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Why do so many of these articles on the Winter War just narrowly focus that particular conflict, instead of covering the Continuation War as well? Was it a fun

• varjag 8y ago
  The brief cease fire was 1.5 years. While the two wars are certainly linked, they were separate campaigns different in many military & political aspects.
• microcolonel 8y ago
  Given a choice between a free but war torn Finland with blood on its hands, and a Soviet Finland, I think it's hard to imagine much preference for the latter from the perspective of a Finn.
  • sampo 8y ago
    Everybody in WW2 has blood on their hands anyway.
  • peisistratos 8y ago
    Tens of thousands of Finnish workers gave their lives during the Finnish Civil War because they preferred a Soviet Finland to the bourgeois, Nazi-aligned country it became.
    • ptaipale 8y ago
      In 1918, they hardly did understand what they were preferring. By 1939, they did (after land reforms and many other policies that improved the lives of the losing side of civil war). In 1939 Finland was Anglophilic rather than Nazi-aligned, but it's not a good setup when friends are far away and weak, and enemies are close and strong.
    • microcolonel 8y ago
      In retrospect, surely that seems foolish. The Soviet union was effectively renting the country to the Finnish people. The Nazi political dream failed rapidly, and the Finns were granted an otherwise-unlikely generation of prosperity without the failing Soviets' noose around their necks. There was no practical way for them to align themselves with anyone but the Nazis or the Soviets, so whether you like what the political class became in that context or not, it's not as though the people had a choice between liberal democracy and state socialism, and picked the latter. That people with uncertain, unpleasant lives were taken in by Soviet propaganda is no surprise. Some people still believe the things they learned from Soviet propagandists to this day.
    • eMSF 8y ago
      Well that's just simply not true. Firstly, there weren't "tens of thousands" of casualties; secondly, not all the "reds" fought for a Soviet Finland, and certainly not to be a part of Russia; and thirdly, as far as the conflict had anything to do with Germany, it was the Imperial Germany of the old. Resisting Nazis was certainly not in anyone's mind, that's for sure.
    • int_19h 8y ago
      Were they to win, how many of them would later perish in events similar to these? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion
• sampo 8y ago
  Allying with Stalin's enemy (Hitler) was pretty much the only option for Finland (population 3.7 million) to keep the independence against the Soviet Union (population 170 million). But after 1944, having been allied with Germany became highly unfashionable, so we try to be a little quiet about it. But we don't apologize for staying independent.
  • ptaipale 8y ago
    This is a bit of a diversion from topic, but the population of Soviet Union, and how it was calculated, is a very interesting issue. Stalin expected a fast population growth, and when the 1937 census showed that he was mistaken, and population of USSR was only 162 million, Stalin had statisticians sent to the GULAG and some were even executed. After that, many tried to avoid being nominated for top jobs, out of fear for meeting the same fate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Census_(1937) This kind of dictatorship and purges of competent people certainly lessened the capabilities of Soviet Union, lead to the unexpected result of the Winter War, and greatly increased the losses of USSR in the coming great war.
    • peisistratos 8y ago
      > This kind of dictatorship and purges of competent people certainly lessened the capabilities of Soviet Union, lead to the unexpected result of the Winter War, and greatly increased the losses of USSR in the coming great war. It's quite a feat to lessen your capabilities, and still be able to repel an invasion by all of Europe (sans England, as well as smaller countries like Switzerland, Ireland etc.) The other view is Stalin had loyal cadre around him during the war, and did not have lieutenant colonels with links through the high command making bomb attempts against him.
      • ptaipale 8y ago
        Well, not "all of Europe" was attacking USSR, Germany had fronts also towards Britain as well as North Africa, and USSR did get an immense amount of material support from the USA. It is quite clear that USSR's surprisingly weak performance in Winter War did encourage Hitler to think that he could crush Soviets with a quick summer war.
• jpatokal 8y ago
  The Continuation War doesn't have the same kind of simple, plucky David vs Goliath narrative. Small country strikes back to reconquer lost territory with Nazi help, goes a bit beyond the original borders, tacitly contributes to the Siege of Leningrad and the death from starvation of hundreds of thousands of civilians, is beaten back to where they were during the Winter War and then some when the Soviets finally have some men to spare, then switches sides and allies with the Soviets to fight against the remaining Nazis, who proceed to go lay waste to most of Lapland as they retreat... Not exactly Hollywood material.
