Guys, I am asking if there are any sources/documents that imply the USSR wanted to full-blown annex Finland as an SSR like they did to the baltics, not puppetize it, for the sake of convenience since I was unable to find something mentioning this, I will put the proposed map of the FDR on the timeline, since I think it is very underrated and underused, also interesting that the USSR would cede its own territory to another country, even if that country is a puppet state and if that territory is useless.
It is also very hard to find bona fide 1939 Soviet documents that confirm Stalin's plans for annexing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the near future. Yet these countries were occupied and annexed by the USSR in 1940. Apart from Finland, all the territories given to the USSR's sphere in the final version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol were annexed by the USSR by 1941. Finland was an exception because it chose to fight, and also because of what we can only call historical contingency.
There is a lot of circumstantial evidence available for what Stalin's goals with Finland were, and if one reviews enough of the relevant sources and studies about the matter, I think it is most plausible to say that Stalin's goals with regards to Finland were very much in line with his goals towards the *other* three Baltic states to the south. The arguments that make Finland into a special case are, in my view, essentially based on hindsight and OTL bias, looking at events from a reality where Finland managed to survive through WWII as an independent nation. It is not realistic, IMO, to claim that Stalin saw Finland as a special case before the Winter War. It was the Finnish resistance in this war, and what followed from it, that changed Stalin's views about the matter of Finland.
I'll quote myself from an older thread:
There is a 2016 book on Stalin that was quite relevant for this issue,
Stalin ja Suomen kohtalo ("Stalin and Finland's destiny") by
Kimmo Rentola, a University of Helsinki history professor. I've already referred to it a couple of times on the forum by now. Rentola looks at Stalin's treatment of Finland between the 30s and his death, and attempts to explain why he did the decisions he did with regards to the small Western neighbour. What stands out from Rentola's treatment is that a) Stalin apparently never had a "masterplan" for Europe, but his plans were changing all the time, depending on changing circumstances, and b) the events of the Winter War were the crucial thing that branded the relations between Stalin and the Finnish leadership in 1940-1953. To read Rentola's well-sourced (if pretty compact) book, it then appears that it was only through the Winter War that Finland became a "special case" for Stalin - the Finnish will and ability to put up a resistance apparently had a significant effect on him in terms of how he viewed Finland. Before that, we might argue that he viewed Finland in the same light as the Baltic states, only differing from them in terms of its more northern and on balance more peripheral geographical position, not in terms of the justification of its national existence. After early 1940, though, Stalin apparently had a grudging respect towards Finland, in that the nation could put up a credible defence, and then attract foreign support for its cause (as manifested in the Allied intervention plans during the Winter War, of which Stalin had a distorted view, due to skewed sources).
Stalin's treatment of Finland during the Continuation War and after it should then be seen in this light, especially as his view about the Finnish will and ability to defend themselves was probably reaffirmed through the battles of the summer of 1944. But, if we accept Rentola's thesis, we should not project this acceptance by Stalin to treat Finland as a special case into the pre-Winter War situation, or into a TL where there is not Winter War, especially to one where the Finns would cave in to Soviet demands in 38-39. In such a TL, Stalin would have much less will to treat Finland in an almost cordial fashion. We need to remember that even if it is sometimes claimed that Stalin "always" had a bit of a soft spot for Finland, in the purges he absolutely decimated the cadres of Finnish Communist leaders and civil warriors who had escaped into Soviet Russia post-1918.
To put this in somewhat different words: Stalin was a careful, cynical opportunist. He had maximalist goals, but he knew when not to push his luck. That is to say that he was good in employing a cost/benefit analysis in his strategy. His goals in Finland were, well, totalitarian. But IOTL the events and circumstances conspired for him to not be able to realise his ultimate goals. In a different TL where nothing would seem to really prevent Finland from being annexed into the USSR in 1939-40, it would be unrealistic to expect Stalin to forgo that opportunity simply due to the goodness of his black heart, or due to having some imagined "soft spot" for the Finns. This was a man who killed millions with the stroke of a pen, and relocated and decimated entire ethnic groups at will.
The creation of a cabinet-in-waiting in the form of the Terijoki government was not something that happened after initial Soviet war aims were frustrated. It was brought into existence a day after the start of the Winter War, and we have every indication that Stalin expected to elevate these handpicked exiles into leadership in Helsinki on the back of Red Army bayonets.
Shortly after the formation of the Terijoki government, TASS declared that, "The People's Government in its present composition regards itself as a provisional government. Immediately upon arrival in Helsinki, capital of the country, it will be reorganised and its composition enlarged by the inclusion of representatives of the various parties and groups participating in the people's front of toilers. The final composition of the People's Government, its powers and actions, are to be sanctioned by a Diet elected on the basis of universal equal direct suffrage by secret ballot."
Molotov also informed German diplomats that, "This government will not be Soviet but a democratic republic. Nobody will set up soviets there, but we hope that it will be a government that we can reach agreement with on safeguarding the security of Leningrad." Of course, the idea that the Soviet government 'hoped to reach an agreement' with the Terijoki exile government was a convenient fiction, but nevertheless it does signal Soviet intentions.
This isn't even mentioning the number of agreements made with the 'Finnish Democratic Republic' regarding leasing the Hanko Peninsula and other territories in exchange for the turning over of parts of Karelia. I think all the evidence points to the elevation of a puppet government in Helsinki rather than outright annexation of Finland in the USSR. Considering that they marketed the Finnish Democratic Republic as a legitimate authority internationally, it would make more sense to keep it sovereign anyways. Comparisons to the Baltic states and eastern Poland are a bit weak considering the very different circumstances between the Soviet annexations there and the Soviet diplomatic maneuvers during the Winter War.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were annexed by the USSR through a process where in 1940 "free elections" were held in these countries under Soviet occupation, a "people's parliament" was elected, and this parliament then humbly petitioned for these nations to be joined to the USSR. Which Moscow then graciously accepted, of course.
The fact that the "Finnish Democratic Republic" existed "legitimately" was in no way a guarantee against a similar chain of events happening in Finland. Quite to the contrary, Kuusinen's government being brought to power in Helsinki, propped up by the bayonets of the Red Army, might have just been the first step towards that very outcome. Finland would have been an ostensibly independent people's republic, but after some time the Finnish people's parliament would have seen it fit to ask to be joined into the great family of Soviet peoples. This would have been their
legitimate right, from Moscow's POV, and it would have been marketed as such in Soviet propaganda. This might not have happened immediately in the winter of 39-40, but Stalin might have pushed this forward for months to wait for a time when the Western powers would be suitably more distracted. IOTL the occupation and annexation of the Baltic states happened in the summer of 1940, during Hitler's invasion of France. It would be very plausible, IMO, to expect that if Finland was occupied by the USSR and the Kuusinen government was in power, the Finnish "plea" to be included in to the USSR as an SSR might have taken place at the same time as that of the *other* three Baltic states as well.
When you think about it, that offer of "better" borders to Finland is in fact a very strong indication of what Stalin wanted for Finland. Can you name a single country the USSR voluntarily gave any of its prewar territory during the WWII years? Even one that became a People's Republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact after the war? The mere idea of giving what was a sizable chunk of Soviet land in Karelia to "Kuusinen's Finland" shows that Stalin intended this not to be a border between independent nations, but one between administrative areas inside the USSR itself.
