Finnish SSR

I imagine that the Swedes would in fact either join NATO, or be in a very close partnership with NATO. Sweden will definitely be more militarised than OTL (in OTL, Sweden already has a very high-quality defense force, with very advanced equipment.

In regards to the minorities, given that the Swedish minority tended to have disproportionate political and economic power, they would probably be treated pretty badly. Vaasa would be an area with quite a lot of discontent. The Sami would probably be treated fairly well, with the possible exception of the reindeer herders (the Soviets didn't treat nomads in Central Asia very well), although a Kuusinnen government may be less harsh than Stalin's govt.

The Soviets in-general around this era were generally quite opposed to the idea of nomadic/pastoral lifestyles. And the Soviet sedenterization campaign in Central Asia was basically every bit as brutal as the collectivization of agriculture was in European Russia and Ukraine.
 
Still wondering why Stalin so humanely treated the Finns? Some believe that Stalin thanked them for not too involved in the Second World War. I think - this is nonsense, Stalin was missing sense of gratitude. But here's the enemy found himself in a hopeless situation, decent resistance, he could have respect.
There was such an apocryphal story about Marshal Budyonny. In 1937 they came to arrest him, he was in a country house, surrounded by aides. The guys rolled out the Machine Guns and put the NKVD-men on the ground. Several hours went shooting, then telephoned Budyonny Stalin: "You have a lot of bullets?" "Enough" - said Budyonny. Stalin thought about it and said, "Okay, I'll call Beria, let withdraws its people."
The next day, Budyonny, as if nothing had happened came to the Kremlin, and no one was arrested.
 
Weren't we talking about a post-WW Soviet conquest of Finland? Like say if Finland is completely overrun at the end of the Continuation War? Shouldn't be too hard - the Finnish army was in a state of total collapse at this point.

I was just wondering what others thought on what a Finnish Soviet Republic would look like. Sure, the Winter War does look like the most likely PoD, but that wasn't what interested me (did Moscow even want all of Finland?).
 
I was just wondering what others thought on what a Finnish Soviet Republic would look like. Sure, the Winter War does look like the most likely PoD, but that wasn't what interested me (did Moscow even want all of Finland?).

Yes, actually. The objective of the Winter War was the total conquest of Finland and its annexation to the Soviet Union.
 
Still wondering why Stalin so humanely treated the Finns? Some believe that Stalin thanked them for not too involved in the Second World War. I think - this is nonsense, Stalin was missing sense of gratitude. But here's the enemy found himself in a hopeless situation, decent resistance, he could have respect.
There was such an apocryphal story about Marshal Budyonny. In 1937 they came to arrest him, he was in a country house, surrounded by aides. The guys rolled out the Machine Guns and put the NKVD-men on the ground. Several hours went shooting, then telephoned Budyonny Stalin: "You have a lot of bullets?" "Enough" - said Budyonny. Stalin thought about it and said, "Okay, I'll call Beria, let withdraws its people."
The next day, Budyonny, as if nothing had happened came to the Kremlin, and no one was arrested.

I believe from a foreign relations standpoint, it was an issue of the Soviets not wanting to overtly antagonize the West by putting traditionally pro-Western Finland under their direct influence and settling instead for a neutral Finland that would make no trouble. In other words, it was part of a lot of give-and-take towards the end of the war in which the Soviets traded small concessions (of which Finland was one) for bigger ones like Poland.

Yes, actually. The objective of the Winter War was the total conquest of Finland and its annexation to the Soviet Union.

I'm not so sure on that. Soviet interests in Finland were primarily about securing their Baltic and White Sea access and protecting Leningrad. The ultimatum to Finland before the war primarily concerned things of that nature.
 
I believe from a foreign relations standpoint, it was an issue of the Soviets not wanting to overtly antagonize the West by putting traditionally pro-Western Finland under their direct influence and settling instead for a neutral Finland that would make no trouble. In other words, it was part of a lot of give-and-take towards the end of the war in which the Soviets traded small concessions (of which Finland was one) for bigger ones like Poland.



I'm not so sure on that. Soviet interests in Finland were primarily about securing their Baltic and White Sea access and protecting Leningrad. The ultimatum to Finland before the war primarily concerned things of that nature.
I do not think the West at that time was highly concerned about the fate of Finland - Poland was more important.
By the way, Marshal Mannerheim, located at that time in Switzerland, knowingly carried a poison. His name was struck from the list of war criminals, Stalin himself.
 
I believe from a foreign relations standpoint, it was an issue of the Soviets not wanting to overtly antagonize the West by putting traditionally pro-Western Finland under their direct influence and settling instead for a neutral Finland that would make no trouble. In other words, it was part of a lot of give-and-take towards the end of the war in which the Soviets traded small concessions (of which Finland was one) for bigger ones like Poland.

