Why did Russia lose the Winter War?

Of course the Finns say that he wanted to take over completely, it is a core part of the national myth that despite losing they maintained their independence through their vigorous efforts. But Soviet and most outside historiography says Stalin didn't really want to take over all of Finland. Had the Finns totally collapsed, he wouldn't have been opposed to taking them over, but it was certainly not his main objective.

Keep in mind if Stalin had really wanted to take over Finland, he could have done so easily in 1944/5, and no one would have stopped him. But once the parts that were close to Leningrad were annexed, the rest of the country was strategically unimportant, so it wasn't worth it

You're both saying almost identical things

>Stalin technically could have taken over Finland
>Finnish resistance during the Winter War and Continuation War demonstrated that it wouldn't be worth Soviet resources to do so

Thats not what they claim. Tell us one reason why would Stalin need to stop after breaking the Mannerheim line in 1940 or after the annihilation of the Krauts in summer 1944, Finns werent a thread anymore, they could have been finished before 1945 or after the Krauts got defeated.

*threat

Yes, but the dispute is over what his original objective was. The narrative goes he was planning to make Finland an SSR, but heroic Finnish resistance dissuaded him. The reality is he only ever wanted part of the country, briefly considered taking the whole thing when it looked like it might be possible, but then decided it wasn't worth it. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one: there's no evidence that Stalin was ever even a little dissatisfied with the eventual outcome, he got everything he really wanted.

Clemmesen, Michael H.; Faulkner, Marcus, eds. (2013). Northern European Overture to War, 1939–1941: From Memel to Barbarossa. Brill. p. 76.
Based on the secret protocols of the molotov-ribbontrop pact.

They won. They just had a lot of casualties.

I've seen a lot of "Finland winning the Winter War" threads around.

Are they some kind of spy-ops trying to build a narrative that would support the notion of the US winning the Vietnam war?

Finland was in the Finnish sphere of influence through the entire Cold war, does it mean it got annexed?

*Soviet sphere of influence

It had a lot to do with the great purge

youtube.com/watch?v=AiA8dKNcjjk

TLDR: removes a small total percentage of the officer core but heavy target the upper ranks. At the same time that the red army is growing by a very amount. Then cut the total length of officer training and add in a lot of political shit that takes up the rest of the time.

I checked it out, I must say I'm skeptical of Sokolov's assertions here, as he doesn't seem have to much other evidence besides the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which as pointed out was ambiguous in that sphere of influence can mean a lot of different things, plus the fact that on the very next page he seems to endorse Suvorov's discredited "Icebreaker" thesis by saying Stalin made peace with Finland in order to prepare for a preemptive attack on Germany. The editor's note at the beginning of this article even admits:
>This chapter provides a deliberately provocative alternative evaluation of Soviet strategy in the two years prior to the German attack in late June 1941. Due to the still extremely limited and fragmented accessibility of sources, it is built on new use of what is available. The character of the Soviet regime and the current official Russian unwillingness to challenge the traditional narrative of the start of the Great Patriotic War makes it
impossible to conclusively prove the author’s thesis with quotes and footnotes.
So it seems this article is an attempt to be "stir the pot" by suggesting alternative possibilities, but doesn't really prove anything. Still interesting.

1) They won the winter war it was just a pyrrhic victory
2) Another major factor was Stakin just purged most of the armies leadership and officers.

Why did they leave out the officer corp being devastated after the purges

Stalin wanted nickel deposits in the North
He offered Finland peace if they ceded the territory

>.t paranoid eurofag

No
100th anniversary of Finnish independence was yesterday (although it has little to do with the winter war)

"Sphere of influence" in the context of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact meant outright occupation in ALL cases; at the very least, it shows that he was not only interested in Karelia and nothing else

They feared the Finnish warrior.

1. They didn't lose
2. Stalin went on an autistic general removal chimpout a few years prior

But they did tho

>Negotiate a peace when the enemy controls ground in your nominal ally with a "status quo on the ground"
>Not a loss even if you don't think that the U.S. isn't putting a face saving on the inevitable when the Charlies attack again.

you do realize that even during the winter war Stalin already created a puppet government for the soon to be socialist republic of Finland?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Democratic_Republic

They clearly wanted to turn Finland into a vassal state like how they did to all the eastern-european countries after WW2

It was only a victory on paper

>Russia lost the Winter War

user I have some bad news for you.

