Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 85 - Winter War Part 1: Russian Problems

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

On part one of our Winter War series we dive into the history of Finland and its long struggle for independence from a string of different oppressors. **Correction** The Commander of Finnish forces was named Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim. There was no "Von" honorific. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/lions-led-by-donkeys-store Bibliography for all related episodes: Trotter, William. A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish War of 1939-1940.

It's all made to thrive! Hello! Welcome to another episode of Lines Led by Donkeys. I'm Joe, and that terrible introduction was not by my co-host Nick. Not me. And that terrible introduction was not by my co-host Nick. Not me. And today is the first of many of another giant series. This one, The Winter War.

See, when you texted me this, you said it would be three at most. You know how that happens. I think I said the Soviet-Afghan War was going to be three or four. That was seven. Yeah. I'm not good at that part of the job. I really honestly thought that was going to be eight just to even it out. It could have been. It could have been ten.

It could still be going. Every week, it seems I get an email or a DM or something or even a Patreon message like, you left this out of the Soviet-Afghan war. Yes, I know. Trust me, we would still be recording episodes about it uh but we get to talk about the soviet union again we really shit on the soviet

union god low-hanging fruit yeah low-hanging fruit uh to be fair until the soviet afghan war series our biggest series was on the iran iraq war it's true which i still think is actually my favorite it's one of mine yeah um so we are going to be talking about the winter war the stuff of literal legends um now before we get started i have to acknowledge our main source for the series and this is the main source i will use throughout every episode, however many that is, unless I denote otherwise. And that is a book called Frozen Hell by William Trotter. Honestly, when you sent me the cover of it, when it said Frozen Hell, I was thinking, oh, cool. Chosen.

I'm reading about Chosen right now. We could both talk about it. Oh, we're going to cover Chosen eventually, for sure. Which is just a different. There's a lot of Frozen Hells in military history. Yeah, but then I read further and it said Winter War. And I was like, cool. I've only heard stories of that. So this's a lot of frozen hells in military history yeah but then I read further into it it said winter war and I was like cool I've only heard stories of that so this is a lot of people most people have really only heard

of one or two things whether it be the Finns fucking ambushing Soviets on skis or the usual stuff or the white death Simuohaiha which we'll definitely be talking about but like I said it's like literally a war it's like literally a war

it's like this shit of legends and I feel like yeah you only hear stories of this because it's definitely what I've only heard stories of this is a war where the stuff that actually happened is so incredibly unlikely and extraordinary it makes sense

why a lot of it literally became legend is it like a fucking comic book? it could be ooh a graphic novel? a comic book is a graphic novel I like graphic novels it's not so when you last joined us

for when we talked about the Soviet Union we were actually talking about how they sold their navy to Pepsi but we're not talking about that one either most of us know the Soviet Union as this juggernaut that absorbed the Nazi blitzkrieg

harder than anybody else and stomped their way across Eastern Europe in a people's zerg rush all the way to Berlin. Or if you're a long-time listener of the show, you might know them

from when they drank themselves to death on the mountains of Afghanistan and boot polish or jet fuel. Those aren't the Soviet Unions we're going to be talking about during this series. It's completely different. Yeah, they don't have

MIGs. No, they barely have much of anything. Instead, the Soviet Union we're going to be talking about is a weak backwards one, desperately attempting to reclaim the shattered empire that had fallen apart with the downfall

of the Tsar is also the story of what is what is probably the most notorious David versus Goliath struggle in history of our in the history of armed conflict and when the least talked about side

stories of World Wari because that's you can't talk about world war ii unless you talk about the winter war but a lot of people seem to find a way to do it oh yeah for sure it's like a lot of people like to talk about um how much the so the soviet union um uh how much of an impact the soviet union had on the second world war which is definitely true without talking about like the how they had on the Second World War, which is definitely true, without talking about how they almost joined the Axis. We don't talk about that. There's a lot of stuff we like

to leave out of the Eastern Front, and we like to just think of the Soviet Union as human wave attacking them all the way to victory, which also isn't true. But they did suffer the most casualties of anybody else. A shit ton. And you can kind of see why when we talk about the Winter

War. You can go back to Pavlov's house and see how fucking insane they are. I mean, when you, when one of the most plentiful resources you have is people, why not? I mean, and there's legitimately an argument to me, they were fighting for their survival. They were fighting

against people who thought they were subhuman and did not deserve to live that is the nazis not the fins uh the fins were never going to take over the soviet union we're going to take over yeah they're going to take over moscow and the greater finnish republic is just going to span from horizon to horizon um so before finland ever had the gall to become an independent state they were actually part of the kingdom of sweden um this is because of the northern crusade all the way back in 1171 when the catholic church oh that's far yeah uh we have we have some ground to cover here god uh and we rarely talk about the crusades of the people's crusade true um now the catholic church decided to invade northern europe to chase out those goddamn...

