Talk:Winter War/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Petsamo

shouldn't Petsamo be included in the map of secessions? after-all, there is a Russian Norwegian border today, and Finland got no port to the Barents sea. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.247.34.41 (talk) 20:19, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

That change took place only after the Continuation War. Petsamo remained Finnish after the Winter War. - Wanderer602 (talk) 20:24, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

According to J. Stalin at the end of the war Soviet divisions on the Finnish front. As one standard division was 17 500 men this means roughly 1,3 million soldiers Source: "Stalinin istunnot" (Stalin's sessions), Kustannuspiste 1982. As total losses included the number of Red army soldiers participating was far more. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jheyno (talk • contribs) 12:49, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Finnish Democratic Republic in infobox

So why is it included in infobox which should summarize most relevant information? Did it field any divisions? Did it provide any supplies? Did it practically administer any territory? Did it even have any international diplomatic significance? I can't see any reason to include it there, currently it just creates inaccurate impression of noteworthy Finnish presence on Soviet side.
Also I think that current Swedish, Norwegian, Danish volunteers in infobox should be generalized just as "Foreign Volunteers" linking to appropriate article.--Staberinde (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

FDR did field - at least nominally - around 4 divisions worth of troops consisting mostly of Finns and Karelians, but due to lack of their numbers also included other ethnicities like Russians and Ukrainians. FDR was fully dependent on the Soviet Union, so instead of providing any it consumed Soviet supplies. FDR was used by the Soviet Union validate Soviet claim that they were not conquering Finland - charade which pretty much resulted in ejection of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations.

Idea about grouping the volunteers is indeed a good one. I certainly would support it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 20:26, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

4 divisions? That sounds quite interesting. Still, was there then some sort of official armed forces of FDR or were those divisions just Finnish "national" divisions inside the Red army?--Staberinde (talk) 20:38, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

They were part of the Red Army for all practical purposes. - Wanderer602 (talk) 22:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

As I thought :) So I still think that FDR doesn't really have sufficient relevance to justify its inclusion in infobox and therefore suggest its removal.--Staberinde (talk) 13:03, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I would agree, considering the people's army even got direct orders from Moscow instead of the Terijoki government. It can't be said to have been a belligerent itself, maybe under Soviet Union but not as an own 'dot'. Even by puppet state standards, it's cabalities were very insignificant except for propaganda purposes. --Pudeo' 22:53, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

NPOV required

The article seems to me to lean more towards an "heroic" account of the war than an encyclopedic piece seeking a NPOV.
For instance the opening sentences of the section Soviet–Finnish relations and politics:
"After the Soviet involvement in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, no formal peace treaty was signed. In 1918 and 1919, Finnish volunteer forces conducted two unsuccessful military incursions across the Russian border"
The Finnish doctrine is embedded in its first sentence, tying "Soviet involvement" in the Civil War with the idea that it necessitated a "peace treaty", and then using this muddled logic as if it were an a priori justification for Finnish military incursions into Russia. (Russian involvement was perhaps half that of the German involvement and both together accounted for about 10% of the protagonists. 35% more Finns died in the Civil War than in the Winter War)
Orthodox Finnish doctrine riddles the article, even though it contains all the information needed for an NPOV. The account of Finnish independence for instance fails to mention that the Boshevik's policy was to grant autonomy, stating the event in heroic terms instead: "The outbreak of the First World War and the collapse of the Russian Empire gave Finland a window of opportunity; on 6 December 1917, the Senate of Finland declared the nation's independence."
Knowing the Boshevik's policy makes such doctrinal heroism ring hollow.
To go through the article and cite every example of the bias and absence of references would take far too long but perhaps one or two more from various angles may make the point clearer.
The article states:
"the Soviet Union changed its foreign policy toward Finland in the late 1930s. The Soviet Union began pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia".
Both parts of this need substantive verifiable reference(s). What was this change? What form did it take? In what way can it be said that the new Russia was "pursuing reconquest"? Is such a characterisation neutral? The whole requires contextualisation as history is not a simple cause effect nil sum comic strip equation and there are many drivers for any situation. In this case the pivotal role of the economic and political policies of the West towards the revolution in Russia (as previously towards the French revolution) need to be plainly set out. However, from the implied assertions the article segues into a distortion of what would be the core issue imo for an NPOV article:
"The Soviet leadership believed that the old empire had ideal security and territorial possessions, and wanted the newly christened city of Leningrad to enjoy a similar security.".
The "old empire" is implied as being the driver rather than any legitimate security concern even though these concerns are in fact detailed afterwards.
It seems to me that the key aspect in understanding any of this is the socio-political concept of buffer states. Again, the article contains all the information required. It is just that it is presented in a non-NPOV form, and so ends up in the good guy/bad guy shoot out at the OK Corral story of the Finnish doctrine.
I believe that in the West, the establishment treated Finland as a buffer state, one that stood between it and the influence of the new socialism/communism. I believe that Finland enjoyed the consequent economic benefits that flowed from this status, and which ended recently with the end of the Cold War.
When all these things are included and made overt, again adding nothing into the article, the following paragraphs can be seen as the key to understanding how the war broke out.
"In April 1938, an NKVD agent, Boris Yartsev contacted the Finnish foreign minister Rudolf Holsti and Prime Minister Aimo Cajander, stating that the Soviet Union did not trust Germany and that war was considered possible between the two countries. The Red Army would not wait passively behind the border but would rather "advance to meet the enemy." Finnish representatives assured Yartsev that Finland was committed to a policy of neutrality and that the country would resist any armed incursion. Yartsev suggested that Finland cede or lease some islands in the Gulf of Finland along the seaward approaches to Leningrad. Finland refused.
Notwithstanding what was said at the time, history, in the simplest manner, seems to me to record its verdict on the two parties positions. Finland's behaviour during WW2 merited her having to pay war reparations. Russia's assessment of Finland's true position (and intent?) was vindicated.
In my opinion the NPOV could easily be resolved by some rebalancing of the introduction and by attending to the wording of various sentences in the article. It might also be mentioned somewhere that more Finns died in their civil war than in the Winter War. LookingGlass (talk) 08:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Starting from the first of your comments, the Soviet involvement in the Finnish Civil War is a recognized fact since Soviet of Russian pretty much instigated the war in the first place - as described in the Finnish Civil War article - and then provided arms and equipment for the Reds. And second the Republic of Finland (i.e. the state) did not make the raids to Soviet Karelia 1918-1919 so the whole point regarding a peace treaty is moot. Fact still is that Soviets did have rather crucial involvement in the Finnish Civil War. As to the second section, Soviets (or rather Lenin) did not discuss about autonomy, discussion was about sovereignty - as is described both in Finnish Civil War and Finnish Declaration of Independence articles - or if you want to read the actual text (Декрет о государственной независимости Финляндии, 18(31) декабря 1917 г.), which does not appear to be discussing autonomy either.

Change in relations can be seen from the very approaches made by Boris Yartsev. For more information you could read the Background of the Winter War article with its sources.

There was no Russia at the time. And Soviet Union's assessment was not vindicated. Winter War and the subsequent Soviet actions drove Finland to Germany, country with whom Finland had relatively poor relations in late 1930s (both of those statements can be sourced if you like). You can not use results to justify the cause, it just does not work especially when the cause was rather crucial for the actual event to take place (i.e. closer relations between Germany and Finland in 1940-1941 was a direct result of the Winter War). And last of all you are actively mixing the results and causes of the Winter War and the Continuation War together.

All in all your comments have lots of 'your opinions' in them instead of facts. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:22, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

"Putin said Thursday at a meeting with military historians that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin launched the war to "correct mistakes" made in drawing the border with Finland after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution." [1] Peltimikko (talk) 12:33, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

@Wanderer...

1. Soviet and German involvement in the Finnish Civil War was virtually equal and relatively minor.

2. You write: "since Soviet of Russian pretty much instigated the war in the first place - as described in the Finnish Civil War article". This is a self-referential assertion only.

3. Your reference itself, thank you, provides the totally different picture of the circumstances of Finnish independence to that of the article, and which needs to be included. You are correct that the word "autonomy" does not appear, however the words "the principles of the right of nations to self-determination" do:

"In response to the Finnish Government for recognition independence of the Finnish Republic Council of People's Commissars, in full accord with the principles of the right of nations to self-determination Decides to...recognize the independence of the Finnish state Republic" (my italics)

4. Whether the actual "state of Finland" made the raids or not is again not the issue. The point is whether a neutral interpretation of what facts are known is presented.

@Peltimikko.....

I'd not trust Fox on something like this, but I don't see that Putin's comment about "correcting borders" is inimicable to trying to create a buffer zone, and that war resulted after negotiations broke down etc etc.

LookingGlass (talk) 13:09, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

1. Involvement to the war was roughly equal yes, however the Germans did not instigate the Finnish Civil War like the Soviets did. Which is a rather important fact.

2. That was a reference to the article which has that particular information with sources included so that unlike your claims it is not just some wild assertion.

3. Yet that has no relevance or relation to autonomy, if you insist on it then provide sources which state so.

4. What is there not neutral in stating what took place. Finnish volunteers which operated without official sanction of the Finnish government did enter Soviet Karelia in 1918-1919 and were stopped due to British organized resistance.

Soviet - or Stalins - plan to capture the whole of Finland at the start of the Winter War is documented since plentiful of evidence has been located, starting from Soviet orders not to cross into neutral Sweden and then including the Terijoki Puppet Government which was declared on 1 December but had already had official deals with the Soviets in 20 November at Petrozavodsk. Almost similar like trying to claim that Finns would have done anything at Mainila on 26 November 1939 when Soviets had themselves planned on to use exactly that border incursion in the Soviet war games of 1938 (sinking of Metallist was also used in that war game). As for the Yartsev section Finland never had any obligation, requirement, need or reason to give any terrain to the Soviets so what exactly is wrong with that entry and again, you seem to be justifying the unprovoked Soviet war of aggression against Finland (i.e. the Winter War) by the direct result of that very war - which is rather illogical and a more than a bit dubious reasoning. And as to your suggestion we can also add other pointless facts to the article, like that more Soviets died in Russian Civil War than in the Winter War - which is also a fact which is equally (i.e. totally) unrelated to the article at hand as the entry you suggested. - Wanderer602 (talk) 14:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

@LookingGlass, the USSR invaded after the Finns turned down the same pact of "mutual assistance" as the ones the Baltic states were forced to accept under duress of imminent invasion, that threat made by Stalin himself, in person. When the USSR subsequently invaded the Baltics, much of the Baltic territory occupied was attacked from the west, that is, the Soviet bases installed, and not from the east, from beyond the Baltics' borders (where an enormous invasion force had been massed). This was a struggle for Finland's very survival. Putin's comments justifying invasion of its neighbors--Finland and also applying to the Baltics--is, if anything, not plausible but reprehensible justification of naked territorial aggression, given the Soviet Union's constant assurances that it was no threat to its neighbors even as it was printing up maps indicating they were "SSRs".

Please don't take this the wrong way, but it is when folks like you swallow naked Russian propaganda rehabilitating the Soviet past as plausible that you're part of the problem, not the solution. Normally this conversation would now escalate with you calling me a nationalist and my calling you Putin's dupe. Hopefully we can avoid that and continue the conversation rather than take mutual offense. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 15:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

P.S. The right to self-determination as advocated by Soviet leaders was, historically, the biggest propaganda lie in history. What that really meant was Soviets crushing their neighbors, and then their neighbors "self-determining" to join the Soviet family, or, minimally, "elect" Soviet puppet regimes. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 17:49, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

From the inserted section below, the problem with the article appears to be that editors either are unaware of the NPOV policy on wiki or don't understand it. Perhaps this is partly a language issue but it also seems to be that editors don't understand what history is and feel that a particular version of events is "the truth" and that other versions of identical events are "lies". NB I am not here referring to omitting facts but to the interpretation of intent and importance. Fundamentally, history (the joining together of factsinto a narrative) is about interpretation. AGAIN this has NOTHING TO DO with omitting facts. I would also ask that editors of this page familiarise themselves with other key NPOV related policies here eg: peacocking, weasel words etc. Once these basic standards of wiki are understood and accepted by active editors here the article can be progressed into a more objective and less emotive one ie one with an NPOV. LookingGlass (talk) 03:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Problem is that you have provided nothing to support your personal POV and even the claims you made above were (at least in part) false. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:31, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Again, you illustrate my point: you appear to believe that history is a statement of fact, and that therefore an NPOV is unnecessary if an account of past events is made up of facts. This belief is incorrect. Secondly, I suspect that English is not your mother tongue, and that this is why you are failing to grasp the issue of NPOV. If you read what I wrote more carefully you will see that I specifically state that imo no more facts are required in order to make the article compliant with wiki's NPOV requirement. LookingGlass (talk) 05:47, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

If the opposing view, like the one you have been suggesting, consist of unsourced content (just like hearsay) then there ain't much to discuss since it would be against wikipedia's rules to include such information to the article. Also you can not just 'believe' (since without source it happens to constitute OR) that the particular entry should be written in different manner, you should 'prove' it. Feel free to insert comments or even suggestion on how sections of the article should be written however cut your own personal opinions and unsourced justifications out of it, they don't belong here. - Wanderer602 (talk) 08:07, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I think that the view LookingGlass presented is correct.

The Winter War was, I believe, according to the Russians, a pre-emptive strike against the hostile finnish government with the border very close to Leningrad. Further more they say I think, that view was entitled which was proven when the attack came from finnish soil, at the next possible moment - in June / July 1941 and coordinated with nazi-Germany, as expected.

The views presented by others certainly formulates the finnish view, but we do not discuss an article about "The finnish view on the Winter War", do we? Our topic is an article that presents both views, a NPOV view, if possible. Besides, the finnish view was not, I believe, united.

