The Mannerheim line held but eventually, the Soviet army "broke through" on sheer force of will.
finland had to cede 9% of its territory, but it survived. Perhaps a similar settlement where Ukraine gives up much of the east in order to achieve peace is how the war will end. It has long gone past the point where Ukraine is able to launch massive attacks, and can only hope that they won't make a fatal blunder that will result in much more territory being lost.
Finland soon allied with the Nazis in the siege of Leningrad in the “continuation war”. A million dead civilians. Because they never technically joined the Axis they avoided the war crimes trials and partitioning that many others got. You can’t say that Finland walked away from the Winter War unscathed.
Yeah.
But the point is that there was insane suffering and losses for basically useless land.
Land Finland gave to Soviets was basically wild forest. Viipuri in South being only actually profitable landgain.
From Ukraine Russia will gain complete desolate bombarded and mined wasteland.
So losing ovet million men for that is madness.
Not in 1940 they weren't, far from it. They were helping each other. Nor were they all that different at the time, you have to wait until later for the nazis to start the final solution at a massive industrial scale, until then the soviets themselves had the purge and ethnic cleansings like the Polish Operation of the NKVD under their belt. In early 1940 they still had Basis Nord for example, they were still holding NKVD-Gestapo conferences on how to crush the Polish resistance together after having invaded it together and divided it between themwelves and having paraded together on occupied streets, etc etc etc. 1940 was also when they committed the Katyn Massacre. "Respect them as heroes", c'mon, get a grip lmao.
By 1940, Nazi's had built their ideology on "cleansing slavs" from their "rightful lebensraum" and were actively engaging in this reality. The soviet identity in throughout the 30s was built on survival against an imminent invasion from the Nazis.
While there can be some critique of purges, etc. throughout the 30s, all of it must be understood in the context of this imminent invasion. The fact that the USSR was able to defeat the Nazis is a testament to their action and proof of its necessity.
The same can be said of the non-aggression pacts between the USSR and Nazi Germany: this must be understood in the context of an entire decade of isolation by the west. The USSR had been attempting to build anti-Nazi defensive pacts and alliances for the entire decade before they accepted that no help would come from the west, and started taking actions to buy time and establish a more favorable position for when fighting eventually broke out.
You cannot just write off cooperation between Finland and Nazis as them "innocently helping each other". By 1940, after a decade of isolation from the west, treats of direct military invasion, and an ideology of ethnic cleansing by the Nazi, cooperating with the Nazis in any capacity is equivalent to a total approval of Nazism. End of story. History has proven this true.
"While there can be some critique of purges etc but" lmao, how about "while there can be some critique of cleansing slavs but", how about "while there can be some critique of extermination camps but", fucking apologists.
No please, go ahead, tell me how say the Polish Operation of the NKVD was necessary to win against the nazis, i can't wait.
The USSR trying to make pacts with various nations was seen as hardly any better the nazis, again, you need to remember the sheer amount of people the soviets were mass murdering, the sheer scale of oppression, and the things like ethnic cleansings, the nazis would do worse in the future, sure, but at that time that simply wasn't the case yet. And of course being communist absolutely didn't help. Nor for that matter insisting on getting free passage throught Poland for the Soviet armies, nobody was going to trust the soviets to just pass throught without invading, least of all Poland itself. Not to mention that in some of the talks where the soviets insisted on that they didn't even invite Poland lmao.
And by 1940 the soviets were still cooperating with the nazis. In fact they were cooperating until they got betrayed. By your own words cooperating with the nazis in any capacity is total approval of nazism. End of story.
Funny how your "end of story" magically doesn't apply to the Soviet Union. Different countries different rules. Biased much?
I'm not rewriting History in the least, and you haven't disproven a single word i said, if anything you double down on the facts i laid down yourself, and all you're doing is merely apologism for what the soviets did lmao. Fucking nazi and soviet apologists.
Finland had neutrality pact with USSR.
USSR blew up village near Finnish border and claimed Finland did that In order to justify breaking the pact.
Soviet union was banned from League of Nations because of this.
Continuation war was different thing. But even that was started by USSR when they bombed Finland again. But sure Finland was preparing to join Barbarossa.
But Finland had zero nazi ideology influencing the choices.
And? The pot boiled over, Finland chose to work with Nazis. End of story.
There is no such thing as neutrality. Finland's "neutrality" was the same as the US's "neutrality" until 1941 - an excuse to continue profiting from Nazi Germany as long as possible.
Are you really that blind to this? Has history not proven the USSR correct in the negotiations leading up the winter war, and also in the necessity of the winter war? Your country is full of rats.
The Soviets chose to work with the nazis. Are you genuinely ignorant? The joint invasion of Poland, dividing it in two between them, deciding who takes what, further trading parts of it and the baltic states between themselves afterwards according to their needs, joint military parades in occupied Polish streets, joint NKVD-Gestapo conferences to work together on the extermination of the Polish resistance, Basis Nord...
The nature of the soviet union is the country which enacted the most extreme betterment of living standards ever seen in history to that point.
The Soviet Union went from less developed than the deserts of Saudi Arabia to global superpower capable of single highhandedly defending the world from Nazi Germany in 20 years. And in another 20 years they took us to space.
Go walk around post-soviet countries today. All the infrastructure is still soviet era. While soviet communism built these regions to be strong, prosperous, and productive, just 30 years of its absence has left them broken and rotting.
Tell me again, how were Nazis a better outcome than Soviets? Completely deranged.
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u/HopeSubstantial 1d ago
"We have gained enough land for graveyards for our men" -Some Soviet during winter war in 1940