The best church! No, it's not. No. I was in it. It wasn't good. It's funny that all three hosts of this show, counting Rich, have all accidentally fallen into the Catholic Church at various parts of their life. Mine was early on.

Both of yours. You guys were both raised in it. My mom remarried a Catholic guy And we went to service once And my mom was like, nope So the church decided to invade northern Europe To chase out those goddamn pagans And just show everybody how merciful

Jesus Christ was through mass slaughter Afterwards Thousands of Swedes moved into what would Become Finland in order to colonize it And spread the good word of God spread the good word of God. Spread the good word of God with your sword? Yeah. Don't you see how merciful Jesus is, you bitch?

Please stop killing my family. Ooh, almost came up with another. All right, let's keep going. God damn it, Nick. I feel like I'm almost allowed to. Been here for so long. If anybody is allowed to, it's Catholics. I'm not Catholic anymore. Never mind.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we all fall into the atheism side here on the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm unsure about Laika. I believe she worships some dog god. Satan. Yeah, definitely Satan. Every time she howls, she howls for Satan. Yeah, definitely Satan. Every time she howls, she howls for Satan.

This kind of colonization, wouldn't you have guessed, kind of made Finns who already lived there second-class citizens in their own land. As the Swedish king attempted to force them to be not so goddamn Finnish. They were considered to be backwards and primitive. What's so different about the Finns and the Swedes? Colonialism. It makes even people that look identical racist. It almost seems like there's no difference. Imperialism is a magical way to make sure somebody is racist against somebody else.

It does not matter. Our chocolate's better! Our shade of white is better than your shade of white. Now, this kind of shit went on for hundreds of years, and we're not going to cover all of it. But at one point, there was an uprising called the Cudgel War, which is kind of cool because it was just named that way because Finnish peasants armed themselves with clubs

and beat people to death. Oh, God. Like Gangs of New York style. Yeah, I root for any war when it involves Finnish peasants beating nobility to death with sticks Is Liam Neeson in this? I don't think so

He only shows up to fist fight wolves Swedish domination of Finland continued all the way until the age of Napoleon and the Treaty of Tilsit Russians promised the French that they would help the French Emperor force other European powers to kneel before the continental system, which we have covered before. In order to do that, the Russian Empire invaded and took over what they called the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809.

The Grand Duke, in case you're wondering from the name what that was, was just the Russian Tsar. Effectively just making it part of Russia and giving it a fancy name. The Grand Duke. That's what I call a good toilet toilet session oh that's a grand duke yep under the russian empire the finnish state was allowed to expand its own autonomy which is good because the russian empire was kind of terrible at running itself though eventually roastification policies were introduced in 1889 say roastification? Everybody was roasted. Your mama has one big titty and one little titty.

We call the bitch Biggie Smalls. He's royalty now. The roastification. They're attempting to make it more Russian. Gotcha. It was introduced in 1889 to try to force them to assimilate into the Russian-dominated Russian Empire. That sounds kind of dumb when I say the Russian-dominated version.

It's like the Soviet Union. The Russian Empire is made up of countless different ethnicities, but the most dominant one was Russian. So they wanted to make everybody Russian. Right. The bill that triggered this was voted in in the Finnish Senate. The deciding vote was cast by a guy put there by the Tsar to do this exact thing. The Governor General Nikolai Babrikov. Because Russia has never quite understood what democracy is.

The Russification of Finland was so petty that it even forced them to use Russian stamps on their postage. Ooh. Like. Nice. Of all the things you could rank, the Tsar is sitting there like, hmm, those Finnish are awfully uppity. It must be the stamps. Now, Babrikov was granted close to what we consider dictatorial powers throughout

1905 Russian Revolution. Get it out. Say it. Nice. Dick powers. Oh, boy. Family show we got here. This is already starting pretty good. I like this.