Therefore I think LookingGlass could present his view in detail, for example by presenting a draft of needed changes to the article. My english is not good enough to do it (my native language is swedish). That would give us the possability to proceed the discussion from a common platform. I intend then to write to the swedish wiki.

Regards

Nallestans

--Allstns (talk) 10:37, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Had you read carefully the issue is not so much about the claims LookingGlass made (however, as noted, quite a few were shown to be rather dubious) but more on the issue that without supporting sources such statements have no place in any article, according to wikipedias rules.

As to the claims you made, the use of the resulting event as a justification for the preceding event is generally seen as rather bad choice (see: causality). Using somewhat weasel word style terms like 'pre-emptive strike' does not really matter since it only underlines the point that it was a war of aggression started by the Soviet Union. Fact still is that Finland did not possess good relations with Germany prior to or during the Winter War. The improvement in those relations was pretty much a direct result of the Winter War.

I haven't really seen any one stating that he would not have a right to present his view (on the talk page), however if the changes he proposes are not supported by the sources like they so far have not been - and last i checked the onus for providing the said sources is on the person who proposes the changes - then they are nothing but original research which has no place in wikipedia regardless of personal opinions (from above "I think", "I believe", "seems" and so on) used to justify it. NPOV can not be used as a justification for violating V or OR either. Unless you (any one of you) can actually provide sources to support your viewpoints there is very little point to continue this discussion. And writing to different language wiki does not really make any difference either since same requirements (including verifiability and no original research) applies there as well. - Wanderer602 (talk) 17:58, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'm very sorry, I did not in any way intend to offend the writers of this article. I believe that as a matter of fact specialized knowledge does not flourish very well with a neutral point of view, especially not in matters which have high affective value, like this article, that deals with war. However, I cannot let this influence my own p.o.v, so I'll just have to say I'm sorry. No offense intended, hope none taken :)

Let me commentate some of your statements. To sum your arguments up you said - have I got you correctly:

1. I have not read carefully the issue; 2. Quite a few of LokingGlass's claims were shown to be rather dubious; 3. The main issue is that without supporting sources such statements have no place in any article in Wikipedia, according to Wikipedia-rules; 4. A fact is that Finland did not possess good relations with Germany prior to or during the winter war (but got such after the war?); 5. The use of an resulting event as a justification for the preceding event is generally looked at as rather bad choice; 6. Using somewhat weasel word style terms like 'pre-emptive strike' does not really matter since it only underlines the point that the winterwar was a war of aggression started by the Soviet Union; 7. the changes LookingGlass proposes are not supported by the sources - at least they so far have not been and therefore they are nothing but original research which has no place in wikipedia regardless of personal opinions; 8. my personal opinions (from above "I think", "I believe", "seems" and so on) are original research used to justify it, 9. NPOV can not be used as a justification for violating V or OR either

Understandably you ended up after saying all this with:

10. "unless you (any one of you) can actually provide sources to support your viewpoints there is very little point to continue this discussion (my italics)"

As LookingGlass said, the neutral point of view is more a question about how the facts are interpreted, not whether the facts are formulated correctly. It is a NPOV question - a "not a matter of fact but a matter of view"-question.

The finnish historican Markku Jokisipilä ventilated recently in one of his blogarticles (commenting btw. president Putins speech - the same which also Peltimikko mentioned - the neighbour's [Russia] explanation repeating the russian view if i understood Jokisipilä correct, that the attack came from Finland at the first available moment coordinated with the rest of the nazi block's attack in June/July -41. The russian pov has certainly not a too cumbersome role in the article. From the NPOV-rule can very easily be deducted a demand that both parties views are at the very least visibly presented in an article that concerns with a war between them.

Having said that I think you ought to reconsider constructively what we have said, as well LookingGlass and me. It is of course understandable that you defend the article you have constructed with so very much and visible effort (don't say it was effortless :) ); my intention is not to oppose the article as is, my intention is to have a still better article if it's possible.

Rgds

Nalleststns

--Allstns (talk) 09:54, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't offended in any way. Not sure where you would have gotten such an impression.

Facts can only be formulated according to what is stated in the related sources, just because you consider it to be NPOV does not allow for rewriting it because by inserting your own conclusions from them you would already be violating the core principles of wikipedia (namely OR - since in the above you would have concluded something from the source that was not stated there). Same goes if the content from the source is extrapolated. On the other hand taking snippet of information from one source and another one elsewhere (like what you seemed to be doing with Jokisipilä) ending up with a conclusion that is not from any of the sources is synthesis which does not have place in wikipedia either.

Which comes down to this: Neither I or any one else objected bringing some other POV more clearly to the article. Provided it is done according to wikipedia's rules (in this case especially WP:OR, WP:V and WP:SYN). In other words you can not go altering structures nor information just because you dislike them but you actually need to provide verifiable sources for your claims. It should go without saying that you should not remove existing content that contradicts with information from your source regardless.

There is nothing to (re)consider as so far nothing else than unsourced allegations have been suggested. I have no problem discussing matters thoroughly and constructively but so far your suggestions have been against wikipedia's rules (being unsourced or based on your own conclusions) which would have resulted your changes to be reverted out from the article in very short order. Bring facts supported by sources and then we can have a discussion, since without those there really is nothing to discuss.

- Wanderer602 (talk) 14:11, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

No "NPOV required" required

Notwithstanding the conversation above which I am glad to continue, there's nothing wrong in the tone of the current article as it stands. What is,

however, POV is the suggestion we somehow need to mollify the naked aggression of a dead empire. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The article has achieved "Good Article" status, so it has thoroughly been vetted for POV. --Nug (talk) 20:22, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry guys, ei millään pahalla, but this is just plain wrong. NPOV is a FUNDAMENTAL wiki policy. It is NOT an option. Pls see: NPOV for a full explanation of the policy. LookingGlass (talk) 03:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Vecrumba: if you expand the note at the top of this page you will see the milestone events in achievement of good article status. If you then click on any entry you will see what actually happened. If you read the last entry that is deemed as having "gained approval", GA ssessment for the Good Article status, the process is cursory. LookingGlass (talk) 03:16, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

I trust you are not lobbying to give equal weight to Soviet and Finnish accounts as a means to WP:NPOV; such weighting as being "NPOV" is WP:SYNTHESIS and an impediment, not facilitator, of GA status. Thank you for reminding me about checking the milestones. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:51, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you simply do not understand our core content policy: NPOV, NOR and V act in concert, and none of them has precedence over other two. If you think two or more sources have been combined together to advance a position that is not explicitly present in none of those sources, please, provide your evidences, and we will accept them. If you think some important viewpoint is underrepresented, please, explain, how concretely that should be fixed. However, all of that has no relation to mollifying "the naked aggression of a dead empire". Please, stop this rhetoric, that is disruptive.

By the way, I do not understand why did you decide that different weight should be given to Soviet (+contemporary Russian) and Finnish viewpoints. That does not follow from what NPOV says.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:07, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

188,671 wounded, injured or burned

So whats the difference between, "wounded, injured and burned"? None! Fred26 (talk) 20:21, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, I checked the source and it says "suffered concussion" instead of "injured". Anyone got a single-word verb to swap it out? --illythr (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Concussed?--Jaan Pärn (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Seems there actually is such a word. Weird. Well, concussed it is, then. --illythr (talk) 23:47, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I know from reading earlier military accounts and biographies that head trauma, concussions specifically, are often mentioned as battle injuries. It sounds odd to us to count concussions separately, but it probably makes more sense than we think it does. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 00:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I can imagine artillery shelling or aerial bombing would result in significant concussion (which is a debilitating brain injury) to troops in the field. --Nug (talk) 08:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Someone with native Russian skills and military medicine knowledge should translate Krivosheev's terms.--Jaan Pärn (talk) 09:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Here's the relevant excerpt from table 111 (Soviet-Finnish war (30.1 1.1939-13.3.1940 гг.)), if anyone would like to try:

Безвозвратные потери (irrecoverable losses)

• Убито, умерло на этапах эвакуации, погибло в результате происшествий (KIA, died during evacuation, died in accidents): 71,214
• Пропало без вести и не вернулось из плена (MIA and POWs who did not return from captivity): 39,369
• Умерло от ран и болезней в госпиталях (died from wounds and disease in hospitals): 16,292
• Всего (total): 126,875

Санитарные потери (Sanitary losses)

• Ранено, контужено, обожжено (wounded, concussed, burned): 188,671
• Заболело (sick): 58,370
• Обморожено (frostbitten): 17,867 (a little html table screwup here)
• Всего (total): 264,908

Note: Sanitary losses are defined as a temporary loss of combat capability that results in evacuation to and treatment in a hospital, from which the patient recovers. A soldier who was wounded more than once, or wounded, recovered and then killed in action is thus counted more than once. --illythr (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

The Soviet Union did not want to recover the "entire territory" of Finland

I have a problem with the 2nd paragraph of the introduction: "The Red Army aimed to recover the Grand Duchy of Finland territory lost during the Russian Civil War in 1917". I think the best is to say that the objectives of the Soviet Union are subject to a controversy. The sentence makes you think that the aim of the Soviet Union wast to re-conquer the entire Finland which is not the case. Yet according to Russian and other sources the Soviet Union wanted to get small strategically important territories adjacent to Leningrad to protect the city in case of Finnish occupation by Germany or participation in the war on the side of Germany (which eventually was the case). An editor has reverted my changes and I invite him to comment on his modification. The reference to the Edwards book seems floppy as the source cannot be verified. Even if it is true, the words of Edwards are just an opinion. Plutonius1965 (talk) 08:27, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of the question of Soviet aims, the second sentence of that paragraph states that the Soviet Union demanded these territories. The USSR obviously did not demand the whole of the former Grand Duchy, which leads me to believe that whoever added these two sentences either mistranslated or misunderstood the relevant source text. Adding a quotation request. --illythr (talk) 12:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you read to the article Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and also last title "Possible Sovietisation and Resettlement" in the article Aftermath of the Winter War. And there are other bigger or smaller details, which support the whole attempt to occupation, for example the Soviet 44th Division was given a detailed instruction book (Red Army March Guide to Finland (rough translation, not official name)) were they had order to occupy the city of Oulu, BUT not cross the Swedish border (Red Army should only wave their hand to Swedish people on the side of the border). Peltimikko (talk) 18:08, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, the Mannerheim Line had more of the guide under the title Soviet intelligence. Peltimikko (talk) 18:10, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, so it appears to be indeed a misunderstanding of the source. The M-R Pact lays out the extent of German and Soviet spheres of influence and refers to a different context, that of German-Soviet relations, where no demands in regard of Finland were made. It is six weeks later, in the context of Finnish-Soviet negotiations, that demands were made, and these demands were obviously not for the whole of Finland. (By the way, the article section that describes this is misnamed "War preparations", whereas the actual war preparations are described in the two last paragraphs of the "Negotiations" section. Odd).

As the relevant source, Edwards (2006), is criticized for its atrocious prose quality, it is likely that the actual text was misunderstood and its meaning was put into the incorrect context. Can you quote the relevant passage here, so we can determine what the author refers to and work out a suitable intro paragraph? --illythr (talk) 20:56, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

And there was also the infamous Terijoki government. It is hardly a way to indicate that your intentions are NOT to the whole country. Also, Kuusinen stated several times in speeches and writings how it would be the best for Finland to join Soviet Union, so there was no misunderstanding how the things would have gone if his government would have gained power in Helsinki. And also the response of V. Molotov to League of Nations when SU was critisized from the war. ("The Soviet Union is not in a state of war with Finland and does not threaten the people of Finland with war. Therefore, the reference to Article 11, Paragraph 1, of the Covenant of the League of Nations is incorrect. The Soviet Union maintains peaceful relations with the Democratic Republic of Finland, with whose Government on Dec. 2 of this year a treaty on mutual assistance and friendship was concluded. Through this treaty, all questions on which negotiations were unsuccessfully conducted with the delegates of the former government of Finland, which has now resigned its authority, have been regulated.") So, by the way of it's own diplomatic correspondence, SU admits that it is not interested only a small part of Finland but the whole country. --Whiskey (talk) 08:40, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

In fact we are splitting the hair here. Things are not black and white here also. There is a difference what SU needed and what it wanted, and also there were differences how much were really needed: minimum needs, can-live-with needs, nice-to-have needs and great-to-have. And all that was open to political considerations. Especially about trust. Before the WWII SU didn't trust Finnish foreign policy, but especially it didn't trust Finnish military, it was clearly seen from the views presented during the negotiations and internal Soviet memos. --Whiskey (talk) 08:56, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I think we have to distinguish between 1) Installing a communist government in Finland like in Easter European countries after WWII (which nobody argues against) and 2) A "recovery of the Grand Duchy of Finland". The second is clearly false - nobody in the Soviet Union at that time wanted to conquer Finland in its entirety an incorporate it as a new Soviet Republic. Finland has never been culturally close to Russia and even during the Russian Empire it enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. Yet the first was aspired to due to a failure by the Soviet government to obtain the small strategic territories bordering Leningrad to protect the country from the inevitable war with the Nazi Germany. We are all right but we simply have to find a more subtle wording! Plutonius1965 (talk) 09:04, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

If you check the borders of the Terijoki government Finland (Distributed through Soviet propaganda material, so not Finnish claims.) you see that it runs so close to Murmansk railroad that the border really was intended as an internal border of the SU. At the time when Kuusinen government was set up (and a year ahead), in all cases in Europe where SU set such a government, the country in question was incorporated to the SU shortly after. Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, -stans, Tannu Tuva (that took a little bit more time, but was incorporated to SU before the end of WWII.) Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia... The only exception was Mongolia. Only in the aftermath of the WWII the Peoples republic model was created. Also Your statement that nobody wanted to incorporate Finland, that is clearly false as witnessed by Kuusinen's writings. Also in the text of the M-R Pact, Finland was in NO way distinguished from the Baltic states. --Whiskey (talk) 09:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

