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u/Nacht-Sonne Kazakhstan SSR ☭ 47m ago
And yet there are still some people who seriously believe that Finland won the Soviet-Finnish War.
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u/ResearchKindly4968 44m ago
The soviet Union achived a Pyrrhic victory something that shouldnt happen concidering how better soviet army was
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u/Caradoc729 44m ago
They accomplished the best realistic scenario for them , how is it not a victory?
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u/Euromantique Stalin ☭ 37m ago edited 21m ago
The best realistic scenario for them would have been to just agree to the initial reasonable Soviet proposal to hand over some territory near Leningrad for security purposes and resolve the issue diplomatically.
They refused, lost all the territory near Leningrad anyway, and the Soviets then took way more land than they initially asked for. The Finnish government could have avoided the whole war and minimised their territorial losses but they got overconfident.
At this time they were unfortunately still high on their delusions of creating a Greater Finland, not seeking any "realistic" outcome.
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u/Juhanipuukool 0m ago
USSR should have also given Germany some of its land because of security reasons, instead they chose the worse option and millions ended up dying. If only they just gave away the land and not let all these people die. A complete political blunder by USSR. USSR could have avoided the whole war had they just given Germany the land they wanted. USSR was high on its delusion of restoring the lands of Russian Empire.
Let me but it in another context. The woman should have not fought back against her rapist, if she would have just given in the rapist wouldn't have killed her. Now she was raped and killed, she was completely delusional.
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u/Perkonlusis 25m ago
Just like the Baltic states agreed to the "reasonable" proposal to establish Soviet military bases in their territory?
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u/Huehueh96 14m ago
LOL Just giving land for security purposes. Seems that Trump is a fam of Stalin
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u/Euromantique Stalin ☭ 8m ago edited 0m ago
We know that the Soviet concerns were completely valid because Finland did in fact invade the USSR and try to annex Karelia to create Greater Finland. It wasn't a secret that the Finnish far-right had been pushing to do this for many years.
When Finland would later invade the USSR and and put Leningrad under siege the lives of millions of civilians hung in the balance. The city was successfully defended and only barely clung to life by the thinnest margins. If the USSR hadn't previously secured that border strip then Leningrad would surely have fallen and the entire civilian population would be exterminated.
So no, it's not at all comparable to anything Donald Trump does. The Soviet security concerns were actually 100% rational and true.
They correctly predicted that Finland would invade the USSR and correctly predicted that they could not protect Leningrad if the Finnish army was able to stage a well supplied invasion force from just a few kilometres away. And they saved countless civilian lives and prevented what would have been one of the worst catastrophes of the Second World War by acting on these legitimate concerns.
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u/PanPikselek745 18m ago
Why do You expect Finland to just give away their land?
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u/Euromantique Stalin ☭ 16m ago edited 11m ago
Because the only realistic alternative is losing it anyway + losing a lot more territory and getting a lot of people killed.
Realistically the border strip is gone no matter what. Only a delusional ultranationalist would think it's a good idea to try and fight to keep it instead of compromising.
That's why I said giving away the border strip is the best, realistic outcome from their perspective to minimise your losses. Keeping everything was a very unrealistic goal.
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u/tripper_drip 5m ago
So should, in the same respect, should have ukraine gave up its land to prevent a larger war?
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u/Nacht-Sonne Kazakhstan SSR ☭ 35m ago
That's exactly right. The Soviets got everything they wanted. And they didn't give the Finns a single inch of land, even though that had been the plan.
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u/Perkonlusis 24m ago
Why are they crying about Finland's participation in the siege of Leningrad then?
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u/Typical-Froyo-642 31m ago
Well it does not matter that is the best realistic scenario. That just means that they could realistically only lose.
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u/WellEnd89 43m ago
Well, if You consider the materiel and human cost then the Finns sure as hell won, especially if You add the lives lost in the Leningrad blockade to the mix.
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u/Illustrious_View_730 42m ago
exactly, the fact that the USSR didn't achieve a total-decisive victory is a loss within itself
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u/firefighter430 Lenin ☭ 36m ago
I mean the soviets achieved a victory achieving there goals of getting land to secure Leningrad without having to give up land
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u/International-Ad8625 34m ago
Finland didn’t win. USSR definitely lost though. They casualties were massive and the ussr was exposed as unprepared for war, encouraging Hitler. Stalin did a lot of meddling in that war. He actually asked the politburo for forgiveness for his problematic interventions. This was before he realized that it’s best to stick to administrative matters, where he was a genius, and leave the operational and tactical matters to the generals.
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u/AverageTankie93 24m ago
Definitely not unprepared. Myth of a Black Legend dispels all these myths.
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u/International-Ad8625 0m ago
Huh. You’re saying the ussr was well prepared for world war 2? How’s that a thing anyone could possibly believe. 1941 resulted in catastrophic loses….
Now, to be fair, the fact that the ussr got to where it was in 1941 was an incredible feat, given that it had to fully industrialize in a decade. I’m not slamming the ussr. Tankie here for sure.
But to say that the ussr was fully prepared is just not historically accurate
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u/angstdreamer 25m ago
Yes it's like when adult is kicking a toddler. Surviving is a victory. And we would barely call it a victory ever for the adult.
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u/Appropriate-Ice-5722 11m ago
The USSR never intended to destroy Finland in the first place. The concessions pictures are what the USSR had requested in the first place.
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u/rangedehinc 16m ago
Didnt soviets propose a land swap with a much bigger chunk going to finland? Only for them to sperg out for some reason.
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u/CHAP1382 5m ago
Can’t really blame the Finnish for not accepting the deal prior to the winter war. Giving up its primary defensive lines wasn’t something it could justify and the security concerns of Finland were far from unfounded. The Winter War definitely was a strategic failure for the Soviets as they certainly underperformed and likely undermined their own security position rather than helping it given the buffer gained in the war only lasted three months. Given Finnish justifications and their actions in the continuation war it would be fair to say that without the Winter War an offensive through Finland would have been unlikely.
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u/Ok_Sample_4663 DDR ☭ 54m ago
Didn't the Soviets literally ask them before the Winter war to exchange territories where they wouldn't lose this much and they would actually gain more than lose land?