Now, in 1905, for people unaware, the Russians had a revolution. Not the one that you're thinking of that got rid of the Tsar, but a Russian revolution. So, Bobrakov enacted a lot of these reforms in order to try to keep a lid on anything that could pop off in Finland. It turned out that Bobrakov had something of a magical power. You see, he was such an asshole that he managed to do something that nobody else had ever done before. That is unite the Finns and the Finnish Swedes who had settled within Finland together in their mutual hatred for Russia. Unite! Like, man, fuck that guy.

But there's no greater unifying power throughout history than fuck that guy but there's no greater unifying power throughout history than fuck that guy yeah for sure whatever that guy

happens to be at that particular time that guy is everywhere I've learned that that guy pops up about one every ten years I say that to my

soldiers they told me to do this and I was like who's they they is everywhere I go they're at every duty station I'm at.

Who is they? But I don't know who they are, but fuck them. Exactly. So the czarist official was so bad at his job, like most of the Russian government at the time, that his rule led to an upswell of militant leftist politics amongst the Finnish working class. So much so that a member of one of those groups, the Party of Active Resistance, a guy named Eugene Shulman, shot Bobrakoff's bitch ass dead in the street.

What? Yeah. How? With a gun. Yeah, but how did he... How does he... Okay, hold on. What was the group name again? The Party of Active Resistance. How the fuck do you get that close to somebody with that group name? That's a secretive group. I mean, at the time... I feel like it wasn't that group name? That's a secretive group. I mean,

yeah, I feel like it wasn't that secretive. There's, there's a lot of, um, uh, Marxist leftist socialist movements at the time. That's partially why the Russian revolution of 1905 happened. Um,

so like, but they have to keep it underground because there's ours killing a lot of them. If you have a group name like that, it's not secretive. You have to, cause it's not cool enough. Well,

what, what's your gut? Uh, the party of active resistance is okay. At least it, it tells you, it should Because it's not cool enough. What's your guess? The Party of Active Resistance is okay. I feel like they should have gone with a cooler name. It tells everybody exactly what you're about. It gets straight to the point.

Nobody looks at the Party of Active Resistance like hmm, I wonder what they do. Party of Young Targets and Old Farts. That one doesn't fit. What do you guys do? As you're just surrounded by guns and swords, uh, we knit.

Yeah. Just a bunch of fucking guys. Like, so it turns out killing the shitty guy, your shitty emperor put in charge of you does not in fact make things better. The entire Finnish Senate was replaced by a Russian trained military officer group. And eventually, uh, anything considered, uh, The entire Finnish Senate was replaced by a Russian-trained military officer group. Ooh-wee.

And eventually, anything considered the concept of Finnish self-rule was destroyed. That was until World War I. As the Tsar and his Edbred cousins set the world on fire with their stupid turf war, the Russian Empire collapsed in a whirlwind of the Russian Revolution. Following the Bolshevik Declaration of the General Right of Self-Determination, Finland declared independence in December of 1917. I feel like we should bring this up. I really want to talk about Tannenberg on this show.

Oh, Tannenberg's definitely going to come up. It has to. It is one of the biggest defeats in the dumbest way possible in history. Yes, oh my God. I mean, it, it just goes to show how bad the czarist army was,

but yeah. For sure. Um, and so they declared independence in 1917. Now, uh, when I talk about self-determination, obviously,

I mean, uh, the people's right to decide their own destiny. And that was something that Lennon himself, who ended up becoming in charge of red Russia, um, had the bolshevik movement talked about like he said like the working class people should be able to determine what they do you know self-determination well it turns out he didn't actually mean it all that much because he got fucking pissed when finland declared independence he's like oh wait we we can be independent and then lennon's like fuck no not like that

um so the but the at the time thankfully for finland the bolsheviks had a lot of other problems going on um there's a russian civil war going on the reds against the whites and they do not have control of everything why does everybody care what finland does it reasons like it it's really dumb because uncreative flag has nothing to do with it you know like finland is strategic for the most part like everybody is it oh yeah uh now the russian empire super snowy there sure but most of russia is i mean the russian empire and also the soviet union both realize that foreign powers could use it as a launching pad.

Think of it as like a Schlieffen plan for Russia. Like if we invade through Finland. Schlieffen plan? Yeah, the Schlieffen. You've never heard of the Schlieffen plan. That sounds like it's off of Rick and Morty. The whole plan that the German Empire used for World War I and also World War II. Never heard of a Schlieffen plan.

I'm sorry. You're bringing our podcast credibility down a lot right now. I didn't know that one plan would do it. I mean, it didn't work. That's why. So the Schlieffen plan was the German Empire's plan to invade through neutral countries to invade France. Okay, there we go. Now I know what that is.