My aim here is only to amend the second sentence of the second paragraph of the article so that it doesn't state that the Soviet Union demanded all of Finland from Finland as it implicitly says now. --illythr (talk) 11:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, You're right. The wording should be clearer. --Whiskey (talk) 12:23, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

That you can do by defining what the words 'territory' refer to exactly in the passage. However it should be noted that following opinions do exist: "In 1939-41 the Kremlin considered occupation and re-annexation of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as one of the main aims in the region. The second aim was the occupation and similar annexation of Finland..." (Northern European Overture to War, 1939-1941: From Memel to Barbarossa; Clemmesen & Faulkner (eds.); 2013; p. 76). Also it should be noted that Soviet territorial demands should not be mixed on what Soviets actually intended to take - after all Soviets forces did not stop at the proposed lines nor did the borders drawn for the peace agreement follow either the front lines or proposed lines. That is to say while it would be better to clarify which areas Soviets demanded in pre-war negotiations those areas should not be mixed with overall Soviet ambitions. So claim such as "Soviet Union aimed to recover SOME PARTS of the Finland's territories for strategic reasons." is as false the current entry since it mixes the Soviet aims with its demands. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Similar statements are made in "A Companion to World War II" (Zeiler, DuBois (eds.); 2012; p. 210) "According to T.S. Busujeva, most Russian historians agree at present that the Soviet aim was to establish in Finland a socialist state or to annex it into Soviet Union in order to safeguard Leningrad and the northwestern border". Only real question seems to be if Soviets aimed in the end for SSR, ASSR or "democratic workers' republic", not that it really matters. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:57, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Soviet territorial demands should not be mixed on what Soviets actually intended to take - that's the point, the second para of the lead section currently does exactly that. Perhaps I should have created a new section to discuss that separately from the "Soviet aims" dispute, but I hoped "Regardless of the question of Soviet aims..." was clear enough. The problem here is that we have a source at the end of that sentence with a page number backing something. It could be the Soviet aims, or it could be the out of context M-R pact (as mentioned by Peltimikko above). It's hard to amend the sentence without knowing what exactly the source is used to back there, which is why I requested a quotation there. Meh. --illythr (talk) 21:00, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, we need quotation. Technically we could also just rewrite the paragraph in question as we do have other sources which could be used as references for the two separate statements (which now are mixed) made in that paragraph. However since that would require removing the current reference without any knowledge what exactly it is backing it is not much a choice - more of a desperate measure. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Soviet opportunity for full conquest?

Until a moment ago the article said, ...the strongest argument against the idea of a full Soviet conquest is that it never actually happened, even when the Soviets had the opportunity to do so. I read through the article and nowhere does it elaborate on the Soviets ever being in a position to fully conquer Finland, let alone declining such an opportunity. Judging from a perusal through the article's edit history, it seems the content attributed to the sentence's two refs originally just said historians were unclear on the Soviet Union's intentions. Someone then added - without sources - that the argument against full conquest is that it didn't happen (huh?); someone else then came along and apparently attempted to clarify this by adding - without sources - the dubious "opportunity to do so" claim while admitting the clarified claim made little sense. As it stands now, the sentence is still vague, but more detail would best be left to perhaps a new section on Soviet intentions.  Mbinebri  ^{talk ←} 19:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Military sources in Finnish state that the Finnish army was at its breaking point at March 13, and could have been able to make only a few days longer stand at their positions. The Soviets were sure to be aware of this, but for some reason they did not continue on their campaign.

What comes to the Soviet intentions, the Army was ordered to reach the Gulf of Bothnia in two-three weeks in the beginning of the war. Later on, when their first offensive was stopped by Finns the Soviet army gone through internal revisions after the bitter experience so that in February 1940 they could manage to reach their goal as mentioned.

Source: Lt. Gen. Harald Öhquist's, commander of the II Army Corps on Karelian Isthmus, personal war diaries. "Vinterkriget ur min synvinkeln. WSOY 1948."--62.113.188.111 (talk) 20:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Misrepresented or incomplete citations

In comparing what is written in various places in this article to the content of the cited sources, I'm finding big discrepancies. I hope all who edit here are fully familiar with Wikipedia's cornerstone no original research policy which states in a nutshell you can't make stuff up or add your own analysis to the sources when creating text for WP articles. As 4 the info for which Trotter is cited, 'don't know at this point whether he says this on OTHER pages of his book. I will try to find it. I hope this is not systemic to the article. Rel the citation tag I added in the intro, I fully support the idea that you don't have to source-cite info in the intro that is supported in full parallel in the body. Here, however, since the body cite that this intro text relied is faulty, I added the cite tag in intro as well.

If anyone will be providing foreign language (e.g., Finnish or Russian) sources to document the text I am tagging, please provide the original text as well as English translation here per WP:Foreign sources. Regards, Paavo273 (talk) 20:10, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I reverted your changes as they were apparently due to a language issue. It seems you don't know what an invasion is. Fortunately, we have a helpful article on the subject. The citation requests are also rather strange - the successful Soviet offensive in February has its own section in the article, and the territorial changes are well documented and remain in force to this day. I wasn't able to readily verify what Trotter writes there, so I replaced the citation request with a quotation request. Still, please list the discrepancies you think you've found here. If you're mistaken, we can easily clear things up; if you're correct, we can fix the article right up. --illythr (talk) 00:30, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Illythr and thanks for your edits you describe here.

Actually, the tag you changed to qn is an English source. Prior to adding the tag, I READ the pages carefully, and the info in that paragraph prior to the tag I placed is simply not there--not in those words or other words. I plan to pore over Trotter some more and hopefully find the missing info in which case I'll correct the cite OR add a new one. If you find the correct source and point out the cite info (page number if it's Trotter), if you'll let me know I'll be happy to add it myself. Anyway, please do not remove tags until the info IS properly sourced; that's what that tag is for. The alternative is to remove the info, but it's preferred and only fair to give time to try fix it. I'm thinking the one in the intro needs re-tagging, but I'll double check the article to see if that info is there.

Thanks for the Wikilink to the invasion article. That is an informative and interesting piece. That would be a primary source as defined in the no original research rule. I did not think my correction was a controversial one; since you've pointed this all out, what is underscored is the requirement that secondary sources actually STATE that the SU invaded FI. Only then would we B on solid ground policy-wise. I will double-check the cited sources to see if they mention it before adding tags.

I notice in your edit summary, you request, "Please detail the reasoning behind the citation requests on the talk page..." The best detail I can provide is my avowal that the info is not there where the citation says it is (providing the cite at the end of the paragraph even INTENDED to include that info). And to quote the summative info from the top of the no original research policy--which is no substitute for a full reading of the rule: "Wikipedia does not publish original thought: all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source. Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources themselves." And further, "Wikipedia articles must not contain original research" (WP's, not my bold) plus "No original research" (NOR) is one of three core content policies..."

Regards, Paavo273 (talk) 02:38, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi again, As I study the invasion article you referred me to in order to self-educate, I find no citations at all for the critical info "defined" there. As such, I'm adding tags to that per WP:No original research, and I will try to find other, reliable sources that define the word. If in fact invade means merely to breach a country's borders, then obviously you are absolutely correct in your analysis above. If not, we've got a problem. Paavo273 (talk) 03:34, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I linked the invasion article so that you might educate yourself on what an invasion is, as you've apparently confused it with something else (an occupation, perhaps?). Here are a few dictionary definitions, in case you feel Wikipedia is not sufficient: [2], [3], [4], [5]. I still don't see your point in this post. Are you trying to say that there was no Soviet invasion of Finland? Would this mean that this (or this) is a work of fiction? I mean, Soviet propaganda of the time certainly did deny that it was an invasion, merely an effort to push the Finnish army away from Leningrad, but why would you support this fringe point of view?

So, let's try again. What exactly do you feel is so inadequately sourced in this article that it requires a "citation needed" tag? That the Soviet Union invaded Finland[6]? That Finland was forced to cede territory as the result of the war[7]?

As for the Trotter reference, the change was made by user:Peltimikko. Might as well ask him. However, it seems the text had been there for a long time before that edit, so you are most likely correct in requesting a citation there, after all. --illythr (talk) 12:36, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi again illythr,

Thanks for all the additional info. I will study that. There are two separate issues. The "invasion" thing firstly. 'Not sure if that's covered in the cites where the term is used. If the cites use "invasion" or term(s) meaning substantially the same, then that's solved. (Мне кажестся it's both a sourcing issue and one of whether the term "invasion" corresponds to what the cite calls it. I'll admit based on what you've said it's POSSIBLE as you suggested that I may have the wrong definition of invasion, in which case problem solved. I'm looking into it including using all the info you've generously provided.

The other issue is adhering as a whole to the rigorous but reasonable no original research policy mentioned above, including where I re-placed the cite tag. I would NEVER place a tag unless I've personally read and understood the cited source first and determine for sure the info is not in the cite. And I would not generally place a cite tag if I have knowledge that the info is verifiable UNLESS it is of such magnitude or import to the article that it should be cited anyway. Otherwise only in cases where as per policy I'm CONTESTING the info.

Regards, Paavo273 (talk) 18:50, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

What is your definition of "invasion", then? I'm guessing that the Finnish word "maahanhyökkäys" possesses a different connotation? --illythr (talk) 21:26, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

My understanding since you ask, is an invasion would entail more actual encroachment than what occurred here. AFAICT, this is NOT a disagreement over what happened, which is well laid out in the article. The second part of THAT word "-hyökkäys" means attack. This well could be a translation issue. I am going to add request quote tags wherever invade or invasion is mentioned. There ARE other Finnish words for invasion that may be more accurate representations of the English word. IDK. One of the English synonyms for maahanhyökkäys is INCURSION. 'Guess we can all agree the SU made incursions.

Seems to me, the SU didn't accomplish what it wanted MILITARILY AFA westward movement, especially in central or northern Finland. Especially not initially, right? So to say it was waiting until it had the troops necessary to invade until it ACTUALLY DID "invade" tends to confuse.

The unsourced WP article you referred me to states invasion means "military offensive in which large parts of the armed forces of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory controlled by another such entity." It gives the examples of the German "invasion" of Poland and the Western Allied invasion of France.

I would add to that the British invasion of USA in 1812, whereby the British pretty well ran amok in the country, burned the capital, etc. but did not take over.

As you pointed out in the discussion above, OCCUPATION and INVASION are not the same; but AFAIK, invasion would typically mean occupying OR at least TRAVELLING THROUGH some substantial amount of the country. In this case, if I understand correctly, we're talking about a chunk of the Karelian Isthmus primarily, and even that only after quite a struggle.

AFAIK what ELSE the SU "invaded" in this war altogether was largely uninhabited territory much of it scrub/swamp/bog type real estate.

Under the section ===Soviet political and military offensive=== Snodgrass uses the term "offensive." 'Don't know what Raunio calls it. Paavo273 (talk) 21:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I already provided the dictionary definitions. "to enter (a place, such as a foreign country) in order to take control by military force" is exactly what the Soviet Union did. An incursion is pretty much a synonym (used for smaller scale or temporary raids). Whether the invading party accomplishes all or any of its goals after the entering is irrelevant - the Bay of Pigs Invasion was an utter failure, for example. --illythr (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

primarily the protection of Leningrad, which was only 18 miles to the north-west of the Finnish border

Oh, dear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.2.213.11 (talk) 10:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

It is changed to 20 miles and here are the quotes:

Stalin wasted no time putting his demands on the table. His main strategic problem, he said, was the vulnerability of the frontiers around Leningrad.[8]

His aim was the creation of a defensive buffer zone against the west, but Finland represented a dangerous gap in the line. Finland had a long 800-mile land border with the USSR that came within twenty miles of Leningrad, the cradle of the Bolshevik Revolution. The city was well within artillery range from Finnish territory and, as Stalin noted, the population of Leningrad numbered 4 million: equivalent to the whole population of Finland. The city could not be moved; consequently Stalin's logic dictated the roll-back of the Finnish border.[9]

-YMB29 (talk) 04:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Changes to intro

I have been away for a couple of years. What has happened to the intro? Seems it is very, very, very far from its orginal sources. I tried to revert the 2011 version. Seems the late political conflicts in Russia has confused its historical articles. "He who controls the past controls the future.". This is unacceptable. Peltimikko (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Er, the paragraph you deleted was heavily sourced. What exactly constitutes original research there? --illythr (talk) 20:03, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

IMO User:Peltimikko's wording is more neutral and more accurate. (This intro discussion also seems to involve what the SU's advancement/movement or lack thereof s/b called. I notice Peltimikko's preferred intro, like Snodgrass, uses "offensive" rather than invasion.) AFA construction of the SU leadership's intentions, it must not IMO be stated in WP's voice; it would also be more appropriately placed in the body of the article; I think there is already some discussion of it. I will look. Paavo273 (talk) 21:26, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

You know others can make changes to the article when you are not here...

Making such reverts is disruptive. If you have something specific that you don't like, discuss it here. -YMB29 (talk) 03:26, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Added a reference to the set-up of the "Declaration of the People's Government of Finland" issued in Terijoki on December 1, 1939, and the "Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship Between the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Finland" signed by Molotov and Kuusinen in Moscow on December 2, 1939. Rather a vital piece of information in terms of the political context of the Soviet invasion of Finland.

