As with most of Stalin’s plans, this one was brutally simple: line up as many soldiers and tanks he could muster on the border, pour into Finland, and overwhelm the Finns. If that wasn’t enough, they had thousands of planes to bomb the Finns back to the Ice Age. The whole romp would take no longer than two weeks, the generals assured Stalin. In fact, Stalin was more concerned that his army would roll through Finland so fast they would stumble into Sweden on the other side, angering a country that Stalin did not yet want to conquer.
The attack concentrated on three main areas. First, the Soviets would pound the narrow Karelian Isthmus with division after division, long columns of modern tanks along with hundreds of fighters and bombers. Then five divisions would sweep north of Lake Ladoga to outflank the Finns pinned down on the Mannerheim Line, which was the Finns’ stout defensive line across the Isthmus. And much farther north, into the thinly populated Arctic regions, the Soviets would launch numerous divisions in a pointless attempt to cut the country in half.
Stalin modeled his attack on the German blitz of Poland. His plan was brilliant except for two significant flaws: (1) he didn’t have the German army, and (2) Finland is not Poland. Hitler’s blitzkrieg was designed for fighting on the broad, flat plains of Europe. The invasion of Poland went so well in part because the Nazis had plenty of room to maneuver their huge tank columns, and the weather was warm and dry. Under those conditions, the immobile Poles were easily outflanked, cut off, and decimated.
But Finland is forbidding to invaders even in the summer. Winter invasion is an act of insanity. One third of the country is above the Arctic Circle, and all of it is virtually icebound during the winter when darkness lasts twenty-three hours a day and temperatures regularly drop to 20–30 degrees below zero. Roads are few and narrow, incapable of handling a tank convoy. Between the roads stand deep, dark forests with snowbanks large enough to swallow a man.
The Soviets soon found out that the toughest part of Finland was the Finns. The country had about 4.5 million people, hardy souls all, since that was the only way to survive in the harsh environment. Finns possess exceptional know-how of surviving outdoors in the winter. This tenacity, which the Finns called sisu, would prove their strongest weapon in their struggle with the vastly superior Soviet forces.
Finland’s army, capable of fielding at most 150,000 soldiers, was terribly overmatched. They had no tanks, few antitank guns, artillery dating back forty years, and only a skeleton air force. Mannerheim knew his troops would be armed with sisu and little else. The army would fight to simply survive in the hopes that some foreign power — Britain or France — would rescue them. If not, Mannerheim said, his army would endure an “honorable annihilation.”
On the other side, the Red Army looked pretty good on paper, like a team loaded with high-priced free agents. During 1939 they prepared for the invasion by building railroads close to the Finnish border, allowing them to not only put more troops in the field than Mannerheim expected but also to keep the supplies flowing. The Reds now possessed lots of everything. That was perhaps the last smart move they made. In the field, however, the Soviet army stank. It had never fought against a real army, so it was not battle tested. Stalin had purged the officer corps during the 1930s and replaced most of them with drones who lacked any initiative and simply followed orders. Any risk taking was rewarded by a firing squad. Another minor problem was that the plan did not take into account the weather or terrain. Only in the Isthmus could large numbers of troops operate; the rest of the country was too heavily forested to move by truck. And although on the Soviet maps the forests didn’t look like a barrier, in reality skiing was the only feasible way to get around. No Russian troops, however, received training in ski-fighting tactics. Some were supplied with skis but not instructions on how to use them. Others just got the instruction manual without any skis. Perhaps the plan was to strap the manuals to the soldiers’ feet and turn them loose. But since the attack was only expected to last two weeks, they didn’t bother schlepping along all that heavy winter clothing. Many of the troops simply marched along in cotton jackets with felt shoes.
Two items reveal the level of planning that would spell trouble for the Soviets. First, they trucked in large numbers of antitank guns even though the Finns had no tanks. Second, despite not having winter coats, they were well supplied with Communist propaganda and printing presses, just in case some Finns needed a refresher on the glories of life in the workers’ paradise.
The war started on November 26 when the Soviets fired a few artillery shells into Finland. With well-honed insouciance Stalin claimed Finnish aggression and, appropriately outraged, declared he had to take steps to handle this “Finnish question.” On the morning of November 30, the Soviets threw four armies across the border. Six hundred thousand troops flooded into Finland over their eight-hundred-mile border. Planes roared overhead, bombing and strafing the Finnish countryside and cities, killing hundreds of civilians. It was a glorious beginning. Watch out, Sweden.
The Finns staggered back, outnumbered by more than ten to one. In the north, soldiers quickly donned their white winter ski jackets and homemade skis and took to skiing circles around the Soviets, machine-gunning the invaders before slipping away into the frozen forest.
After the first day of the invasion, the Soviets trucked in a Finnish Communist, O. W. Kuusinen, who was living in Moscow since losing the Finnish civil war in 1918, and declared him the new leader of Finland. The puppet provided the Soviets with the refreshing change of attitude they were looking for as he rapidly agreed to the Soviet demands. Three cheers all around!
To further boost the puppet, the Soviets created an army just for Kuusinen. Made up mostly of other Finnish Communists living in Russia, the pathetic herd paraded around for the world’s press. Unable to find any other clothing, the army dressed in ancient tsarist-era uniforms pillaged from a local military museum. Outraged by this aggression and charade, the rest of the entire world threw Russia out of the League of Nations and rooted for the brave little Finns.
As they slowly were pushed back up the Isthmus, the Finns booby-trapped everything. They planted mines, wired barns with bombs, and even turned frozen livestock into deadly traps. The Russian steamroller slowed to a crawl.
Mannerheim’s plan was to deny the interior rail system to the invaders. By keeping the Soviets on the back roads, he knew they would bog down and become easy prey for his mobile guerrillas. It might not spell victory but would at least buy time.
The first problem the Finns encountered was fighting the Soviet tanks. Mannerheim’s men had virtually no antitank guns and where they did exist, ammunition was in short supply. To throw off the tanks they relied on sisu and ingenuity. The most common weapon was the “Molotov cocktail,” which they perfected and named. It consisted of jars filled with gasoline, kerosene, and other flammable liquids, thrown at the tanks from close range. The technique was simple; someone jammed a log into the tracks of the tank to stop it, and then the tank was attacked with flaming bottles of gasoline. The Finns also used bags of explosives and hand grenades against the Soviet armor. That also took loads of sisu. About eighty tanks were knocked out in the first few days but with sharp losses for the brave tank-attackers.
Despite the stout resistance, by December 6 the Soviets reached the Mannerheim Line, which consisted of an eighty-mile-long series of concrete blockhouses, smaller pillboxes, and firing trenches. Manned by determined fighters, it was a formidable barrier. But it was short of antitank guns, artillery, and antiaircraft weapons. The Finns dug in. The Soviets pushed ahead, ready to stomp their enemy. “Tactics,” they sneered, “we don’t need no stinking tactics.”