Just like most other wars. No amount of sucking suomi popsicle will change that. They held up pretty well, but lost in the end.

You may want to consider the Soviet ultimatum in context with those issued to other Baltic states (of which Finland was considered one of at this time) - and the fates they sealed.

Finland won.

You really don't have to be this much of a faggot because of ebin memes

>Military History Visualized

You only watch this trash youtube channel because you can't read yourself and need to be spoon feed false information

Nigger detected

>lose 30% of your territory and population
>get cucked and turned into a military outpost for 30 years
>pay massive war reparations
>”won”

Russia dropped a shit ton of pamphlets on communism into Finnish cities when they bombed them, of course these pamphlets really just disgusted the Finns since they were so low quality, and many of the people in Finland at the time worked in the paper industry, considering the pamphlets as not even good enough quality to wipe their asses with.

>Soviet soldiers were mostly issued bolt action rifles and heavy maxim HMGs unsuited for close range forest combat while finns were heavily equipped with SMGs and LMGs
Misconception. While they did have Suomis and Lahti-Salorantas, they didn't have them in any greater per-capita numbers than the Soviets. It was only in the Continuation War that they reached the levels you're talking about, and even then (and well into the 50s) it was bolt-actions and Maxims most of the way.

The state of this board is absolutely disgusting.
Are you serious?

Otherwise correct, but there's a few things that lessen your point.

>30% of population
They evacuated Finnish Karelia, and war casualties were not that high
>turned into a military outpost for 30 years
Uh, what?

but they won
T: finn

>Russia lose the Winter War
Where is Karelia, is it in Russia or Finland?

come the fuck on, he's obviously a very educated person and way more credible than people like lindybeige

half of your points were total bullshit. They did lose 30% of their territory and had to pay massive war reparations, however. And yes, they did lose so I don't understand why people claim that Finland won winter war and continuation war despite doing really really well against the worlds largest army

Let's settle for this. Finns won Winter war and Russians won Crimean War. The initial goals of allies there also had not been achieved and they took heavy losses. But you Finns will have to persuade Bongs, Frogs, Turks and Spaghetti people yourself.

Those are correct but theres more

>3m snow impassable for basically the whole red army while finnish ski troops move quickly and easily
>only a few narrow roads link the countries, easily blocked by a knocked out tank or artillery bombardment
>short days and bad weather mean red air force does basically nothing
>few officers left over from the purges are idiots with no initative
>purges also get rid of most experienced trainers, most tank crews have only an hour or so actual training

>short days and bad weather mean red air force does basically nothing

People always give shit to Hitler for invading USSR in late June but Stalin gets the prize for invading Finland less than a month before shortest day of the year and after winter had already begun.

>>Soviet troops had no winter uniforms amking them completely uncamouphlaged and easy to spot and kill.

The Finns used this for their propaganda, too.

the truth is it became /pol/ v2 years ago.

Veeky Forums is no man's land between the trenches of pol and leftypol

Well their war plan was to take over finland in two weeks. They also didnt bring winter gear because obviously the fighting would be over in 2 weeks.
The initial plans of the of the soviet invasion was basically based on decades old intel and Stalin used some new bootlickers plan who insisted they could totally take over finland in 2 weeks. Stalin himself wanted to take over the country in 2 weeks to show off the might of the new soviet army. Basically he wanted to show he could do the blitzkrieg like Hitler could.

Stalin clearly wanted to turn Israel and Germany into the puppet government because Jewish Autonomous Oblast and German Volgan Republic existed.

I didnt knew that great coats and fur coats are not winter uniforms.

They are winter clothes, yes. But the Finns had white snow camouflage suits that helped conceal them while the Russians had dark green tunics like the man in this picture.

dank meme

You can compare the Russian outfit to this Finnish NCO's.

I'm not saying that the Russians had NO snow suits. They just didn't have nearly enough of them.

>Junior Lieutenant
>NCO

>propaganda that tells soviets to look at their own clothes and that they are not suited for this war exists and was spread around

>autistic freak on Veeky Forums says otherwise 80 years later

>propaganda says the truth
Not to mention it doesnt talk about the uniforms being bad.