I don't know if this belongs in the intro, but that is not the only thing you changed. -YMB29 (talk) 15:28, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The Soviet set-up of a puppet government in Terijoki intended to rule the whole of Finland is a historical fact and highly relevant to the background. Your deletion denies this fact and is hardly 'neutral'. If you want to omit the Terijoki-government, you have to come up with a reasoned opinion why. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.171.4.126 (talk) 09:24, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The Terijoki government was already mentioned in the intro, so I don't know what you are talking about. If you want to add more information about it, you can edit the section of the article that talks about it.[10] -YMB29 (talk) 22:02, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The intro did not describe that the proxy-government set-up by Stalin was intended to replace the lawful Finnish government nor that this was formalised in a sham international agreement between Kuusinen and Molotov in Moscow right after the Soviet invasion of Finland. These are basic facts to understand the Soviet war aims properly. So far you have not provided any substantial arguments contradicting the elements of this contribution. You only claim not to understand. If you do not really have the knowledge nor the understanding, you should refrain from interfering with other people's substantiated contributions to this article.

Your personal opinion does not matter here. It is all about what the sources say, and not all of them agree that the Soviets intended to conquer the entire country.

Also, the intro is not the right place to add details about that government. Like I said, you can add more details to the appropriate section of the article. -YMB29 (talk) 17:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The fact that one country denies the legitimacy of its neighbour's government, sets up its own government for that country coupled with military invasion is not a "detail". You are unable to provide sources denying the existence of a Soviet puppet government and the international agreement between that government and Moscow. Stop vandalising the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.171.4.126 (talk) 09:57, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

No one is denying the existence of that government, but your opinion or analysis does not belong in the article.

Again, there is enough information about the government in the intro.

Your claim that "mainly Soviet sources argue..." is false since none of the sources used are Soviet.

You may get blocked from editing this article if you don't stop edit warring. -YMB29 (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

You have a history of vandalising articles on Finland without taking advice or using proper source. Stop this before you are blocked. The puppet-government in Terijoki is a historical fact. It is nothing you can change no matter how much you would like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.171.4.126 (talk) 15:46, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

So you are saying that I am denying it existed? -YMB29 (talk) 04:07, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

"The Soviet Union did not intend to conquer all Finland"

Unfortunately, the lede section of the article has been edited so extensively the original intent of those references must have changed. I am curious if Trotter actually wrote that, it would require loaning all those books. As for the claim in the article that "Other sources argue that there is no documentary evidence to support this and that there are arguments against the idea of a full Soviet conquest.", the actual battle map (on the right side) shows it can be rather awkward. --Pudeo' 11:38, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Soviet goals

I doubt strongly that Trotter has been cited incorrectly and therefore direct cites from the referred text are absolutely needed. In any case, the lead section is biassed; see WP:WEIGHT and WP:ABIAS. Moreover, too much weight has been put on alternative theories in particular in the sentence "Some sources purport that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland"; see WP:FRINGE.

I suggest including the alternative theories in a new chapter or, if appropriate, in the chapter Winter War#Soviet views. --Gwafton (talk) 07:38, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

You are not being clear.

What are the "alternative" theories you are talking about? That the Soviet Union wanted to conquer Finland is also an alternative theory?

And are you saying that Trotter has been cited correctly or incorrectly? -YMB29 (talk)

Prevailing view: Soviet Union did try to occupy the whole Finland. An alternative theory: Soviet Union only tried to occupy certain parts of Finland.

Trotter has been potentially cited incorrectly. I suggested you before to add footnotes with direct cites to exclude any doubts of of incorrect reference. --Gwafton (talk) 16:55, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Who says that it is the prevailing view?

Here is the quote from the Trotter book:

Every historical indication is that the Russian negotiators were genuinely thrown off balance and deeply surprised by the Finns' intransigent response. If these original demands had been met, would Stalin then have tried to subjugate all of Finland? Would the Winter War have been fought? It is at least possible that Stalin himself did not know what his ultimate intentions toward Finland might be. The strongest argument against such a strategy of outright conquest is that it did not, in the event, happen - not after the Winter War nor even in 1944 when Stalin had every legitimate excuse to overrun the country, and could have done so with comparative ease.

-YMB29 (talk) 18:49, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

My interpretation of the above quote: The Soviet negotiators were surprised about the lack of concessions from the Finnish side (compared to for example the Baltic states in the similar negotiations). Then Trotter is speculating if there had been any chance to avoid the Winter War, and that Stalin could have perhaps theoretically thought of something less than a complete occupation. The "strongest argument" against an intention of a complete conquest, which Trotter refers to, is that Finland could keep its independence after the Continuation War. Perhaps Trotter didn't know that in 23 June 1944 Soviet Union demanded Finland to surrender unconditionally, so I would not put very much weight on the mentioned strongest argument.

The text in this article tells that there is no "concrete documentary evidence" to support that Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland. Please explain me, how do you justify using the above quote from Trotter as an argument to a such claim? The quote consists just vague speculations of alternative intentions and to me it looks like Trotter doesn't even claim it being more than that. Professional academic writers often include views from alternative perspectives in their texts to express that other theories have been considered.

Regarding the prevailing view, please see WP:ABIAS. The sentence "Some sources purport that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland"' differs flagrantly from the acknowledged historiography. Winter War has been researched and debated a lot by Finnish, Russian and other historians. If your message is that all other worthy sources, apart from some, purport that Soviet Union had not intended to conquer all of Finland, it should not be difficult to you to find some of them and list here with the direct cites; then the community can better check and evaluate them for their credibility and consistence. --Gwafton (talk) 20:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

You are talking about acknowledged Finnish historiography.

No, the USSR did not demand unconditional surrender in 1944; this was a Finnish misinterpretation of the demands. So Trotter knows what he is talking about.

The same goes for the Soviet goals in the Winter War. Outside of Finland there is doubt about the Soviet intentions.

WP:ABIAS refers to pseudoscience or non-academic sources, which the cited sources are not.

Here is the quote for "no concrete documentary evidence":

Moscow then opted for a military solution and at the same time tried to use a political ploy. It was announced on the day that hostilities began that a 'people's government' of Finland had been formed, headed by Otto Kuusinen - the leader of the Finnish Communist Party and member of the Executive Committee of Comintern - who had fled to Soviet Russia at the end of 1918 after the Communists were defeated in the Finnish civil war. This ploy was meant to split Finnish society, but Moscow miscalculated and this did not happen.

No documents have been found in the Russian archives to support the argument that Moscow intended to annex Finland to the Soviet Union. The USSR rather wanted to acquire a part of Finnish territory and to strengthen Soviet influence in Finland. (Stalin and the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939–1940, p. xvi)

-YMB29 (talk) 00:07, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I am talking about acknowledged historiography not depending on the nationality or ethnicity of the writers.

Finnish misinterpretation of the Soviet demands? What is your version what Soviet Union told in those contacts in summer 1944, and how should they be understood? (Continuation War is out of the scope of this article but the topic is relevant in this context.)

The prevailing view of historians about Moscow intentions in the Winter War is based for example, but not only, on the interrogations of POW's, political documents (such as Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) and documents found during the operations; such as the material left by the 163. division, which attacked in Finland in Suomussalmi, included a marching order that described how to behave and communicate with the Swedish and Norwegian border guards. These represent just some of the evidence. Moreover, it is difficult for historians to explain coherently the Soviet attack on the whole length of the Finnish east border in name of gaining just enough of area for Leningrad defence – please tell me if you find somewhere a such story where the plot and extensive attack are reconciled.

If Trotter claims in his book that no documents have been found in the Russian archives to support the argument that Moscow intended to annex Finland to the Soviet Union, it might be explained by the age of the book; it was issued originally in 1991, at the end of the Soviet era, when the archives were still without undergoing a deep investigation. At least Russian historians seem to be aware about the end of October 1939 confirmed Kirill Meretskov's plan for conquest of Finland, which included advancing until Helsinki, Oulu and Tornio (In my understanding it would still theoretically leave space for speculation for not proceeding until Turku, but a such theory would be absurd). Perhaps this plan was not found yet at the time when the book was published.

Initially I suggested telling about the alternative theories based on Trotter's book in a separate chapter. Now I am starting to suspect that the book is fundamentally outdated and therefore not longer a valid source. --Gwafton (talk) 23:43, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Trotter is not the one who writes that no documents were found; the quotation above is from another book.

The text of the initial Soviet terms in 1944 does not mention unconditional surrender. This was discussed many times on other pages.

Military plans don't prove your point since they are often created just in case. Your argument about attacking other parts of Finland is also not convincing, because no matter what the intentions were, only attacking on the narrow Karelian Isthmus does not make sense from a military point of view.

Anyway, here we go by what the sources say. You cannot dismiss Trotter as a source and claim that there is some consensus among historians around the world. -YMB29 (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, didn't notice that it was the other book – my mistake. So neither the other author knew about Meretskov's plan.

Assuming that the sources have been written in good faith without knowledge of such sources, they are only valid up to the moment of publishing – Chubaryan should be then cited "according to Chubaryan, until 2002 no documents have been found in the Russian archives to support the view that Soviet Union intended to annex the whole Finland." And Trotter respectively.

More reliable sources are available also in Russia, for example publications of Vladimir Baryshnikov. In Russia he is widely regarded one of the leading specialists about the topic.

The current state of the article is that the lead section is not neutral (WP:WEIGHT), and based on the understanding I have got from the above discussion, it is biassed with doubtfully cited sources. --Gwafton (talk) 21:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the problem with the intro is that it is biased or the citations are incorrect, but there are some things in there that may need to be moved.

There are many sources, not just Chubaryan and Trotter, that doubt that the Soviet intention was to conquer all of Finland, and so mentioning this in the intro does not violate WP:WEIGHT. Maybe that sentence has to be rephrased.

What new documents came out after 2000? Meretskov's plan was known before I would think, but again this is only a military plan.

As for Baryshnikov, according to him Stalin did not want to conquer and annex Finland, but did seek to bring the communists to power there. -YMB29 (talk) 06:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know when Meretskov's plan became public, but in case it was a recent found, it would explain why these sources suggest that Soviet Union did not try to conquest the whole Finland. Maybe Chubaryan is just incorrectly cited – maybe he meant that he believes Soviet Union did try to conquer whole Finland, setting up a puppet regime and allow some pseudoindependent position, but not to annex it in the similar manner as the Baltic States.

Baryshnikov definitely says that Soviet Union did intend to conquer the whole Finland. But I don't know what is his view about the subsequent plans after a complete occupation.

Meretskov's plan is not "just" another military plan, but an obvious strategy to take control over the whole Finland. What would Soviet Union had done after taking Finland under its control, is speculative, and most likely we will never know for sure. In case you want to write in the article a section that describes the suggested scenarios after conquering Finland, I recommend you to refer strictly to the names of the speculators with direct cite footnotes. There are many kind of theories based on various lengths of argumentation chains, some of them being more worthy than the others.

Have we reached the consensus that the first objective of Soviet Union in the Winter War was conquering the whole Finland, but intention to annex the whole country is controversial? --Gwafton (talk) 19:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Conquer is misleading and could imply annexation. However, intend to conquer without annexation is also controversial.

I can't image Meretskov's plan being found only after 2000. More likely historians knew about it much earlier, but realize that it is only a military plan. Military plans are created for all scenarios and don't necessarily reflect final political decisions. Anyway, this is only your speculation.

The best way to describe V. Baryshnikov's view (and that of his father) on this is regime change or exporting revolution. This is not the same as conquer.

There are a number of legitimate (non-fringe) views on what the Soviet goals were, so we need a sentence that mentions all of them. -YMB29 (talk) 07:00, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

The difference between phrases conquer and annex is clearly distinguishable. For example, Stettin was conquered by Soviet Union but annexed by Poland. Two different things.

The Meretskov’s military plan was a plan for the Soviet Army to conquer Finland. Annexation was not included in the plan, because such is not in the scope of military forces. It belongs to politicians.

“Regime change” and “exporting revolution” mean in practice conquest and setting up a puppet regime. In Wikipedia we should use plain language rather than vague euphemisms and political jargon.

As I told before, you can include a separate chapter for the speculated further plans of Soviet Union, but definitely with clearly marked references backed up by direct cites from the sources. There is a large variety of theories from pub discussions to academic studies, and therefore you must be careful. --Gwafton (talk) 15:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want to move the speculated plans to another section then intend to conquer should also be moved, since there is no consensus among historians about this and it is also speculation.

Regime change or exporting revolution involves supporting or instigating a local uprising against the existing government.

I know the difference between conquering and annexing, but again the word conquer could be misleading.

As I explained above, politicians also decide if a plan prepared by the military to conquer a country or territory will be implemented or not. -YMB29 (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

No, the conquer plan is not speculation. It is a widely known military plan for taking control over Finland. It is so well-known, that for a historian denying this would be an obvious way to loose academic credibility. Maybe you can find such historians, but they are marginal both in number and academic worthiness. Why do you keep on arguing when it is obvious also to yourself that you are wrong?

You can speculate about the subsequent plan after conquest by using clear terms, such as annexation, takeover or coup. Such terms as regime change and exporting revolution sound more like some awkward Soviet semantics. I am not willing to speculate about the subsequent actions after conquest of Finland, feel free to write about it with good reference notes as I described above, but don't forget writing it clearly.

Politicians decide about the military actions, but as soon as the military operation is completed, it is the time for politicians to decide what they want to do. --Gwafton (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

So if you agree that politicians decide about the military actions, why do you keep bringing up Meretskov's plan? It was Meretskov's job to create plans, but the politicians decided whether or not to use them.

It does not look like Chubaryan or Trotter, as well as other historians, lost their academic credibility for doubting that Finland was to be conquered... -YMB29 (talk) 04:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Politicians made the decision about the objective and Meretskov made the military strategic plan how to reach it. This was approved at end of October 1939 and the army started to execute it. The objective of the Soviet Army was to occupy Finland, after which the politicians would have decided what to do with it. I don't know how to put this more simple.