• dmurray 8y ago
  Exactly the latter. If Russia had stayed on good terms with the West after the war, instead of being retconned as a villain, Finland would only be mentioned in the history books as an evil Nazi ally.
  • eMSF 8y ago
    You don't think illegal invasion of Poland and much of the Eastern Europe qualifies you as a villain without "retconning"? See, the only thing they had going for them was the "enemy of my enemy" thing, and that just wasn't the case after the war, for that enemy did not exist any more, unlike everything else they had done.
• osullivj 8y ago
  The Soviets were allies of the Nazis at the time of the Winter War, and it's been expedient for many to ignore the Nazi Soviet pact since.
  • ptaipale 8y ago
    On social media platforms, pointing out the common Nazi-Soviet victory parade in Brest-Litovsk tends to get a lot of negative attention from Russia-minded activists (one often wonders how many of those accounts are real, but perhaps it is unimportant).
    • ptaipale 8y ago
      And the downvotes on this comment work as a proof...
  • sbmthakur 8y ago
    Calling them allies is a bit of an exaggeration. I'm not defending the Soviets, they certainly played their role in Nazi imperialism(supply of raw materials, carving up Poland and so on). But a non-aggression pact doesn't automatically make them allies. Poland had also signed one with the Nazis and they helped themselves to annex a part of Czechoslovakia before the Nazi invasion of Poland. And we know that Poles and Nazis were far from allies.
    • varjag 8y ago
      They fought same war on the same side, against same enemy, simultaneously. Ended it with bilateral military parade. Supported each other with training and materiel right until summer 1941. Sounds like allies to me.
      • sbmthakur 8y ago
        > They fought same war on the same side, against same enemy, simultaneously. Are you referring to Poland? Well, Nazi plans to expand into the east were well known. As for the Soviets, a buffer with the Nazis was paramount. Not justifying their actions but looking from their perspective they were able to delay the war by two years. Even if the enemy was same, the objectives were vastly different. However, the enemy wasn't really the same considering Czechoslovakia, which the Soviets wanted to defend. > Ended it with bilateral military parade. Supported each other with training and materiel right until summer 1941. The parade was more or less just a show-off to fool each other. Just like how India-China have military drills(despite having territorial disputes) to soothe each other. Nazi-Soviets did have trade but from Soviets' perspective it was more likely done to avoid war. When you say allies, what comes to my mind is US-UK or US-Israel relationship. Nazi-Soviet relationship was nothing close to that. I would agree with you if it we had been discussing this in 1938-41. But we have the benefit of hindsight.
• swebs 8y ago
  >Why do so many of these articles on the Winter War just narrowly focus that particular conflict, instead of covering the Continuation War as well? You kind of answered your own question there. They're two separate wars. Of course articles on the Winter War would focus on the Winter War. Now you may ask instead why the Continuation war doesn't get as much coverage as the Winter War. Well because it frankly isn't as interesting.
  • gabbygab 8y ago
    They aren't two separate wars. They are two campaigns within the same war. You wouldn't divide ww2 into two separate wars because the germans and the soviets were allied in the first half of ww2 ( when they invaded poland and divided europe in half between them ) and then they fought a war against each other in the 2nd half. The "continuation war" doesn't get much attention because of political reasons. Just like much of europe ( including france, most of scandinavia, netherlands, belgium, ukraine, etc ) underplays their cooperation with nazi germany for much of ww2 when nazi germany was on the ascent. As they say, the first casualty of war is the truth. This applies not only during the war, but post-war as well.
    • mongol 8y ago
      Well, the Winter war was concluded with the Moscow Peace Treaty. I think peace is a natural delimiter of war.
      • ptaipale 8y ago
        Sort of, but even in Finland, the Moscow treaty was called "interim peace" (välirauha) already before 1941, indicating that it was obvious that the European war will again spread to Finland's borders again. The Soviets occupied Baltic countries, and continued and increased the political and military pressure against Finland already by late 1940, so that Finns did not believe it really is "peace". Many unfortunate incidents worsened the situation; for instance, the day when the new Soviet ambassador arrived in Finland after the Moscow peace treaty, Finland had a national day of remembrance for the fallen soldiers (akin to Memorial Day in US). With about 25 000 men lost just few months before, this was of course done with flags in half-mast throughout the country and the mood was solemn and grave. But the new ambassador did not know this, and he thought Finns are just demonstrating against his arrival. A wiser ambassador would have known better, but Stalin preferred ideological purity and refusal to listen to facts.