So think of that as the Finland could be the eastern version of that because right on the other side of the Finnish border and into Russia is what would become known as Leningrad. So it's a pretty important industrial hub. They knew that they wanted to hold

on to it for that and there's whatever other natural resources they have there but i think of a lot of it more like there are strategic snow resources i think a lot of it has to do with like they thought of them as part of the russian empire therefore part of russia they they were so dumb they didn't realize like they're fucking finnish they're not russian and they've always wanted to be independent um but like i said the bolsheviks had a whole bunch of other problems to deal with at the time so like finland breaking away was like very bottom of the list they they were they

still had a war going on uh with with fucking they were still trapped in world war one they had a civil war going on now they were trying to figure out how to put a government together um leftist being as leftists do they were fighting one another all the time. So like they had problems. Finland didn't rate. So Finland broke away. But the seeds of future conflict would be planned almost immediately afterwards because the new Finnish nation collapsed

into civil war only one month after independence. Much like the rest of Russia at the time, Finland became torn between the communist reds and the kind of everybody else whites. The white faction included liberals conservatives monarchists nationalists and even even non-communist leftists everybody pretty much everybody except bolsheviks yeah um things get kind of hazy in the middle there um it it even like it's weird because um it even involved like other factions of communism that

just wasn't down with their faction of communism it's a really weird alliance weren't bolsheviks going for bloodline too like they were fucking everybody up uh well they just well i mean the bolsheviks are the part of the russian civil war were attempting to create the you know the united socialist soviet republics yeah um which. That's what they turned into. Then there was factions within them. There's the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks. There's layers. A whole bunch of Viks.

That's kind of what happens in any civil war. No civil war is cut and dry. I think the most cut and dry one was ours. Two sides. Was there a drunk history where they're talking about the East versus the West? I think the most cut and dry one was ours. Two sides. Yeah. Wait, no. Was there a drunk history where they're talking about the East versus the West?

I think that was a Family Guy episode where they just showed up wearing plaid. But, I mean, they're mostly allied. The whites were mostly allied under the idea that if the communists win, they would simply give Finland back to Russia. Which, yeah, they were. That was the plan. Now, the Finnish Red Guards were heavily funded, equipped, and trained in many cases, led by Russian Soviet veterans.

There also happened to be about 40,000 soldiers of the Russian army stationed in Finland. Though at this point, the Russian army is kind of just falling apart because these guys had definitely been conscripted under the Tsarist army, and were still just kind of hanging falling apart. Because these guys had definitely been conscripted under the Tsarist army. Yeah.

And we're still just kind of hanging around as Russia fell apart. Just waiting for the word? Yeah. And a lot of them were deserting. Now, the Red Guard also had other foreign backers. Strangely enough, in one case, they were trained and led by the British Royal Navy

in the case of what is known as the Murmansk Legion, hilariously earning themselves the name of the Royal Reds, which is the weirdest monarchist communist? That's something that exists now? I'm still surprised. What the fuck? It's a weird footnote in history. Now, the

Finnish White Guard forces were led by someone who'd become a legendary Finnish military hero and carl gustav von manorheim they also benefited from foreign backers now manorheim had actually been a officer in the czarist russian army because all of the satellite kingdoms and duchies and everything else of the of the russian empire would serve within the russian imperial army they also had a lot of uh foreigners, though in their case is the German Imperial Forces.

They also funded, trained, and in many cases helped them side by side. Which, spoiler alert about World War I, things don't end well for the Empire of Germany. Now, in neither side was an organization

prepared for combat when they were all just thrown together on the fly. It quickly became apparent that the white side was better off. Since 1915, thousands of Finns, known as the Jaeger Corps, would go on to join the German Imperial Army. And create the Jaeger bone. They got some of the best training you could possibly receive at the time because the German Imperial army, despite, you know,

largely being blamed for world war one was one of the best trained militaries in the war. So the Jaeger core guys got some of the best training available on earth. They then went back to Finland and because they were trained by the Imperial Germans, 99% of them ended up joining the white side of the Civil War. Okay. Yeah.

So that was a pretty solid backbone to base that off of. Meanwhile, the Finnish Reds seemed just as interested in fighting amongst themselves as they did to fight the whites. They never really could get their shit together. Sounds like a bar brawl. Yeah. There was a lot of ideological fighting going on there, like people fighting over leadership.