Regarding Trotter, his book was first published in 1991, when the Soviet archives were not investigated very deep yet. I don't know what kind of research material he had read, but based on the cite and discussion above his book seems to be outdated. If Trotter would still stand behind his view of 1991, I would not take him seriously. What comes to Chubaryan, he is telling about annexation, not about conquest. It would be interesting to know why Chubaryan has avoided mentioning the military conquest objective and directly jumped to the speculation about annexation.

Please tell me if there is still something you don't understand. --Gwafton (talk) 07:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The military is told to make a plan for war against an enemy or potential enemy. It is up to the politicians to decide whether or not to use the plan or how far to go with it. If the goal was only to push the border back, it would not make sense to just have a plan to advance a certain number of kilometers and stop; who would know when the Finns would stop resisting or how the conflict would develop. So military plans are not always an indicator of final political goals.

By the way, can you provide more details about the military plan you keep mentioning?

The last edition of Trotter's book is from 2013, so if something was drastically wrong, it probably would have been changed.

As for Chubaryan, in the second sentence it is clear that he is not talking about conquest either. -YMB29 (talk) 21:14, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

The first section of your answer includes an extremely implausible explanation which hardly, even theoretically, has space among the existing evidence. What you tell about the role of military plans is just rubbish. Although military plans differ from political goals, they definitely do indicate military goals and this is what the Meretskov's plan was all about.

Regarding the plan, the easiest way to understand it is watching this clip 14:30 →

If Trotter still claimed in 2013 that it is possible that Soviet Union did not want to conquer the entire Finland, he seems to be a questionable source then. --Gwafton (talk) 22:20, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

So you don't like Trotter as a source, but that does not matter.

You should not be complaining about rubbish when you fail to understand the difference between military plans/goals and political ones...

All you have been doing is giving your personal opinion and analysis, which is not good enough no matter how right you think you are (see WP:TRUTH). -YMB29 (talk) 02:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What I said about Trotter, has got nothing to do with my feelings – it is only about his credibility as a source, based on the discussion above.

Tell me where I have told my opinion. I have only referred to sources and their credibility. I suggest you to read WP:TRUTH yourself – although it is getting evident what your purpose is at corrupting the article by obvious POV pushing.

I do understand the difference between military plans/goals and political goals, I explained clearly the difference between conquest and annexation above. For some reason you prefer bundling them as one entity and hide behind fuzzy terminology the Soviet military goal of advancing until Helsinki. Once again: there is undeniable evidence (referred above) that Soviet Union wanted to conquer Finland but what Soviet leadership planned to do with Finland after that politically is controversial. I have tried to be very clear with the terminology all the time. --Gwafton (talk) 23:14, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Well once again sources disagree with you.

I never said that conquest is always followed by annexation.

You seem to think that military plans reveal actual political goals, which is wrong. Such plans are usually contingent and deal with worst case scenarios.

What do you have against Trotter as a source besides your own arguments? You can complain about his credibility here on the talk page all you want, but that is only your opinion and means very little when it comes to editing the article. -YMB29 (talk) 03:13, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Once again: Trotter's book is not a valid source because it ignores the clear evidence which shows that Soviet Union definitely had a plan for an outright conquest of Finland. What the source tells about the "strongest argument against", is void, because there was a plan of conquering Finland, which Trotter either is/was not aware or disregarded. It is a point that is independent of my or your opinion.

Regarding your sentence "You seem to think that military plans reveal actual political goals, which is wrong." Why do you claim that I think such way, if I am telling you totally opposite? Remember the example about Stettin I told you above. Military plans tell about military goals. What the politicians decide after, is a different story. Just like I told you before: what kind of plans Soviet Union had for the occupied Finland once the military goal would have reached, is controversial and subject of speculation. But the evident target in the military plan was conquering the country. --Gwafton (talk) 22:50, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The views expressed by YMB29 is not even a majority view amongst serious Russian historians. His denial of a) the formation by the Soviet Union of the "People's Republic of Finland" with a puppet-government in Terijoki and b) captured Soviet military plans where it was documented they were heading to the Bothnic Gulf and the Swedish border, shows he is here to peddle a political version of WWII and the Winter War to accommodate contemporary Russian politics. This type of vandalism and desinformation is the problem with Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.171.4.126 (talk) 15:34, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Where am I denying the formation of the Terijoki government? The below reply applies to you too. -YMB29 (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Politicians decide what military goals to pursue during a military operation. You think that they sit back and allow the military commanders to finish their operation and only then get involved? It does not work that way...

Who are you to declare sources invalid or the arguments from them void? Once again, your opinion/analysis has very little meaning here. It is all about what reliable sources say. -YMB29 (talk) 03:52, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Naturally, the military leadership reports about the progress to politicians. Army is there just to execute the politicians' objectives, which might change, as it happened during the Winter War.

Who am I to declare a source invalid? I am just like anyone who sees that the source is not factually correct. Or do you think that it is just fine to write according cherry-picked sources which you know being wrong? Read carefully this section.

Anyway, as there doesn't seem to be any progress, I have posted this case to NPOV Noticeboard. --Gwafton (talk) 17:46, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

You can't tell even the initial political goals only from military plans because of the contingent nature of those plans.

I know what is WP:TRUTH and have already pointed you to read it before. The question is did you read it carefully? It does not look like you did...

I am not saying that what Trotter, Chubaryan or others say is the absolute truth, but only that their views are not fringe and should be in the article. What you are saying is that the sources should not be in the article, because you "see" that they are "not factually correct." This goes against what is said in WP:TRUTH: Editors may not add their own views to articles simply because they believe them to be correct, and may not remove sources' views from articles simply because they disagree with them. -YMB29 (talk) 20:44, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

Why do you keep repeating about the political goals? I have told you for many times already that the political goals of Soviet Union regarding Finland are controversial. But it is evident that the Soviet military plan in Winter War included taking over the whole Finland.

I did read the WP:TRUTH. But again I ask you, where have I added my own views? I have not removed any sources because of believing that they are not correct – I removed them because of knowing they are not correct. Such sources, which are wrong, can be removed. If you watched the clip (14:30 →) I linked above and where Meretskov's plan is briefly described, also you should not fail seeing that the Trotter cite used in the article lead section is not factually correct. The following claim of Trotter is therefore void: It is at least possible that Stalin himself did not know what his ultimate intentions toward Finland might be. The strongest argument against such a strategy of outright conquest is that it did not, in the event, happen - not after the Winter War nor even in 1944 when Stalin had every legitimate excuse to overrun the country, and could have done so with comparative ease.

What comes to Chubaryan, I repeat what I have told you before: it is incorrectly cited. --Gwafton (talk) 11:08, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Once again, military plans are contingent on political ones. They are created for worst case scenarios. You just fail to understand this.

So you "know that sources are incorrect" instead of believing so. It makes no difference in this case; you are still violating WP:TRUTH. That is just a dubious argument...

You are declaring a statement from a source void based on a map from an old Russian documentary? Again, you are in no position to declare anything void.

Also, I have explained to you that Chubaryan is correctly cited. -YMB29 (talk) 23:20, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

You seem to rather sacrifice your credibility than admit being wrong. Are you a troll? --Gwafton (talk) 00:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

See WP:NPA. -YMB29 (talk) 02:46, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

The documentary film is barely 10 years old and there are interviewed specialists and people who were personally involved. Besides, there is told much more than just the map and you know that. I didn't mean to attack on you personally, it was a serious question. --Gwafton (talk) 07:31, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, serious question... The documentary is from 2002. It is not very old, but using it as a reliable source that proves everything here does not help your case. -YMB29 (talk) 19:42, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

You don't have to use the video clip as a source in the article – it is enough that it repeals Trotter's conjectures. It is a proof that Trotter's text is void and therefore text referring to the particular statement of Trotter shall be removed from the article. And what is your answer to my serious question – are you a troll? --Gwafton (talk) 23:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you?

So the video somehow voids Trotter's statement, but it does not have to be included in the article? I don't get your logic. -YMB29 (talk) 04:24, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Clarification: The whole text about Soviet intentions, which is based on the Trotter book cited above, shall be removed from the article.

No, I am not a troll, I am not trying to push POV to undue direction. I am also writing in Wikipedia without a political agenda. So, are you a troll?

It is clear this Wikipedia page especially the intro is being vandalised. The papers captured by the Finns from large number of Soviet troops over and over again indicate there was an unquestionable military intent to push the Soviet troops to Helsinki and other cities, and also reach the Gulf of Bothnia by the Raate formation of two Soviet divisions. It is also clear from many Russian-authored sources that the immediate military aim was to occupy Finland. One source is Viktor Stepankov's and Dimitri Orehov's book Parade March to Finland (WSOY), ISBN 951-0-18304-0. Quoting: "My unit had the orders to continue the attack into Oulu, which is located at the coast to Gulf of Bothnia, thereby cutting Finland in two, and so in the north to isolate the Finnish troops. (Makarjin VD non-commissioned officer, Soviet 81. Infantry Regiment, 54. Infantry Division).". Secondly, the claim that Finland ceded in the Moscow Peace Treaty those territories "originally claimed" is a total falsehood. What Stalin demanded by the long negotiations led by NKVD officer Boris Jartsev are undisputably documented in a large number of places and only talk about the Suursaari Islands, a small area in the Karelian Isthmus to the Lipola-Koivisto line, a part of Petchenga in the far north, and the Hanko peninsula in the South-Western coast as a military base, to be swapped with an area in Karelia, which is much less than the areas annexed in the 1940 Moscow Peace Treaty. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty has the undisputed secret protocol paraded by the Yeltsin administration 1992 with a map signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop signatures marking the whole of Finland as belonging to the Soviet Union.

--Gwafton (talk) 19:41, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

There is a book by the Finnish historian Ohto Manninen called Miten Suomi valloitetaan : Puna-armeijan operaatiosuunnitelmat 1939-1944 ("How to invade Finland: The Red Army's operational plans 1939-1944), which has been reviewed in the University of Helsinki journal Terra [11] and commended as "expert". So, YMB29 do you agree or disagree with that the military operational plans were aimed at conquering all of Finland (which included cutting Finland in half -> Battle of Suomussalmi?). Currently the lede does not distinguish between military aims and previous political aims (the Soviet aims could have changed during the year 1939 alone). So what is the problem? Shouldn't we simply modify the lead to distinguish the actual military operation plans during the war? --Pudeo' 05:10, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the military plans should be discussed in the intro. Like I said many times before, having a certain military plan developed does not mean that the final political decision was made to use the plan or to follow it fully. So we can't say that if there was a detailed military plan to take Helsinki, the Soviets definitely wanted to conquer Finland.

It is really simple. We should go by what the sources say. There are sources that say that the Soviets' initial intend was to conquer all of Finland and there are sources that question this. We have to mention both views in the article. -YMB29 (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, with due weight. What you are saying is quite reasonable. However, the lede does not mention the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact at all (whole Finland was included in the Soviet sphere of influence) and while I agree that different military plans might not be very relevant, it is important that the Soviet Union attacked in the north Petsamo/Pechenga and Mid-Finland as well. --Pudeo' 03:40, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

What is important, the plan of Meretskov included conquest of Helsinki. The political leadership was aware of the plan and had set the military objectives (and Meretskov made the plan how to carry it out). Already this alone means that Soviet Union tried to take over the whole Finland with no doubt. A such claim that the plan was made just for a sketch without connection to the final military goal is absurd, such incompetence in Soviet leadership would be unimaginable, even minding the loss of capable army officers during the Great Purge. --Gwafton (talk) 19:41, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

How many times do I have to tell you that this is only your own analysis. -YMB29 (talk) 20:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

No, you put it wrong way around. Meretskov's plan included conquest of Helsinki. But according to your analysis, intending to conquer Helsinki did not actually mean conquest of Helsinki. --Gwafton (talk) 20:15, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I keep saying that we don't know whether that was an actual political goal or not, and we should go by what the sources say. -YMB29 (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

There are many places where the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol is documented, for example, Lituanus Volume 35, No.1 - Spring 1989, or Jan Szembek, Diariusz i Teki (London: Polish Research Centre, 1972), IV, 752-760 as provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library. What happened everywhere else except in Finland which stopped the attack is that the sphere as expressed was actually conquered by either the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. Even the details as discussed in addenda texts in subsequent Russo-German meetings were discussed as if to adjust future Soviet-German border. Hence mention of the M-R secret protocol is extremely fundamental for the Winter War and simply must be in the intro indicating the Soviet political aim of conquering Finland if the intro is to be taken seriously as any kind of authoritative text on the Winter War. Not only is the text of the addenda clear but the following evidence is crystal-clear: in identical situations in what happened with the Baltic states and all other territories in the protocol marked to the Soviet sphere of influence, all were completely occupied, and then annexed as part of the Soviet Union. This by far most important primary reference, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact's secret protocol was the key, the very trigger for the Soviet attack, and the most primary proof of the political goal for the war, full annexation of Finland. Reference to this document must be added back to the intro with proper emphasis, otherwise the intro is very biased and not credible to vast majority of readers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.128.195.243 (talk) 21:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Like I said before, Soviet attacks on central and northern Finland diverted Finnish reserves from the Karelian Isthmus, so they don't prove that the intention was to conquer Finland.

As for the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, I think it can be mentioned in the intro if properly sourced. -YMB29 (talk) 20:07, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Stalin himself admitted his intent on conquering Finland (from Stalin and the Soviet-Finnish War, 1939-1940[12]):

"We know from the history of our army and our country that Finland was conquered four times. We tried to shake it for the fifth time."

"From the very beginning we told the Finns they had a choice - either you must make great concessions or we'll pulverise you and you'll get a government under Kuusinen that will disembowel your cabinet."

--Nug (talk) 21:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

You shamelessly going to follow me from article to article?

