Boundaries of what is prohibited

On March 14, at a meeting with members of the Military Historical Society and search teams, President Putin said that the Soviet Union, having started a war with Finland in 1939, was trying to correct the "historical mistakes" of the Bolsheviks and ensure the security of Leningrad

First of all, to establish the truth, I will say that talk about the miscalculations of the Bolsheviks is an absolute historical fiction. The independence of Finland was granted precisely within the boundaries in which the Grand Duchy of Finland had existed in the Russian Empire since 1809, and neither the Provisional Government nor the Bolsheviks questioned them. The only thing that Soviet Russia gave to Finland from a principality that was not part of the borders was the port of Pechenga on the Barents Sea. This was done to remove Finland's claims that the Bolsheviks in January 1918 unleashed a civil war in Finland, which was only ended in April 1918.

In his speech, Mr. Putin apparently remembered what he was taught, perhaps at the university, perhaps at the KGB school. And what we were all taught to some extent during the Soviet era: that the Soviet-Finnish war was necessary to defend Leningrad - the border was very close. Now, when we have a completely different volume of historical documents and books have been written and published on this subject, such statements are simply false. On August 23, 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact and secret appendices to this pact. It clearly stated that Finland, like the Baltics, like Eastern Poland, was falling into the sphere of Soviet influence. In pursuance of this agreement, in September-October 1939, agreements were concluded with the three Baltic republics: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - on their actual renunciation of sovereignty, because Soviet troops were introduced into their territory, Soviet naval, air force and army bases. And with Finland, the agreement did not work out, the Finns refused to sign it. And then it was decided - now all these documents are known - to start a war with Finland, and Stalin was deeply convinced that it would end in two weeks, maximum three, by the forces of one Leningrad military district - so he said at the military council.

The war began in the last days of November and, as you know, was not completed in two or three weeks - it was a heavy bloody campaign. The war was aggressive - in violation of all international treaties, the Soviet Union wanted to completely capture Finland, and by no means only push the border. Immediately after the war began, allegedly in Terioki (now Zelenogorsk), but in fact in Moscow, the puppet government of Kuusinen was created. It is absolutely known that it was supposed to unite Finland and Karelia into a single Karelian-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.

It did not work, because the Finns stopped the offensive of the Red Army, the international community was deeply outraged, the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nations. Here you have “pushing the border away from the city of five million”, although in fact the city was far from being five million at that time, but this is already a trifle. All of Europe intervened, except for Nazi Germany: since she signed an agreement with the USSR, she did not provide assistance to Finland. Stalin realized that if the war was not stopped, England and France would enter it, so he hurried to conclude a peace treaty. And already when peace negotiations began, he ordered to seize - thieves, boorishly - the city of Vyborg, which the Finns had defended before.

This is the context of this shameful war for the Soviet Union. But we are not the heirs of the Soviet Union. We would like to think that we are the heirs of all that is best in Russia, and therefore to justify this war is doubly wrong, historically erroneous and immoral. And if we continue to act the way Mr. Putin is acting – to defend Stalin’s foreign policy, then I think that there will be no dialogue, no rapprochement with either Finland or the European Union, or healing of the soul of the Russian people themselves.