Also, one of the key things that came up was they never could get administration over the areas that they managed. So in a war like this, manpower obviously becomes very, very important. And the white side managed to administer their areas decently well and implement conscription. So they could get more bodies to the front rapid. The Reds never could do that and while i'm kind of ideologically on the side of the reds here uh they kind of fucked this up um they never did get their shit together in the civil war only lasted four months wow yeah uh now there was i need to point out there's horrible war crimes on both sides um

and we will go into that that a little bit further later on because there is very much a fracture in Finnish society after the Civil War, like most civil wars, I would imagine. The problem was, is while the Finns had successfully thrown off the Russian yoke, they had simply fallen into a German one

with Imperial Germany wanting to put their own puppet emperor on the throne. They even had a guy in Finland waiting to take up the the job a prince friedrich karl who was not finnish i thought the cia almost jumped in here oh i mean it's kind of funny i see a lot of color in this as i did like the second mexican empire when they're like you austrian guy you're in charge of mexico now um now that plan went out the window when germany got their asses kicked at the end of world war one leaving finland to finally go their own way though the scars of that civil war ran pretty deep finland may have been free but it was not united the war killed around 40 000 people and alienated the entire labor movement labor unions

even got outlawed um like they said like the companies do not have to negotiate with labor unions and stuff kind of like you know the wet dream of america currently today 10 000 like tens of thousands of red soldiers died in camps due to a combination of diseases like the spanish flu which killed millions across the world at that time, and food shortages, which caused starvation. Also, there was just straight-up mass executions. A lot of the camps, I mean, they're concentration camps. They were effectively turned into death camps.

The communist veterans who survived the war largely blamed the White Guards, who they nicknamed the Butcher Guards for their plight. This point of contention wasn't exactly healed when the white guards stuck around after the war continuing alongside the new finnish defense forces as a kind of volunteer militia so it was kind of like if these guys killed and like a lot of this is region-based like they called them red villages a lot of the the more rural villages joined the communists and so a lot of the the violence was very very regional so like there's a good chance if you fought in the civil war on

on this on the left side you're all your cousins probably did too and they all probably died yeah and now like the white guard still around walking around the border guard which now patrols your village oh so it's like there's factions here. I wouldn't feel really good about that. The Soviet Union, realizing that they had bigger problems, eventually normalized their relationship with the Finns throughout the years after the Civil War.

They signed a Treaty of Tartu, which finalized the borders between the two countries, though that did not mean the two nations did not constantly fuck with one another Finnish soldiers crossed the border into the Soviet Union to help fight and spark and fight the East Karelian uprising in 1921

and the Soviets returned the favor when communist guerrillas crossed into Finland in the so-called pork mutiny of 1922 pork mutiny yeah now it's just because it happened at a pork plant. Now, this was in reality more of a strong-armed robbery

because what it really was is just a bunch of Red Guard veterans robbed a logging yard's cash box at gunpoint and ran back across the border before the white guards could show up. So they just kind of robbed a guy. So where's the pork? It just happened adjacent to a pork farm. Oh, okay. I thought it was in relation to 5150.

Now, this brings us to the Soviet Union. And this isn't just Lenin's Soviet Union. Lenin's dead. This is now Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. Oh, Stalin's. Now, Stalin hated the idea of a free Baltic region. Stalin hated everything. Stalin hated most things. Yeah free Baltic region Stalin hated everything Stalin hated most things

that's not a man who enjoyed anything he hated his mustache no I think that was his only friend that was close to him he's a man who frowned while having sex don't picture Stalin having sex he probably kept his full uniform on lights off

hole through the sheet. And then afterwards, you got purged. You died. Yeah. He's like a female pre-mantus. His mustache bit your head off after you had sex. His mustache pulled out a fucking gun. Now, Stalin believed that this whole area was

Russia's because it had been part of the Russian Empire. He also thought it was a sign of Lenin's weakness that he allowed the empire to slip away. Stalin was a renowned asshole and murderer who also was profoundly paranoid about what was going on in the USSR. So as Finland attempted to build their state, they did things that developing nations tend to do. Lean towards a world power sphere of influence. And since they had one hell of a history with Russia being oppressed and all, they went looking elsewhere. Finland sold off mining rights to the British and were involved in the German iron ore trade. Stalin saw this as two world powers that had moved into his backyard.

