The Finns repeatedly tried to obtain diplomatic support from Germany; but Berlin had promised Finland to the Soviet Union and, far from being prepared to help the Finns, was willing to aid the Soviet Union, both to repay Soviet favors in the ongoing war against Britain and France and to assist in a swift Russian victory. The fighting was of no use to Germany; it threatened to reduce the availability of Soviet supplies to herself, and opened the possibility of an Allied intervention in Scandinavia which could threaten her own iron supplies from Sweden. The Germans refused to sell weapons to Finland, tried to keep what few weapons the Finns could order in Italy from getting there, and left the Swedes worried about a possible German invasion if they came to Finland’s assistance.
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The Finns, who had relied on Soviet adherence to their mutual treaties, also appealed to the League of Nations. There they received a lot of sympathy but very little practical help. The expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League in no way assisted the Finns but undoubtedly made the Soviet leadership even more dubious about such international organizations in the future than they had been before they had reluctantly joined the League in 1934.
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More significant potentially, and possibly more influential in its impact on Soviet policy, was the matter of British and French assistance to Finland. There was, as has already been mentioned, a considerable amount of discussion in and between the governments of the Western Powers about using the opportunity, which appeared to be created by the Russo-Finnish war, to strike indirectly at Germany by helping Finland. Any aid to Finland, even of a purely material sort, which prolonged that war
would reduce the aid the Soviet Union could provide to Hitler. Western intervention in the form of troops could come effectively only through Norway and Sweden and would simultaneously cut Germany off from the Swedish iron mines. Since the involvement of Allied troops on the Finnish front meant war with Russia, the bombing of Soviet oil fields in the Caucasus would both aid that effort and deprive the Germans of petroleum supplies from Russia.

These projects were debated endlessly with no decision to go forward reached, but the debates shed light on British and French views of the war and by themselves probably influenced Soviet policy because their nature, if not all of their details, became known at the time. The French were very much more enthusiastic about these schemes than the British, a reflection of their greater interest in keeping the fighting as far as possible from France, which had been so devastated in World War I. It may also be that the antics of the large Communist Party of France which, faithfully in pursuit of the latest instruction from Moscow was now calling for the immediate end of the war against Germany,
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made those in the government see Germany and the Soviet Union more completely aligned than they really were.