I think that there are some grounds to think that Stalin considered the Allies putting a fair bit of weight on the issue of Finland, what with the Anglo-French plans of intervening in the Winter War and the US not going to war against Finland in 1941-44. It did make him somewhat careful.

The other thing is that Stalin could respect strength. Finland managed to rebuff Red Army attacks in 1939-40 and 1944, ones that were calculated to be able to crush the Finnish defences. And the Finns managed to use the Germans to their benefit during the Continuation War, without becoming a puppet bending to Hitler's every wish. I think Stalin thought that the occupation of Finland, certainly within Soviet means, would be too expensive and difficult to the USSR in comparison to the limited benefits of controlling a peripheral border state. Stalin thus was content to neutralize Finland and tie it to the USSR with the FCMA Treaty a bit later. Let us remember that Finland, alone, would not be a threat to the USSR - only in alliance with a major foreign power. Now when Germany was down for the foreseeable future and Soviet troops stood in Central Europe, the threat presented by an independent Finland had become pretty small.


I'm not so sure on that. Soviet interests in Finland were primarily about securing their Baltic and White Sea access and protecting Leningrad. The ultimatum to Finland before the war primarily concerned things of that nature.

There is no question whether Stalin would have wanted to join Finland into the USSR. He did. But it was in no way a "do or die" goal - Finland had limited strategic value, it was out of the way in different regards. After reasonable resources had been thrown into beating the Finnish army and found to be lacking, Stalin called it a day and took the next best option. He was able to make quite clear-headed cost/benefit calculations when dealing with the small Northern neighbour.

Nazi Germany was an existential threat to the USSR and had to be crushed. Finland was not, and the Finnish leaders' measured actions during the Continuation War had managed to avoid stoking Stalin into a holy rage against the Finns. Had Finland gone full force against Leningrad, say, and Stalin might have seen it as his duty to conquer the country and send the whole population to Siberia - never mind the cost to the Red Army. So no matter how some neo-Soviet propaganda calls the Finns Hitler's Fascist lapdogs and fully responsible for the siege of Leningrad, Stalin and the rest of the Soviet leadership seems to have been able to appreciate the shades of grey in the Finnish participation in the war at the time.
 
Mannerheim did not want to get into a new war with the Soviet Union, he told Hitler that Finland would remain neutral if it is not attacked. Our immediately Hitler had this service, dealing preventive strikes by Finnish city. Can not think of anything more stupid than it was - it had not entered the war in Finland, there would be no blockade of Leningrad.
 
If a Karelo-Finnish SSR was formed directly as a result of the winter war, Sweden might well have been forced into the Axis camp to protect it's iron mines. An Axis Sweden would mean that for much of 1941 to 1945, Finland would have been a battleground between the Germans, Swedes and Finnish rebels on one side with the USSR on the other. The war would likely have reduced nearly all Finnish cities and industrial centers to heaps of rubble and while total casualties for Finland might not be comparable to other parts of the Soviet Union due to much more lenient occupational policies (well, except for the Jews), they would be much more severe than OTL. In this TL, a postwar Karelo-Finnish SSR would probably recieve Northern Sweden down to Skellefteå (renamed Helettijoki if taken by the Karelo-Finnish SSR) with all it's mineral wealth to encourage the development of heavy industry in Finland and possibly parts of Northern Norway (if the Red Army occupied them) to compensate the Soviets taking Petsamo.

An Axis Sweden would also mean that Swedish speakers in Finland would be punished even more severely since they would be percieved as a security threat, with many of them liquidated or deported to Central Asia while the rest become Fennicized over the years as a result of policies introduced by the authorities of the Finnish SSR with support from the Soviet Union. Other significant demographic changes would also be the formation of a large Russian minority in major cities, with some cities closer to the border ITTL like Viipuri, Sortavala and Pitkäranta that would probably be 90% Russian like Narva OTL due to soviet population transfers, while other cities in the SSR like Petrozavodsk might even become almost completely de-russified due to Finns and Swedish speakers being relocated away from militarily sensitive areas.

The Karelian Isthmus would largely be annexed to the Leningrad Oblast like OTL, with the border ITTL probably being close to the Gulf of Viipuri, with Koivisto serving as the likeliest border town on the Finnish side. The Gulf of Finland Islands would be annexed into the USSR as in OTL. The Åland Islands would almost certainly be cleared from any inhabitants and turned into a massive naval complex like Kaliningrad OTL and would be leased to the Soviet Union for 50 years, although the Islands would still remain Finnish SSR territories. The Finnish SSR would also likely host several closed cities, especially in Lapland and East Karelia.
 
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