or a trade. Stalin saw this as two world powers that had moved into his backyard. There was also the small detail of East Karelia, which the Finns did help inflame, which was populated by Finnish people, but controlled by the Soviet Union. Finnish politicians constantly rallied about taking

it back, but nobody in their right mind ever thought Finland would launch war against their neighbor, who was ten times their size. It was nothing but talk. That is, if you were in your right mind. Stalin was not in his right mind. He's an asshole all the time. Despite Finland constantly talking about their neutrality in the event of any war,

Stalin simply thought they were biding their time. Finland went so far as to prove their point neutrality as they launched a PR campaign promoting pan-Scandinavian neutrality. Of course, Stalin saw this as Finland attempting to secure a pan-Scandinavian anti-Soviet alliance because that's what Stalin sees. Stalin is Zap Brannigan

from Futurama. I fucking love Zap. Constantly muttering about those goddamn neutrals. I fucking love Zap. Also, he controlled his military like the murder bots. Yeah. It seemed that no matter what

Finland did, it would immediately be misinterpreted by Stalin and the Soviet intelligence apparatus. For instance, when fascist movements sprung up in Finland, as they did across most countries in Europe in the 1930s, Stalin assumed they would be taking over when in reality they were just a flash in the pan.

Like they burned out pretty goddamn fast because most people had wanted nothing to do with them. Well, when those groups began circulating a map of something called Greater Finland, a hypothetical country that includes several parts of the Soviet Union, Stalin thought it was official government policy, which is just so levels of diluted I can't quite grasp it.

There's one constant in the Soviet side of things, is that all of the information that got to Stalin seemed to be the exact kind of thing that Stalin wanted to hear. He hated a free Finland, therefore he was looking for for reasons to why a free Finland was a threat. Well, the Soviet government was packed full of Stalin yes-men due to something that is now called the Great Purge. And if that name is anything to go by, things are about to get fucking bleak. The Purge began as a way for Stalin to consolidate power after he seceded Lenin. power after he seceded Lenin. Now, it was supposed to be a guy named Leon Trotsky

who had to run for his life to Mexico and then was killed by Isaacs, but Stalin wasn't supposed to be in charge, and Trotsky had a fair amount of loyalists within the military as he controlled the revolutionary army. So, when

Stalin took over, his attempts at consolidating power quickly spiraled out of control in an insane orgy of political violence that killed around a million people it's a lot Stalin unleashed the NKVD or the secret police which would become the KGB on the military

and various other functionaries of the Soviet government and onto its own people you can't have too many letters in an acronym he really likes his acronyms. He changes the... The NKVD's name changes so many fucking times. Like, at least five times. NKVD. That's just too many.

Yeah, and it's... It's like the back of your router. It's got all those fucking numbers. Yeah. The Soviets like him some abbreviated government agencies. Now, the purge began by taking out old allies of Lenin or Trotsky. This included most of the fathers of the Russian Revolution who were still alive. Many of them already died at that point.

They targeted old czarists who were still around and even the Russian church, arresting and executing or imprisoning around 85% of its clergy. Starting with people who could be considered right-wing or centrist, and quickly moving on and killing people who are not exactly the kind of communist that Stalin liked. Soon the arms of the government were turning against each other, and saying anything even remotely counter to Stalin's wishes would get you killed. People used this as a way to end old feuds, denouncing people that they had personal problems with in order to get them taken out by the NKVD. People were taken away by the nkvd and tortured until they named other people who were part of whatever imaginary scheme they had been accused of taking part of kind of creating a cycle works

an endless cycle of violence yeah like we've invented something it's perpetual energy but only for executions political executions became such a normal part of Soviet life that the executions and arrests had quotas. What? Yeah, they had government like you didn't take out enough anti-Stalinists.

And then the purge rolled into the Red Army. The purge of the Red Army began right at the top executing three of the five marshals of the Soviet Union. Then killed eight of the

nine admirals of the Navy. 50 of the 57 Corps commanders, 154 of 184 division commanders, and literally all of the currently employed army political officers or commissars. Every single one. In the end, at least 7%,

but up to 30% of the entire officer corps of the Red Army was destroyed or sent away to caps. And then all of those commissars were replaced with Stalin loyalists. So it really isn't much of a shock that whenever an intelligence agent briefed Stalin on Finland, he was like, yep, those sure are some fascists and they're going to invade Russia. Please don't kill me. I love my family. In 1938, a low-level diplomat in the Soviet embassy in Helsinki, Boris Yartsev,

approached the Finnish prime minister and said it would be in his best interest if he began negotiations with the Soviet Union. The reason for this, according to Yartsev, was the worsening of the international situation. The rise of Nazi Germany could not be ignored, and Stalin was worried that the Nazis and the Finns would join forces and the Nazis could use Finland as a springboard for an invasion into Soviet Russia. Yartsev said that if a war began between Germany and the USSR, they would be forced to, quote, go ahead and meet the enemy, which was an obvious veiled threat to invade Finland. Russia wanted a positive guarantee that this would never happen. When the prime minister asked what that would consist of, what a positive guarantee was, Yartsev say he could not actually say as that was above his pay grade.