That is primary source text, however:

The war ended three months and 12 days after it had begun because our army performed well, and because our political barrier was positioned correctly: either you, Messrs Finnish bourgeois, make concessions or we will impose a government under Kuusinen on you which will disembowel you; they preferred the former.

-YMB29 (talk) 21:46, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

In order to "impose a government under Kuusinen", one needs to conquer Finland first. --Nug (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Messrs Finnish bourgeois, make concessions or we will impose a government under Kuusinen... -YMB29 (talk) 22:00, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but Finland did not want to "make concessions", hence Stalin sought to conquer ("We tried to shake it for the fifth time") Finland in order to "impose a government under Kuusinen". --Nug (talk) 22:16, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Conquer only if they kept refusing. This actually proves the view that the USSR did not go to war to conquer Finland, but to force it to make concessions. Thanks for bringing up this text. -YMB29 (talk) 23:18, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

That is one interpretation. The other is that demanding unreasonable concessions was a pretext for conquest, but having failed conquest Stalin opted to accept lesser outcomes. Stalin discusses at length the reasons the Soviet army failed to conquer Finland: "You know that after the first successes of the advancing troops we met with a number of problems at all stretches of the front as soon as the war began. .... We expected an easy win. .... Our army failed to understand, to understand promptly, that the war in Poland was merely a military stroll, not a war. The army did not understand and did not grasp that in Finland there would be no stroll, there would be a real war." Then Stalin offers some solutions: ".... aircraft, mass aircraft, not just hundreds, but thousands, of aircraft. .... We should have masses of tanks, not hundreds but thousands of them", etc, etc. That is the talk of someone intent on conquest but falling short. --Nug (talk) 01:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Ok, that is your interpretation of the text. I can't fault you for having your own opinion. -YMB29 (talk) 07:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

So, please tell us what is your interpretation of those cites listed by user Nug? To me they look nothing else but afterwise ifs and buts by Stalin because his campaign had not reached its ultimate goal. --Gwafton (talk) 16:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Our interpretations, especially of primary sources, don't matter. However, in the part I quoted above Stalin clearly states that conquering Finland was not the main goal, and Kuusinen's government was meant to scare the Finnish leaders into agreeing to Soviet terms. -YMB29 (talk) 20:56, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Even if conquering Finland had not been the main goal at earlier stage (during the so-called Yartsev negotiations), Soviet Union definitely tried to conquer all of Finland when it started the Winter War. --Gwafton (talk) 23:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Well again that is your opinion. Since Kuusinen's government is mentioned, Stalin is talking about the time of the beginning of the war. -YMB29 (talk) 02:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Gwafton makes a good point, this is an article about a war and the military aim was to conquer Finland, the political aim is subordinated to the result of the military campaign. Political aims are flexible, military aims are are more rigid because of the planning and logistics required. If Stalin indeed offered the Finns a choice between territorial concessions and conquest, then he had to plan and conduct the war with the aim of actually conquering Finland, otherwise the choice Stalin offered was not serious and would never have persuaded the Finns to make territorial concessions in the end. Stalin's comment "We know from the history of our army and our country that Finland was conquered four times. We tried to shake it for the fifth time." shows his political aims were flexible, if the war proved to be a "military stroll", as Stalin put it, and Finland was defeated in a couple of weeks, then Stalin would have been quite happy for his army to completely conquer Finland right up to the Swedish border. --Nug (talk) 11:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Well even if it was a stroll, Stalin still would have to worry about England and France...

The only clear conclusion one can make from the text above is that the main Soviet goal was to force Finland to make concessions.

Again, we can speculate about the Soviet goals here, but this will all be OR. -YMB29 (talk) 01:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you may be confusing military goals with diplomatic goals. Before the war the goal was diplomatic being Finnish territorial concessions, that did not work so the goal became a military goal, being the conquest of Finland. As Van Dyke states in his book The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939-40:

"On 29 October, Voroshilov ordered Meretskov to develop an operational plan for the encirclement and full annihilation of the Finnish army by means of coordinated land, sea and air attacks. The Leningrad Military District's offensive was to consist of two mainoperational axes, one on the Karelian Isthmus (lasting no more that eight to 10 days) and the otherin Ladoga-Karelia (lasting no more that 15 days)."

But the military goal of a 10 to 15 day conquest did not work either, Finland was still fight months later, so the goal changed back to the original diplomatic goal of Finnish territorial concessions. Since this article is about a war, the military goal should precedence, but we can mention the diplomatic goal in the background section. --Nug (talk) 11:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not talking about diplomacy, but about political goals. Like I said before, military goals are contingent and depend on political decisions. They are used to achieve political goals, but having a plan to conquer a country ready does not mean it will be used or used fully. -YMB29 (talk) 19:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

It works both ways, political decisions are also contingent and depend upon whether the military goal was achieved or not. The political decision was made to create a military plan with the goal of conquering Finland within 15 days, that is not in dispute. That Soviet attempted as best they could to implement that military plan in full is also not in dispute: 323,000 soviet casualties was the result. With such a high casualty rate and the military goal of conquering Finland within 15 days failing, combined with growing potential for intervention by England and France, the political decision was made to abandon the military goals and accept an armistice which actually exceeded the original political goals. The political goals you speak of belong in Background of the Winter War, while the military goals belong in this article Winter War. --Nug (talk) 19:50, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Since when are military goals more important than political ones? Yes, political goals also depend on how well military goals are accomplished, but you can't tell exactly what the original political goals were based on contingent military plans. Just because there was a military plan prepared to conquer Finland, does not mean that this was ever the main political goal. -YMB29 (talk) 20:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Sure, the original political goals are described in Background of the Winter War, but once the war started the main goal became the military goal, and when that fell short the main goal became political again. --Nug (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The main goal cannot move from being political to military and back. It is always political. -YMB29 (talk) 23:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

That's just your opinion. Political goals can easily change, military goals are harder to change due to the requirements of planning, personnel and logistics. The fact there were over 300 thousand casualties indicates that the military goal had serious political backing. --Nug (talk) 05:56, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

It is not my opinion. Political goals dictate military ones. -YMB29 (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

If it is not your opinion can you identify the source where that opinion came from? Equally, failed military goals dictate political ones. --Nug (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

It is more appropriate to say that failed military goals have an impact on political ones.

If you need a source here:[13] -YMB29 (talk) 23:43, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Since the military goal was undeniably the crushing of the Finnish army and conquest of Finland, and political goals dictate military ones, then the political goal must have changed for the duration of the war. In any case the original political goals are described on Background of the Winter War while the military goals are described in Winter War. --Nug (talk) 20:44, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Political goals don't just become irrelevant when war starts. Conquering a country is still a political goal, which is accomplished by achieving military goals.

Whether or not the main political goal changed during the war is debatable and the text should reflect this. -YMB29 (talk) 05:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Part 2

The political goal was very clear reading from the primary source, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact's secret protocol, and especially given what happened to every other territory mentioned in it as part of the Soviet sphere of interest (full annexation). Adding a reference to the protocol as proof that Stalin's goal at start of the war was full annexation is a central request in restoring some credibility to the intro. Otherwise it very biased, even propagandistically anti-Finnish, given Putin's recent well-publicized orders to historians in spinning the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact's significance to be something it is not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.128.195.243 (talk) 18:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Well that is your opinion... If you want to add something, you need secondary sources that back up what you are saying.

The pact is already mentioned in this article. I don't think that adding text about it in the intro will make the article better. There is too much information there. I think even the text about the Soviet goals can be moved down. -YMB29 (talk) 19:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The secret protocol is not presented as expressing Soviet intent on annexing Finland anywhere in the article. This even though that is clear from the protocol. History in other countries clearly demonstrates this as well as addenda to the protocol. The text of the protocol is available in many places, and the original was presented by KGB leutenant-general Dimitry Volkogonov, historian and advisor to Yeltsin, in a press conference in 1992 where the orignials were shown to the international press including map with carvings of spheres of influence and signatures of Molotov and Ribbentrop. There are 271 references in an article about the treaty in Wikipedia. So multiple references to the text is easily available already, even through Wikipedia. Another strong source to the intent of the Soviet is the unauthorized recording of Adolf Hitler during his visit to Mannerheim (also available online) where Hitler tells how he via Ribbentrop blocked the still lingering Soviet intent on annexing Finland in Soviet-German negotiations late 1940. There are multiple other sources refering to these discussions. I have the feeling that no matter how many references I present it does not alter your intent in not editing this in (maybe someone else should edit it, and probaly will). It is widely accepted fact amongst historians that the pact represented in 1939 a plan by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany to invade, occupy, and annex the territories between them as carved out in the protocol. Given that this pact primarily enabled Soviets to act without German interference and clocked all their other invasions as expressed in the protocol which were fully implemented proving that it is not only the view of most historians but a fact, except only in Finland the facts on the ground prevented this. Thus omitting the protocol as the primary proof of Soviet political goals at start of the Winter War to annex Finland from this article and especially to its intro where war goal is discussed, is a gross forgery of history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.128.195.243 (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how "facts on the ground" prevented the annexation of Finland if the Finnish Army was close to collapse by the end of the war.

The pact by itself does not prove intent to conquer unless this was directly mentioned in its text. You can probably find some sources that state something similar to what you are saying, but this should not be added to the intro (for reasons mentioned above) and does not mean that there is a consensus among historians about this. -YMB29 (talk) 22:59, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The war goals at start of the war and from January 1940 onwards are different reading from the communications by the Soviet government (http://www.histdoc.net/history/ru/NKID1939-12-25.htm). Dec 25 Molotov cables the Soviet Ambassador in London "Шайку Маннергейма — Таннера мы ликвидируем" (we are going to liquidate the Mannerheim-Tanner clique), impractical to do without full annexation. Beginning of 1940 in the discussion between Molotov and the German Ambassador to Moscow, the notes of the latter said (http://www.histdoc.net/history/de/NaSo1940-01-08.html) "Meine Bemerkung, daß die Finnländer nach Lage der Dinge nicht mit einem Enderfolg rechnen könnten und daher vermutlich bereit sein dürften, mit Sowjetregierung in Verhandlung einzutreten, beantwortete Molotov bemerkenswerterweise nicht mit einer strikten Ablehnung, sondern mit den Worten, daß es hierfür „spät, sehr spät" sei und die Finnländer besser daran getan hätten, die sowjetischen Forderungen seinerzeit anzunehmen", that Molotov answered notably not with strict denial but that it is very late, i.e. leaving the room open for negotiation, an indication of a change of heart by Stalin, likely because of the implications of the possible Anglo-French intervention.

Relevance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret protocol can be read directly from the text of Article III of the secret protocol: "The necessary reorganization of public administration will be effected in the areas west of the line specified in 1 by the Government of the German Reich, in the areas east of the line by the Government of the U.S.S.R." - impossible to achieve without actually annexing the territories. Also in Hitler's remark to Mannerheim on Molotov "He said, well, in Finland one would act against the friends of the Soviet Union…this would be a society…they would be continuously persecuted, and a Great Power could not accept being threatened from a small state regarding its existence." (end of quote) which indicates Molotov's reasoning for further war (protection of pro-Soviet in Finland, eliminate moral threat by Finland) is impossible without annexation. Note also they demanded the right to attack again by the Molotov-Hitler Berlin Nov 1940 meeting after the Moscow peace treaty claiming Finland posed a moral existential threat to the Soviet Union still after the Winter War.

I do not claim there is consensus, only majority opinion on the side of the full annexation. Of course one can split hairs on what is majority but I have now brought to attention plenty of absolutely essential primary references from the actors themselves into which there are plenty of more references to in the literature, and also there are Stalin's direct comments on the matter as informally mentioned by others earlier. The discrepancy between the reality and claiming there is equal emphasis on both schools as was in the intro w/o reference to primary documents is a reason for the very long discussions and many complaints above on this talk page on the quality of the intro. — Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|Jmatsv (talk) 05:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)]] comment added by Jmatsv (talk • contribs) 05:15, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

While primary sources are important for historians, here they are not to be used in the way you are using them: Do not analyze, synthesize, interpret, or evaluate material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so.[14] -YMB29 (talk) 21:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The primary documents are discussed only in the talk, and specifically motivate many researchers to the conclusion regarding full annexation in their scholarly work (that's all the one sentence of it really says), as now modified (Molotov-Ribbentrop is so basic its secret protocol just has to be treated in any academic work to be taken seriously so Terijoki certainly was not only used as proof, also M-R secret protocol and other recently found documents are important if not even more so). Before reverting please study these. The references are now scholarly work (only a sample of many more). There is a book by Mannonen, a leading Finnish scholar with decades of books on the topic dedicating one of them to painstakingly show the military goal mentioning the political goal, a more recent alternative somewhat more controversial view by Hautamaki based on some Finnish intel mentioning the political goal, a paper reminding that besides M-R the Communist Party XVIII conference set such a goal, then a paper in a Norwegian collection with very detailed analysis on very many NKVD, Finnish, and other intelligence service secret documents constructing a detailed flow on Stalin's decision making on war and peace, and then a dissertation with very recently found French documents on the significance of the Daladier efforts to support Finland into what happened and why. This question is central and the general one-sentence in the intro had to be improved some way. Assuming Terijoki is the only proof is too narrow even w.r.t. older research. There are many more academic/book/bio references mentioning this question including Russian research claiming both ways (Stalin ordered 1940 in form of a memo that Soviet public line must be he never intended to annex, view which held to 1989) - after which more varied Russian research emerged supporting both views and some cataloguing work such as Baryshnikov who more concentrated on whether Finland could have avoided the war. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmatsv (talk • contribs) 21:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

