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Abstract
The Soviet war against Finland (1939-40) is generally seen as a fiasco because the U.S.S.R. failed to conquer and absorb Finland, as Joseph Stalin had planned; and the Finns inflicted losses on the Red Army that were far out of proportion to the small size of their army and their own casualties. Access to fresh sources, archival and memoir, suggest that although the Soviets fell short of their political goals and performed dismally in combat, the Red Army was far more militarily effective than was appreciated by the Soviet military and political leadership, the German armed forces high command, and contemporary observers.
The Soviet Union's war with Finland, commonly referred to as the Winter War, began on 30 November 1939 with an unprovoked attack by the U.S.S.R. and ended on 12 March 1940 with a negotiated peace that vastly favored the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Soviet war against Finland is universally seen as a fiasco for two reasons: first, Joseph Stalin's secret goal was to conquer the country and absorb it into the Soviet Union, yet Finland remained an independent and sovereign state; and second, the losses the Finns inflicted on the Red Army were far out of proportion to the small size of the Finnish army and the casualties it suffered. The perspectives offered by time and access to fresh sources, archival and memoir, suggest that although the Soviets fell short of their political goals and performed dismally in combat, the Red Army was far more militarily effective than appreciated by the Soviet military and political leadership, Adolf Hitler and the German armed forces high command, contemporary observers-most notably Winston Churchill-and, in the generations since, historians. Contemporaries such as news correspondent Alexander Werth and Soviet generals, as reflected in their memoirs, viewed the Winter War in overly pessimistic terms.1 Later, historians John Erickson, David Glantz, and Albert Seaton, to name a few, followed the initial trend in missing the clues of Red Army effectiveness offered by the Winter War, reporting only the negative aspects of Soviet military efficiency in that conflict.2
The conclusion that, in fact, the Winter War showed the Red Army to be effective is derived from using, as a baseline, the following criteria of military effectiveness: the army overall...