The Finnish government impressed upon Yartsev. They would resist any armed invasion of Finland, Nazi, Soviet, or otherwise. This is obviously, uh, this is,

it's, it's pretty obvious what that statement meant. Like we're, we're neutral. We're just here to protect Finland. Please leave us alone. Yards have pointed that out, that Stalin would not be scared due to Finland's military weakness.

And that was not that big of a bluff. But if the Finns would back up their statement with a gesture of goodwill, say leasing the USSR, some islands off in the Gulf of Finland, that might work. He's trying to, he's like really bad at getting a bribe, is what it is.

Yeah. This is laughed off as the USSR doesn't lease anything. It takes it over, and the prime minister knew that. He's like, I'm not giving you anything. We're right next door. We've been watching what's been happening.

The Soviets did not come back until 1939 when they again asked for the islands in exchange for a slice of eastern Karelia. Gustav Mannerheim, knowing the weakness of Finland's army, said, yeah, we should probably take this deal. The islands were barren nothingness. There's literally nothing to them. And he knew that if they kept poking the Soviets

with their refusal to give them stuff, they might do something crazy. You haven't given us our Tupperware back. Like, this is like you're cornered by an attack dog. Like, we have to give him something or we're going to have to fight this motherfucker now, like our chances. Hey, me backed up into a corner,

I'll get a little frisky. Yeah, the Finland is going to get frisky, eventually. But the politicians dismissed Mannerheim's pleas in favor of nationalist arguments. In the meantime, the world began to change. The Nazis in Wieden took over more territory, creeping closer and closer to the USSR. Stalin's paranoia was no longer focused at Western powers and their long tradition of anti-communism. Instead, it was directed directly at Hitler. The thing is, Hitler knew that too. And that was when Nazi Germany approached the USSR to offer them a deal.

Due to the racial hatred that the Nazis had for the Slavs, everybody but Stalin himself understood this to be a temporary arrangement. But Stalin thought it might as well be an alliance. And that was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which was a secret that agreed. So it was a non-aggression agreement. That part was public. But the secret part was

they got to split Eastern Europe into spheres of influence. It defined what those were with each side picking what they wanted and each of them splitting Poland in the middle, which they did literally during invasion on 17 September that same year. There was also some continued talks about Stalin possibly joining the Axis. Those didn't go very far. Because, and this is important,

Hitler thought he wasn't a human. So... Yeah. Slowly but surely, the Eastern nations that would make up the Warsaw Pact were absorbed in the Soviet Union. And it kind of followed a trend. First, their foreign ministers would be invited to Moscow for a high-level meeting.

And then they'd be forced to agree to terms that were known as a mutual assistance treaty, which in reality stripped them of their independence and absorbed them into the Soviet Union. On October 5th, Finland was sent that same invitation. They made huge sweeping demands from the Finns, demanding that they hand over huge parts of their country, destroy their military defenses on the border, and allow Russian troops to be stationed within their country. The Finnish government was split. Many saw this for what it was, a slow, creeping takeover. Others, which surprisingly included Gustav Mannerheim, said they should take the deal in order to postpone any armed conflict. Finland attempted to negotiate their way out of the situation.

And wouldn't you know it, that only made Stalin more paranoid. I feel like Stalin just gets paranoid over it. What do you mean they didn't immediately say yes? That's the giving me of their entire country. Stalin was not used to being rejected by minor powers and thought it was suspicious that the Finns with their destitute military would have the balls to tell him to fuck off.

Clearly, the only reason they could be doing this was if they had some kind of secret agreement with the Nazis. Those bastards! Which is weird, because like, Stalin, you had a secret agreement with the Nazis. Oh no, shh, shh, shh. Remember, Stalin was

surrounded by bootlickers and sycophants. Everywhere he turned, he was being told by someone how easy it would be to just steamroll the Finns. And how good his mustache was. Sir, your mustache is second to none. Can I touch it? Andrei Zhennov, who was the political boss of Leningrad,

was eager to tell Stalin just how unsettled the Finnish working class was. And if the Red Army stormed in, they'd be treated like heroes. What? It sounds pretty dumb, right? Jesus.