So for the citations you added, can you provide the quote for each? Also, you should cut down on the number of citations you use. I can add a lot more too, but that is not considered proper editing here, see WP:CITECLUTTER. -YMB29 (talk) 23:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I certainly can cut down from those I added. There are 4 references and the pointer to the M-R secret protocol text for easier verification than through the Wikipedia article. This can be considered a more direct text than the Wikipedia article on M-R and also having pictures of the protocol. On the 4 references, the length of the relevant text varies. In the shortest it is two paragraphs (will add if kept), the second is a research paper in the collection, pages already in the reference, the Finnish version of the paper online here(

url removed) the full paper relevant to the question, and the longest two references can be considered relevant through most of the books. I suggest we keep the Mannonen08 book which is a classic in summarizing the military goal, with marching order material etc. A per-page reference list to some of the most important marching orders are collected to a blog here[15]. The dissertation is recent and contains very interesting first-time-revealed material from the French archives on the larger than formerly understood role of the Daladier plan seeing it decisive in saving Finland from full annexation. The research paper in the Norwegian collection details how Paris Soviet foreign intelligence made Stalin believe the French (Weygand troops in Syria) would even soon bomb Baku thusly making it important for him to settle with the Finns identifying Jan 21th 1940 the day Stalin changed his mind from full annex to a negotiated settlement. The Hungarian paper reference is short and typical of "lesser" work passingly crediting the secret protocol (and interestingly mentioning the party conference decision). The controversial Hautamaki2010 book is also mostly about this question where it is an example of an alternative theory some consider a conspiracy theory on Churchill's role not so much a friend of Finland but one of the cold great power chess players who had even more secretive link with Stalin also selling Finland for him to completely occupy which by the work explained why Stalin felt confident to plan full annexation. It is based on a little known Finnish Intelligence dossier that the Russians wanted never to be shown after 1945 when they had the Control Commission in Finland. There is some speculation some British archives that open 2017 will give verdict how true this scenario was. I included it as this book has received such attention in Finland and seems to be refered to in blogs quite often. But, this is the first I think we can drop being speculative. The next which we could drop is the Daladier dissertation. Third if we want to go that far in my list would be the Hungarian paper. The last two are the most extensive, relevant, and well researched and coming from two seasoned Finnish Winter War scholars. Mannonen is also quoted elsewhere as perhaps the leading scholar who has analyzed the significance of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Secret protocol having decisive reason for full annexation goal that is repeated all over in his production. I would not add specific pages to the Mannonen book despite the blog above. Jmatsv (talk) 02:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Dropped 2, pageref to one. There are one or two lesser things in the intro that still gives a reaction for some readers just to warn, one being "agreed to cede the territory originally demanded" which one easily read as demands under discussion end-Oct 1939 which is not true. When Stalin allowed to re-establish negotiation contact thru Mme. Kollontai, the terms were the much larger territory (compare the two maps down the article). Somehow the word original should be changed, probably "initially demanded by Stalin in 1940".Jmatsv (talk) 03:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I reworded that sentence to make this clear. -YMB29 (talk) 05:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I think you can drop the speculative source; five citations should not clutter the text too much.

As for Manninen, it is better to add page numbers, but I won't argue what you say he writes since I read about his views before. -YMB29 (talk) 06:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Added page numbers to Manninen as per blog above. Already dropped earlier the speculative and Daladier dissertation. So if we really need to go down to 5, the next to go should be the Hungarian paper. Otherwise I start to be ok. Note due to current events this topic has received some more attention and esp. Finnish readers will react to seemingly minor errors as it's so central part of their history. I also reacted even though reading from the U.S. Next suggestions and fixes to be done by others. Thanks.Jmatsv (talk) 07:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so the Hungarian source can be removed (most people who come here can't read it anyway) and that is it I think. -YMB29 (talk) 19:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

No one seems to have disputed the outcome of the above discussion for a long time. I suggest removing the POV disputed template. Does Savushkin Street 55 agree? --Gwafton (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed it. Note that YMB29 has been indefinitely blocked from the English Wikipedia, but I suggest people shouldn't revert every change made by him. --Pudeo' 23:22, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Soviet casualties

There is new Soviet casualty data in Venäläinen talvisotakirjallisuus. Bibliografia 1939-1945. (Jyväskylä: Docendo, 2013. ISBN 978-952-5912-97-5) According to the University of Helsinki review of book (http://www.helsinki.fi/idantutkimus/arkisto/2014_1/it_1_2014_ruha.pdf), the Russian state military archive database (Venäjän valtiollisen sota-arkiston tietokanta) has the name, DOB, rank, cause of death etc. of 167,976 KIA, DOW and MIA Red Army personnel. This should be added to the infobox. I don't have the book, so hopefully someone can help out. 91.156.236.86 (talk) 16:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Several Neutrality and Source issues.

It seems to me that many of the core informations given in the article and the infobox is rather problematic. For instance, the infobox reads that the Fins had 32 tanks, but reading the footnote it says they had 32 renault tanks, and ordered several others, it doesn't even say this is all the tanks that they had. It's a very confusing footnote and source, that doesn't coincide with the stated number. On the Soviet side, it includes the tanks that were added during the war, which the Finnish one doesn't. For casualties it's unclear what "lost" means. Considering that the footnote and source first states that 316 tanks were lost in the entire winter war, but later states that 1200 were lost in a single operation. I believe the original author might have mixed "damaged" and "destroyed" together, which would explain the contradictions in losses.

Another issue for me, is that nearly all sources are Finnish. In the section of Finnish and Russian Sources, I only could see 1 russian source. This is puzzling to me, considering when trying to verify the Finnish sources it turns out that Ohto Manninen one of the most quoted Finnish sources in this article, has based much of his work on Russian source material. So I request the inclusion of more Russian source material, to make backup the claims made by the Finnish sources, I can't read Finnish nor Russian, so it's very difficult for me to correct anything at this moment, however, as far as I am aware, Grigoriy Krivosheyev and others, have made works on Soviet casualties including in the winter war, again i can't read russian but someone who can should include the Krivosheyev casualties list and possibly also the official Soviet list of casualties which should have been avaliable since the 1990s I believe.

CarlGGHamilton (talk) 07:51, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

If we take the tank claim that is actually explained in the footnote. Those 32 Renault FT-17 tanks were not used as tanks but instead as pillboxes (i.e. bunkers). The actual armor units used Vickers 6 ton tanks at the start of the war - like stated in the footnote - so the number 32, which was the total amount of the Vickers 6 ton tanks, is also the number of the actual tanks in Finnish use at the start of the war (even if only some of those were fit for combat). Finns captured huge numbers of Soviet armor and that was practically the sole source of 'reinforcements'.

The war was not particularly successful from the Soviet perspective and also no matter how you tried to turn it the Soviets did star the war so there was quite a definite lack of interest to study it.

Krivosheyev's numbers are already included to the infobox so i fail to understand what you are after. Even though there is some doubt if Krivosheyev's numbers are actually as complete as some claim them to be. - Wanderer602 (talk) 08:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Finland lost

The infobox has Finland on the left and the Soviet Union on the right, which are usually the positions occupied by the winner and loser respectively. But the article says: "However, after reorganization and adoption of different tactics, the renewed Soviet offensive overcame Finnish defenses at the borders. Finland then agreed to cede more territory than originally demanded by the Soviet Union in 1939; the Soviets, having conquered the areas they demanded from Finland but at a cost of heavier losses in troops than anticipated, accepted this offer." So it seems pretty clear that Finland actually lost, whatever damage they caused to the Soviet Union's reputation. I propose changing the infobox, but I'll wait and see if anyone has a reason to keep it as it is first. Richard75 (talk) 22:00, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Nobody objected, so I've done it. Richard75 (talk) 17:56, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, technically the Soviet Union did win as the Moscow Peace Treaty was made on the Soviet Union's terms (and the Soviet Union managed to annex some portions of Finland). However, the pre-war demands do not matter in determining the winner, as the Soviet Union's ultimate goal of the war was to annex the whole Finland - as stated in the Soviet military plan section of the article - at which the Soviet Union failed. And Finland's ultimate goal was to retain her independence, at which Finland succeeded. This is why claiming it to be purely Soviet victory is challenging and misleading. Tho, I'm not sure whether it should be claimed Pyrrhic victory either since the term requires to achieve the goal (in this case, annex whole Finland) despite heavy losses. So yeah, technically the Soviet Union did win as the peace was made on the Soviets' terms despite failing at annexing whole Finland, but Finland also achieved her ultimate goal in the war. If someone finds a better word for that than just pure victory I don't mind but I'd have included in the infobox that the Soviet Union failed at the goal to annex Finland while Finland succeeded at hers to maintain the independence.86.50.32.74 (talk) 18:34, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

It was a limited strategic victory for both sides. A tactical Finnish victory. A limited strategic victory as Finland retained her independence. It was a limited Soviet strategic victory as they set the terms of the Moscow Peace Treaty and acquired some territory in the process. Tactically they were clearly outperformed, though.Don Brunett (talk) 23:09, 23 June 2016 (UTC)Don Brunett

Tank losses

Here is the thing: The source mentions that there were 3,543 tank casualties and 316 destroyed tanks. However the first one does not refer to the number of crew lost - they just refer to tanks losses in general. Something that becomes readily apparent if you look at this: Red Army tank losses (it is recommended to read the text above the table to understand what it refers to). Those 316 were destroyed tanks meaning that they had been irrecoverable losses, usually this means that the tank started burning after which it is rarely salvageable. As a whole this however means that the number 3,543 is the number of the tanks the Red Army lost in the Winter War. - Wanderer602 (talk) 06:09, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

The source that state 3,543 isn't the one that you're using here. You're trying to intepretate one source in a certain way, by saying another source is intepretated that way. If you feel inclined then change the casualties to using the source you just posted, and change the tank casualties to 2811 damaged, and 368 destroyed. Which is what your source is claiming. But stop making it look like they lost thousands of tanks, when most of those just suffered minor damage that was repaired. Until then I am using the source that is currently provided on the page, and changing it to 316 "destroyed" tanks, that is clear enough, there is no reason to listing soviet damaged tanks without stating that is what you are listing is misleading people into thinking more were lost than actually was. I am going to assume it's not your intention to do that. CarlGGHamilton (talk) 04:49, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

What you are missing is that damaged tanks are not even included to the list in the page i linked to - number of such tanks is even higher. Those which were abandoned and were in practice lost either due to combat or mechanical faults are. Trying to sort out the 'truly destroyed' from the rest doesn't work since losses are rarely if ever reported on solely that basis. Additionally had you bothered to read the page i linked to (like i suggested) you might have notice that the list doesn't even try to present all Soviet tank losses, just those that occurred in certain section of the front. Also that page also includes the reference to the number of 3.543 which is the number of tank losses the Soviets themselves reported. If you insist you can have the 316 there in addition to the reported numbers of Soviet tank losses but not instead of. - Wanderer602 (talk) 05:16, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The source for the losses on the page says 316 tanks destroyed. It doesn't say in addition. I did read your source, and it's nice someone made a table on a website, but i was rather hoping for a better source than what is currently the one linked. I didn't see any Soviet Archive material. Your website has a source list which states 100% Finnish archive material. I won't revert the changes just yet, but i want you to help make a better establishment on the real numbers then, and that includes not basing everything of a Finish narrative.CarlGGHamilton (talk) 08:20, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

Actually in the mean time i just looked it up, Krivosheev, which is the accepted source for military losses of the soviet union on this page and many other wikipages, clearly states 3930 tank unit casualties, as in people not material of which only 1513 died. The soviet archives and the most accepted source on soviet casualties tells me that those 3500+ are tank crew casualties, Krivosheev also include people who weren't injured or killed while in their tanks or battle, which explains his slightly higher number. But it is painfully clear that the 316 tanks that were destroyed is that, and the 3500+ casualties are exactly what it seems to be, tank crews. So i am changing this back, you can read the whole Soviet casualties book it's in the citation i provided. CarlGGHamilton (talk) 08:46, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

And still they are not. Those tables in Krivosheyev are not the same. An operational loss of a tank does not necessitate that crew would be lost. You didn't provide anything support you assumption that those would be tank crew losses - which means that what you are doing is just WP:OR which happens to be forbidden in wikipedia. Find actual evidence, then we can have a discussion. So far the sources are clear that the Soviets lost 3.543 tanks in the Winter War to all causes. - Wanderer602 (talk) 10:36, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

It's not original research, it's the source used to describe the soviet losses on this page, i linked it for your conveniance, but since you are intend on misleading people with your assumption, while blaming me for mine, despite me using the source already listed on this page and being nice enough to link you a copy so you can read it yourself, i suggest we get an an arbitrator in here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CarlGGHamilton (talk • contribs) 04:45, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

If you combine two results like you just did in your earlier statement then it is nothing but original research. And i read the article you linked. It was no relevance to the matter since it doesn't discuss the tanks lost operationally in the war but merely crew losses which were not being discussed at all. As Krivosheyev is explicit that his values refer to crew losses you can not use those to claim that some different values in some other source would also be crew losses - doing that is OR. And i didn't claim those 3543 tanks would have been destroyed, just that they were the Soviet operational losses of tanks (as was said in the source) and as such are the value that actually matters. Like i said earlier if you really insist then add the number of destroyed tanks but do not replace the existing value. - Wanderer602 (talk) 06:00, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't think adding is allowed, per WP:SYNTH; in fact, adding two sources is pretty much given as the definition of SYNTH. The two sources may be using different criteria for their numbers, yielding only nonsense when adding them them together. At least until a new source is found, we have to use the previous number. --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:27, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

'Soviet Victory' is Inaccurate/Misleading

Simplifying the result of the Winter War to a 'soviet victory' is inaccurate. While Finland was the country to request an armistice, the soviets had an incredibly difficult time taking territory, sustaining many casualties in the process. This is a textbook definition Pyrrhic victory. Furthermore, the goal of the soviets was the conquest of Finland entirely so the most you could say is that it was a partial victory. Labeling it a soviet victory deprives viewers of the knowledge of these nuances. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:56A:F02F:5F00:C81A:3C0E:C15E:3FB5 (talk) 19:34, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of infoboxes in Wikipedia is to give readers a quick one-shot overview of the subject. In this case, it's to answer a reader's simple question "who won?". It's true that for many subjects, there is no suitable brief answer; in those cases the general rule is to leave that item out of the infobox entirely. We do this only as a last resort, though, as this tends to defeat using infoboxes altogether.

