KGB Archives Show Not Everyone in USSR Backed Stalin’s Winter War against Finland

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 30 – Far from all Soviet citizens backed Stalin’s Winter War against Finland. Many expressed admiration for the Finns and their heroic resistance to the overwhelmingly disproportionate strength of the Red Army, and were willing to day even under Stalin that Moscow had embarrassed itself.

Those are some of the conclusions that newly opened KGB files left behind in Kyiv point to, according to,Eduard Andryushchenko, founder of the Youtube channel KGB Files (youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=WVXQDk8Ukas and euromaidanpress.com/2021/06/08/not-everyone-in-the-ussr-supported-the-1939-invasion-of-finland-kgb-archives-show/).

Most Soviet citizens in public and especially at the beginning of the war echoed the claims of Soviet propaganda, but that did not last, these documents show. Instead, in conversations that the NKVD picked up, they expressed horror at and even opposition to the war and its consequences.

Among the comments Andryushchenko reports about that are the following:

·         “The conditions are now unbearable for the Red Army. Wounded and frozen don’t get timely assistance and most of them die. Now comrades Timoshenko, Voroshilov, and even Stalin are on the Finnish front” according to a Kyiv telegraph operator.

·         “…Our people disgraced themselves on the Finnish front. It is not Poland, which was handed to them on a silver platter. Let them try to fight the Finns” in the words of a collective farmer.

·         And “Our troops, sent to the Finnish border, are in a terrible mood. They are not going to die for any homeland and Stalin, they just say that some restless person is sitting there in power, all he wants is foreign territories, as if our own are not enough. Let one of them go to the front himself, then, probably, there would be less fervor,” in the words of another.

Many were openly admiring of the Finns and openly contemptuous of Soviet propaganda:

·         “…I believe that the recent incident on the border with artillery fire is nothing but our staging. It could not happen that such a peaceful, tiny nation, like the Finns, would come to fight with us,” one said.

·         The Finns “are wonderful people, I am proud that nowadays there is such a nation that really heroically fights for its independencem” according to another.

·         And in the words of a third, “by virtue of discipline, we are obliged to write protests, proclamations, and indignant verses. But to tell the truth, I feel sorry for the innocent Finns” — Maksym Rylsky, Ukrainian poet.

·         “Is there at least one sane person who would believe that in fact, Finland was the first to start attacking the USSR? I’m sure not. And it’s funny not only to assert but even to think about it. After announcing the termination of the treaty and recalling the embassy from Finland, I was sure that Finland would definitely start “attacking” us to provoke a war, and we, “the unfortunate victim of aggression,” would start to “defend” ourselves. This is how China “attacked” Japan, Czechoslovakia, and Poland “attacked” Germany and, finally, Finland “attacked” the USSR,” according to a Ukrainian engineer.

 

And once the war was ended with the Soviets achieving far much less than they had expected and at a far higher cost, USSR citizens were also critical about what had happened:

·         “…The story with Finland clearly shows that we are aggressors and what is red imperialism,” one Kyiv resident observed.

·         “…I believe that an easy victory over Poland whetted our appetite too much. And the provocation on the Finnish border was caused by our side because it is inconvenient for us to battle the Finns openly,” a Kharkiv worker said.  

·         “…When the Bolsheviks said ‘we will not give up our land and don’t want a foreign one,’ I sympathized with this. And now, the whole people says ‘why did the Bolsheviks break their word, why do we need conquests.’ This is a gamble that Hitler pushes us into,” a Kharkiv agricultural worker observed.

·         “I’m just ashamed of my homeland. After all, so many people died because of some insignificant piece of the Karelian Isthmus,” — a doctor in Voroshilovgrad commented.

·         And an engineer from Mykolaiev said “The USSR has 60 people per one Finn and we could not do anything… Now we will shout less about the invincible Red Army.”.

 

Almost certainly when the FSB archives are opened in the future after Putin departs, many Russians will be found to have had similar views about his invasion of Ukraine.