What Stalin Knew (14 page)

Stalin create the FDG? Was it merely a device to appease the League of

Nations by claiming that the Soviet Union had been asked by the Finnish

Democratic Republic to come to its assistance? If so, it didn’t work, and on

December 14 the USSR was unanimously expelled from the League of

Nations. Did Stalin really believe, as Vaino Tanner said, that it was merely

a matter of parading to Helsinki, ‘‘where . . . the Russian forces would find

themselves . . . joyously acclaimed as liberators’’?14

In accordance with the Meretskov plan, the Seventh Army moved

north against stiff Finnish resistance. The entire Finnish frontier security

zone was heavily mined, fortified, and defended; the Red Army troops were

no match for the warmly clad Finns with their Suomi submachine guns.

The main elements of the Seventh Army would not reach the Mannerheim

Line until December 12. This fortified area was begun in the 1920s; work

then slacked off and was taken up in the late 1930s. By the summer of 1939

thousands of volunteers had participated in the construction work. The

name ‘‘Mannerheim’’ is said to have been given to the area by the foreign

journalists who were shown it in the autumn of 1939. The line, which

covered the entire Karelian Isthmus from Lake Ladoga to the Gulf of Fin-

land, relied to a great extent on the natural obstacles of lakes and rivers. It

was up to ninety kilometers in depth. The reinforced concrete emplace-

ments were two stories high, their machine and artillery embrasures, as

well as the roofs, covered by armor plate. Taken together with the marshy

and heavily forested terrain, the Mannerheim Line was virtually impene-

trable by infantry and armored vehicles. This accounted for the Seventh

Army’s lack of progress whereas the Ninth Army, expected to advance into

central Finland, found itself in trackless forests, harassed by Finnish ski

troops, with some units, such as the Forty-fourth Rifle Division, totally

surrounded. Elements of the division managed to escape toward the Soviet

frontier by abandoning their supplies and equipment. Some observers put

Soviet losses by early December at 25,000 killed.

54

THE FINNS FIGHT

The spectacle of ‘‘gallant Finland’’ standing up to the Soviet colossus

aroused public opinion in the West, and although efforts to enlist volun-

teers to fight for Finland came to naught, the image of the Soviet Union

throughout the world was badly battered. Even worse, by subjecting his

army to these humiliating defeats, Stalin gave ammunition to Hitler and

his generals, whose opinion of the Red Army was formed on the experi-

ences of the Winter War.15

Something had to be done. Very quickly a Thirteenth Army was cre-

ated consisting of two rifle corps of two divisions each. On January 7, 1940,

the Northwest Front was created under the command of Semen K. Timo-

shenko, who was brought up from the Kiev Special Military District. Me-

retskov was given command of the Seventh Army, which, with the new

Thirteenth Army, would try again to crack the Mannerheim Line. The

troops would spend the next several weeks training. All elements of this

new command were strengthened by the addition of new troops and,

above all, new commanders. The front chief of staff was I. V. Smorodinov,

formerly deputy chief of the general staff; Yevgeny S. Ptukhin, another

Spanish civil war veteran, was commander of the front air forces. A new

Fifteenth Army was created while the new commanders of the Eighth and

Ninth armies were Grigory M. Shtern and Vasily I. Chuikov, seasoned

officers.

In an offensive begun on February 11, the Red Army broke through the

Mannerheim Line, then moved on a secondary belt of defenses around

Vyborg, which it captured. The Finns sued for peace and the Winter War

ended on March 13, 1940. The subsequent treaty restored the old fron-

tier established under Peter the Great. Soviet losses, however, were enor-

mous, and the blow to Stalin’s prestige and to that of the Red Army was

massive.16

Stalin knew, of course, that he was responsible for two of the worst pre-

war assumptions—that the entire military phase could be accomplished by

the Leningrad Military District alone and that the creation of the Finnish

Democratic Republic would work either to attract Finnish support or to

deflect criticism abroad of Soviet actions. He therefore sought a scapegoat,

and he found it primarily in the person of I. I. Proskurov, the military

intelligence chief. Other, purely military problems that had surfaced dur-

ing the war also needed attention. To deal with them and to divert atten-

tion from his own role in the events and decisions preceding the war,

Stalin prepared a major conference to be held under Central Committee

auspices to review the lessons of the ‘‘military operations against Finland.’’

