Channels, Spring 2018

Channels • 2018 • Volume 2 • Number 2 Page 61 Isthmus nor mobile enough to compete with the agile ski troops on Finland’s eastern border. Consequently, Russian troops—after a quick initial advance—began suffering heavy losses and either ground to a halt against the camouflaged bunkers and anti-tank defenses of the Mannerheim Line, or were surrounded and ambushed by invisible foes in the snowbound forests. 56 The Russian military, however, was able to learn from its mistakes in 1939 and, by the spring of 1940, launched a new offensive that took advantage of its numerical strength, uniting its forces and compelling Finland to fight a war of attrition that its small population could not withstand. 57 105 days after the war began—on March 13—Finland’s high casualties forced it to sign a peace treaty giving in to Russian demands. 58 Though in theory the war ended in a Russian victory, it is arguable that the costs of war had hollowed the spoils of success. In this vein, Nikita Khrushchev would later say that “all of us sensed in our victory a defeat by the Finns.” 59 On the positive side, Russia had acquired more territory than it had originally sought in negotiations, including the naval bases in the Gulf of Finland and the land on the Karelian Isthmus, which it considered so important to Russian national defense. 60 However, it had come at a terrible cost in life. All told, the Russian military had over 500,000 men killed or injured in the conflict, while the Finnish army lost only 60,000 men. 61 In addition to its appalling loss of life, the Russian military lost any prestige it had maintained through the interwar period. 62 Hitler and his generals looked at the Winter War and saw confirmation of their view that communism, whatever its numerical advantage, had a “hollow center.” 63 Less ideologically, they found evidence that Stalin’s massacre of Russian military commanders in 1937 and 1938 had produced an incompetent, poorly-led army that would be quickly defeated by the well-trained and ably- commanded German armies. 64 By acquiring territory crucial to Russia's defense should Germany invade, Russia achieved its tactical objectives. However, this supposed accomplishment actually weakened its defense and increased its risk of a German invasion. Before the German Invasion of Russia in 1941, Adolf Hitler told his generals that they had only “to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure [would] come crashing down." 65 Implicit in this phrase is Hitler’s analysis of Russia’s military strength as demonstrated by the Winter War. Though he clearly learned from Russia’s poor showing in the first half of the Winter War, it seems he took no lessons from the second half. Arguably, if Hitler had viewed the Winter War as an integrated whole, he would have reached a radically different conclusion about Russian military effectiveness and resilience. The Winter War certainly 56 Ibid, 828. 57 Ibid, 830. 58 Timo Toivonen, “War and Equality: The Social Background of the Victims of the Finnish Winter War,” Journal of Peace Research , Vol. 35, No. 4 (1998): 473. 59 Citino, “White Death,” 50. 60 Spring, “The Soviet Decision for War against Finland,” 208. 61 Reese, “Lessons of the Winter War,” 830. 62 Martin Kahn, “‘Russia Will Assuredly Be Defeated’: Anglo-American Government Assessments of Soviet War Potential before Operation Barbarossa,” Journal of Slavic Military Studies , Vol. 25, No. 2 (2012), 227. 63 Keegan, The Second World War, 174. 64 Citino, “White Death,” 50. 65 Reese, “Lessons of the Winter War,” 852.