I'd be cold. Another, the Helsinki embassy guy, was feeding Stalin full of bullshit about the rigors of everyday Finnish life, how people were starving, how they wanted to be liberated by the champions of the proletariat,

and how the Finnish army was largely unarmed and not even wearing shoes. They're not wearing shoes. They're just wearing skis. It was shit so out there that even someone who laps up sycophant bullshit like Stalin was like, this seems too good.

He believed it. Of course he did. That was when the Soviet news agency TASS and their publications began pumping out propaganda that said much of the same thing. One paper said, quote, the Finnish army is made up of peasants and working class who have no desire to pour out their blood for the benefit of landowners and the bourgeoisie.

Stalin read these papers, which remember, had to follow what Stalin wanted. They were his papers. Yeah, and he immediately believed them. Like, this is some good writing. Yeah. Because if they didn't pump out exactly what Stalin wanted, they would just

disappear in the middle of the night. But then in the final meeting between the two sides on November 9th, there was no animosity whatsoever. Despite what everybody assumed was Stalin's blood rage by his self-induced brainwashing,

it became clear that the two sides were just not going to come to an agreement. But they were all super pleasant with one another. In a calm but understanding manner, the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov hugged his Finnish counterpart and said with a smile, revoir he spoke french and then that was fucking random yeah and stalin um spoke uh shook hands with everybody who was there and wished them all the best and said he'd

talk to him on christmas he fucking dirty sanchez his own hand it's like the scene from Mallrats Chocolate pretzel Yeah But then only a few weeks later Helsinki would be on fire From Soviet bombs And that is where we'll pick up next week Damn it Stalin is a two-faced bitch He is

He's also a dirty bastard Yeah bro we're cool Au revoir Why does his hand smell like shit? Mmm, chocolate. Mmm, borscht. Hey, when people get sent somewhere, it's Serbia,

right? Or is it the Gulag? Is that in Serbia? Siberia. Siberia, there we go. Fuck, I was getting the eyes in these. God damn it. Serbia is a different country. Siberia is still part of Russia to this day. Yeah.

Funny story about that. Siberia or Serbia? Siberia. Go on. So, random ass person me and my buddies met from Siberia of all places. So, at first we met her, yada, yada. She's kind of cool. We were all at the bar and we were just like,

so where are you from? Because we knew she fucking wasn't from here. She was like, oh, Siberia. And one of my buddies goes, watch out. Her fucking parents are probably fucking assholes. Her family probably did some bad shit. I mean, unless they were native, you're probably right. Well, I mean, to be fair, a lot of the crimes they did

were just like they didn't have they didn't grow a stalin mustache or they had too much rice they didn't do the like normal stalin stuff yeah it was uh stalin was a huge piece of shit i'm glad we're covering him again we've never covered stalin before we haven't not we did we've never gone when we've covered him we've covered st never covered Stalin before. We haven't? Not, we did. We've never gone. I could have sworn we've covered him before. We've covered Stalin-ist times. Yeah.

Like Pavlov's house. But we never really talked about Stalin. We didn't talk about Stalin a lot. Oh, in this one. Yeah. Yeah. Because this was strictly Stalin. Cool.

Yeah. This one has a lot to do with his really bad grasp at international relations and military command. You don't need it. You know? You don't need it when you have like, I don't need it. You know? You don't need it when you have, like, I don't need skills. I have a hundred million soldiers to throw at you.

And that's largely correct. Like when you try to throw seeds at one of your buddies, like to try and get a few in his mouth, maybe. I don't play that game. No? I never have. Were you on a baseball team ever? No.

Makes sense. Never mind. Okay. Popcorn, maybe? Sure. Sure. God damn it. I'd never have were you on a baseball team ever no makes sense never mind okay popcorn maybe sure sure god damn it fuck you I generally don't throw things into people's mouths alright whatever uh so that is

part one of the winter war thank you for tuning in um I think what you do is worth a buck you can throw it to us on patreon um we have a a a merchandise store on Teespring. Teespring backslash linesledbydonkeys. Pretty cool shirts. Yeah.

If you want to spread the word, share, and review our podcast, you can follow us on Twitter at lines underscore buy. You can follow me, jcast99. You can follow Nick at nickcastm1. And we will see you next week.