THE FINNS FIGHT

55

In attendance would be army, corps, and division commanders, represen-

tatives of the Defense Commissariat and the general staff, and political

workers. They would discuss failures in the condition of the armed forces

and their equipment, the system for training troops, as well as the state of

intelligence.17

The conference began on April 14, 1940, only a month and a day after

the end of the war, and lasted through April 17. The timing suggests Stalin’s

sense of urgency. Although he himself would be present, he selected as

joint chairmen of the conference Defense Commissar Kliment Ye. Voroshi-

lov and Grigory I. Kulik, his cronies going back to the defense of Tsaritsyn

(later Stalingrad and now Volgograd) in the civil war. This way he was able

to control the agenda and the selection of speakers. Thus, the question of

inadequate intelligence was first raised in a substantive fashion at the

morning session on April 16, the next-to-last day of the conference. It was

discussed again at that day’s evening session and a final time the next

morning, with Proskurov present. The conference ended with the creation

of a commission to review the conference’s findings. Proskurov was among

those named to the commission.18

The complaints regarding intelligence began at the morning session

on April 16 with Ivan I. Kopets, commander of the air units of the Eighth

Army in the Finnish conflict and a veteran of the Spanish civil war.19 Ac-

cording to him, the intelligence material on Finland in the headquarters of

the Leningrad Military District dated back to 1917, the most recent to

1930: ‘ We had nothing from agent operations.’’ Kopets was followed by

Kiril Meretskov, Seventh Army commander, who said, ‘ We had no real

understanding of the Mannerheim Line. There was information but it

never got to us. Also, we attacked without preliminary study and detailed

intelligence on the enemy.’’ Later, however, Meretskov said: ‘ We accused

agent intelligence operations of not having given us detailed reports. Here

we should know limits; it is impossible to always blame intelligence. For

example, we had an album of the enemy’s fortifications; we were able to

orient ourselves using it. I kept it on my desk. But agent intelligence is not

enough, you must have good combat reconnaissance.’’ (Meretskov cited an

example from the recent fighting.) Then he asked Proskurov rhetorically,

‘‘Can you tell me who manages combat reconnaissance?’’20

At the evening session on April 16, Chief of the General Staff Shaposh-

nikov was called on. He noted that agent intelligence provided very little

information on the enemy’s operational plan: ‘ We had, as the commander

of the Leningrad Military District has said, fragmentary bits on the belts of

56

THE FINNS FIGHT

concrete fortifications on the Karelian Isthmus. These bits were general

information but we did not know the depth of the defenses, as described by

the commander of the Leningrad Military District. The same is true re-

garding the deployment of the Finnish forces. Intelligence told us that the

Finns in wartime would have up to ten infantry divisions and separate

battalions. . . . The Finns actually possessed up to 16 infantry divisions and

several separate battalions.’’21

The confrontation between Stalin and Proskurov occurred during the

morning session on the last day of the conference. Kulik, defender of

Tsaritsyn, was in the chair. Proskurov opened by commenting that intel-

ligence had been mentioned by most of the commanders who had spoken.

Stalin interrupted to say, ‘‘No, there will be more.’’ Proskurov said he would

be happy if that were the case, then went on:

What did we know about the Finns? We consider that for a general

estimate of the forces required to neutralize the enemy, Intelligence

had the information needed to start. Intelligence reported this infor-

mation to the General Staff. This was not something done by the

present staff of the Intelligence Directorate, since the basic informa-

tion related to the years 1937–1938. We knew as of October 1st, 1939

that Finland had constructed on the Karelian isthmus three defen-

sive lines and two switch positions. The first defensive line was in-

tended for covering units, and was located directly on the frontier

and anchored on Lake Ladoga and the Gulf of Finland. . . . Its for-

tifications consisted for the most part of structures of the field type:

rifle trenches, machine guns, and artillery. There were also anti-tank

structures and a small number, circa 50, of concrete, stone, and

earth-and-timber firing emplacements. These were the so-called for-

ward defensive positions. The second defensive line became known

to intelligence as of October 1st.

He was interrupted here by Lev Z. Mekhlis, head of the Red Army Political

Directorate: ‘‘October 1st of what year?’’ Proskurov answered, ‘‘1939,’’ and

went on to describe the second and third lines of defense and their concrete

bunkers, ‘‘which were in a sketch in the album which was always on Me-

retskov’s desk.’’ Meretskov interjected, ‘‘But not one corresponding to real-

ity.’’ ‘‘Nothing of the sort,’’ responded Proskurov, ‘‘the reports of unit com-

manders and intelligence showed that the majority of these firing points

were located where they were indicated on the sketches.’’ That was a lie,

Meretskov said, describing the locations of two points. Proskurov again

retorted, ‘‘Nothing of the sort.’’ Mekhlis broke in to ask, ‘‘When was this

material given to the General Staff?’ ‘‘Before October 1, 1939,’’ replied

THE FINNS FIGHT

57

Proskurov. ‘‘By that time it was known that the Finns were engaged in

major construction work. During the summer of 1939 in several reports it

was said that large quantities of construction materials were being brought

in but we did not have exact information on the second line. All the in-

formation about the fortifications we had was entered on maps in Len-

ingrad and distributed to troop units. What can be said of human re-

sources? . . . We knew the Finns had 600,000 men of military age. Trained

men amounted to 400,000. In addition there was the civil defense corps

composed of men and women. As for the machine pistol Suomi, it was

reported by intelligence in 1936. And in 1939 we provided additional detail

and photographs.’’ A discussion began on the utility of submachine guns

for infantry use.22

Stalin and Proskurov veered off into the question of why it took until

mid-December to disseminate to the troops information on the Finns’

fighting tactics. When Proskurov tried to explain that such information

had to be taken from archives, selected for pertinence, and then declassi-

fied before it could be disseminated, Stalin pretended not to know that

material from abroad was all classified and kept from the rank and file.

Proskurov repeated that they were not permitted to make foreign periodi-

cals available. At this point Stalin said to him, ‘ You don’t have the soul of

an intelligence officer; you have the soul of a very naïve man in the best

sense of the word. An intelligence officer must be steeped in venom, in bile;

he should trust no one. If you were an intelligence officer you would see

how those gentlemen in the West criticize one another: here, you’re bad

with a weapon, there, something else. You would see how they unmask

each other, expose one another’s secrets. If you would only come to grips

with how the other side works, make a selection, and bring it to the atten-

tion of the command, but no, your soul is too honest.’’ Not realizing that he

was in fact describing himself, Stalin went on: ‘ You can say the report is

from a nonexistent newspaper, from a nonexistent government, something

like that, or from foreign information, and so forth, and put it out. You

have to be able to do this. Just remove the heading, but leave the substance,