So, in this case, is there a suitable brief answer? Between "Finish victory" and "Soviet victory", we'd have to go with the latter, of course. But we can discuss our options.

1. "Soviet victory" and results list. This is the current phrase [at start of discussion]. +Simple.
2. "Soviet Pyrrhic victory" and list. Per suggested above. +May be more accurate. -"Pyrrhic" is a bit obscure, and yet tends to get overused.
3. "Limited Soviet victory" and list. +May be more accurate without being trite.
4. Omit any phrase, leave only list. +No chance of misleading. -No quick info.
5. No results and no list. Default per Infobox guidelines. +Ends discussion and lets us get to more important issues. -No info.
6. "Limited Soviet victory, Limited Finnish strategic victory" and list [added option] [includes similar longer verbiage options]. +Notes conflicted results. -Not quick info.
7. "Soviet moral defeat" and list [added option]. One source. -Not clear.
8. "Soviet victory" with no list [added option]. +Strictly adheres to Infobox guidelines. -Misleading simplicity.
9. Other. Any other suggestions?

• For myself, I slightly favor #3. --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:52, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

As you said the result's parameter is to quickly answer who won, and who won here were the Soviets without a doubt, every nuance into that cannot go into a one-line phrase, so it should be left to the appropriate stance, i.e. the aftermath section. Frenditor (talk) 16:39, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

I think that #3 is the most rational myself. Maybe people would read it and think "I wonder why the victory was only limited", thus encouraging them to read deeper into the topic. So not only am I encouraging nuance, but I might be indirectly causing the expansion of people's knowledge. However, I would rather there be nothing at all than "Soviet Victory", so if not #3,#4. (#5 isn't fair because listing the results is necessary, more necessary in fact than determining the victor). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.222.211.31 (talk) 07:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

The Soviets lost militarily (the only battle they won as at Summa, which however was decisive at the last part), they lost their international reputation and had severe losses. However, the Moscow Peace Treaty very much was a Soviet victory with rather unacceptable territorial changes for Finland. At some part, the result simply stated "Result: The Moscow Peace Treaty". So it's more nuanced than "Soviet victory without a doubt": a military failure, failing full annexation but a very good peace treaty for the Soviets anyway. --Pudeo' 22:03, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

It come down to it that all in all, they won that war. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 09:32, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

Not really. Unlike every other nation that fought the Soviet Union Finland remained independent. It was a limited strategic victory for both sides. A tactical Finnish victory. A limited strategic victory as Finland retained her independence. It was a limited Soviet strategic victory as they set the terms of the Moscow Peace Treaty and acquired some territory in the process. Tactically they were clearly outperformed, though.Don Brunett (talk) 23:09, 23 June 2016 (UTC)Don Brunett

The Soviets took Finnish territory and if you get to do that you're the winner. Whether the victory is big or small. Further analyses of military operations has to be based on secondary sources and has it's place in the article. I think that the way it stood in the infobox was balanced enough. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 23:34, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

It's not a black and white situation as you are making it out to be. They failed to reach their objective which was to annex Finland. They also suffered multiple battlefield losses. Those are called tactical victories. The Soviets had few. Finland was the only nation to fight the Red Army and not to be occupied. That's a limited strategic victory. Don Brunett (talk) 23:42, 23 June 2016 (UTC)Don Brunett

Well, this was the first time the Soviets went into the attack in Europe since they fought the Poles. I don't think you should judge them by their later results which were under somewhat different circumstances. In the end they wouldn't have stood a chance, but they were clever enough to sue for peace to control the damage. "Limited Soviet victory" and "Limited Finnish strategic victory" would however be fine with me. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 00:23, 24 June 2016 (UTC)

The Soviets could have taken Finland eventually but the Finns were like you said clever enough to know when to quit. Thanks. By the way, I recommend the book Finland at War. It's outstanding.Don Brunett (talk) 00:33, 24 June 2016 (UTC)Don Brunett

As noted, I like "Limited Soviet victory", but I don't like the addition "Limited Finnish strategic victory". First, it's not sourced. Second, it's misleading; readers aren't going to understand a "victory" in a war that lost the Finns territory. Lastly, it's redundant; Finland remaining independent (I assume the basis of the vague statement) is noted in the points just below this statement. (I would be good with moving this point up in the list.) --A D Monroe III (talk) 01:43, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

That's fine as this conflict is not very cut and dry. The end result is Finland retained its overall independence in the face of a vastly superior opponent.Don Brunett (talk) 21:16, 7 July 2016 (UTC)Don Brunett

Calling it limited victory either for the Soviets or Finland is original research on our part. There are sources indicating various aspects of "winning" for both sides. I think we should go with the results not indicating victory at all, but showing (as it is now) the Moscow Peace Treaty, expulsion of the Soviet Union from the League of Nations, etc. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I must agree. Per standard procedures for infobox disputes with lack of consensus, I've removed both victory claims, leaving just the bullet points that follow. I've moved the Finish independence point up to 2nd, and shortened them to partially make up for our lack of simply summary. Sigh. --A D Monroe III (talk) 12:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

I think the using words like "limited" etc. is completely useless. Soviet Union still won on paper. I am a Finnish history teacher and believe me, the professors here have used time on this thought. The current consensus here is that Soviet Union won on paper but Finland won in defense. The Continuation war, which Don has been also editing is a clear Soviet victory, no doubt on that. I think the best way is either put that Soviet victory or completely remove the results. But only on this article, Continuation war is a different thing. HunajaOtso (talk) 16:32, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• I think, simply by lack of agreement, that we have an agreement that asserting victory/defeat for either side is incorrect. Indicating the results is the best way forward, not who 'won'. --Hammersoft (talk) 17:10, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Sorry but I disagree and would like at least option three to be reinstated. If the result of a war is that you lose large swaths of territory, including one of the most important cities of your country, you have at least had a defeat of some sorts. Also per this edit by Don Brunett, that I explicitly agreed with at the time (24th of June)! So I think that at least there was some consensus then. Gerard von Hebel (talk) 23:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

• I understand you disagree. That just serves to highlight the lack of consensus. --Hammersoft (talk) 01:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

The current Result section does not follow the guidelines "introducing non-standard terms like "marginal" or "tactical" or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". It is better to omit this parameter altogether than to engage in speculation about which side won or by how much." Stop putting in terms in the result section that is confusing, misleading or serves only to emphasize personal opinions.

1. 1. The moscow peace treaty is in the first paragraph of this page, and does not have to be in the result section, it does not inform people clearly as to who won.
2. 2. Soviet Annexation plans links to a page where there are no soviet annexation plans, the plans discussed on that page were all achieved as the only thing they promised the soviet union was territorial changes, which they got, so either way this point is deliberately misleading and should obviously not be there.
3. 3. Soviet casualties being heavy is a subjective opinion and not a result, the casualties belong in the casualties section and not in the result section.
4. 4. Soviet being expelled from the League of Nations isn't the result of the war, it happened quite quickly and is again already mentioned in the page.
5. 5. World War 2 is not the result of the winter war, the Continuation war is mentioned in the aftermath section and is part of world war2, it is not the result of the winter war.

And finally, the soviets demanded territory and they got it, that was the peace deal that finland signed where they gave up their land, that is a soviet victory, stop trying to put in subjective terms and speculation about how much they won or how many casualties they took, this is irrelevant to the fact that they actually won, subjective terms do not belong in the result section.

And i am changing this back to soviet victory, i don't understand why people are so intend on making the loss of land look like anything else than a defeat for finland, no matter how well they fought.

Actually, using bold doesn't counter consensus. Consensus was established before. Coming in and disagreeing with that is fine, adding to the discussion is fine, but repeatedly editing against that consensus is not. Changing consensus involves showing new sources and engaging in discussion; rants and edit warring has the opposite effect. --A D Monroe III (talk) 16:56, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

There is no consensus for what it says in the result section now, there is a debate on wether soviets won or not, but nowhere did the majority of the people in that debate agree on what is currently in the result section, you can't just add what ever you like because 4 people say they think soviets didn't win, someone added random bits from different comments but there is no consensus on how the result section should actually look like, if you can get more people to agree on exactly what it should say then i'll concede that, but that isn't what happened. You can't just add your personal opinions to the result section, simply because a few people don't think it's enough of a victory, and again in the guidelines it clearly states that debates about "how much they won" should be avoided, or do you just not care about the guidelines for making informative infoboxes? Either way, i count 4 people for and 4 people against including me, which means there is no consensus to begin with, it was already stated in the original discussion there wasn't consensus. I am changing it back to soviet victory, and if we are just going to undo each other's edit indeffinately lets get an arbitrator in here rather sooner than later. CarlGGHamilton (talk) 04:55, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

An agreement, clearly stated, was reached to avoid having any simple "victory" in the infobox. Replacing everything with "Soviet victory" is against the stated editors' agreement. If we can't get back to an agreement, then we will have nothing in the infobox. The agreement was to have something useful there. Disagreeing regardless of discussion will not end up with "Soviet victory", it will end up with nothing. Is the WP:Truth more important than giving our readers information? --A D Monroe III (talk) 19:31, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Our page protection, imposed to force discussion, is due to expire soon, and there's been no additional discussion. Based on the numbers for the staring list of options, we stand with about one !vote for each of #1, #2, #3 and #6, a few (weak?) !votes for #4, and no !votes for #5. Though #4 had a majority at one point, per Infobox guidelines, #5 (no results) is the default if we can't agree. If there's no more !voting, I'll remove all results from the infobox when the PP expires. Then no one will feel victimized (except our readers). --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:45, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I vote for No 1 'Soviet victory'. We can explain all features of the result as much as we like in the lead. ---Jaan Pärn (talk) 09:40, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Several sources explicitly call it a "Pyrrhic victory", for example:

• Barbarism and Civilization: A History of Europe in our Time Page 125

"For the Soviet Union it was a Pyrrhic victory."

• World War II Winter and Mountain Warfare Tactics - Page 23

"Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the Soviets, shocked and humiliated by their long-delayed and Pyrrhic victory in the Winter War, who were quickest to revise their military thinking."

• Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion - Page 307:

"in the Finnish-Soviet Winter War of 1939–1940 his military incompetence was finally exposed. ... the tough resistance of the Finns, and the war ended in a Pyrrhic victory over them, with 70,000 Soviet soldiers dead."

Sure, the Soviets achieved modest territorial gains, but at what cost? Other sources call their victory humiliating. So I would support "Soviet pyrrhic victory". --Nug (talk) 21:42, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Hoo boy. I think we need to go back to the prior consensus, as once again nobody can agree on who won or didn't win or what kind of victory it was. The results section as here avoids that. Maybe some modifications of that are due, but attributing victory is, as before, misleading. --Hammersoft (talk) 21:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

• Comment -- I don't find phyrrhic to be the right descriptor for the infobox; here's the definition: "A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Someone who wins a Pyrrhic victory has been victorious in some way. However, the heavy toll negates any sense of achievement or profit." Suggesting that losing 70,000 men was a "devastating toll" would probably go against how the Soviet leadership felt about the situation. It was an embarrassment for sure, but to consider that the Soviet Union would have collapsed if it were to continue in the war seems unreasonable. The Red Army lost 4 mil (?) during Barbarossa and the Soviet Union did not collapse. The quotes offered by Nug would be good to include in the aftermath section as attributed opinions. But I don't think this translates to "phyrrhic victory" in Wikipedia's voice for the infobox. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:57, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Straw man argument, nobody said anything about the Soviet Union collapsing. Since when did a Wikipedia definition of a term "phyrrhic victory" carry more weight than usage of the term by published sources? As for what the Soviet leadership said about the situation, Nikita Khrushchev, who had been a party leader during the war, remembered later on: "In our war against the Finns we could choose the location of the war and the date of its start. In number we were superior to the enemy, we had enough time to get ready for the operation. But on these most favourable terms we could only win through huge difficulties and incredibly great losses. In fact this victory was a moral defeat." I'm also okay with "Moral defeat" in the infobox too. --Nug (talk) 10:34, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree it could be called a Pyrrhic victory, but the term does have specific meanings to some readers that aren't justified in this case. I don't think we need to risk confusing those readers. As for "moral defeat", I'm fairly sure almost all readers won't readily understand that. But, being suggested, I'll add it to the list. --A D Monroe III (talk) 13:47, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

• #4 List only. My initial !vote was #3 (limited), but I changed to #4 as the best chance I see for having any consensus, and avoid the default of the least desirable #5 (no results). --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:12, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Results during discussion

The last edit before the Page Protection (perhaps the straw that triggered PP) changed the results from the last (weak) consensus achieved during the discussion. I stated I was going to remove all results (option #5) if there was no more discussion, per Infobox guidelines; I'll back off from that for now, since there's finally been some discussion started. There's been a suggestion to move the results back to the last consensus (option #4). I now favor that, as most in keeping with our guidelines of not editing against consensus. But I'll pause for any other opinions. --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:32, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

Now an IP has joined in the edit war, changing results to what amounts to nonsense. I have to restore something. I've gone with my proposal above, at least for the time being until more opinion voiced. (I've also added a hidden note warning to not change it again during discussion. One can only hope.) --A D Monroe III (talk) 20:17, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• I concur with your actions. This is the best consensus that can be achieved. Maybe if everyone is equally unhappy, we've succeeded at something :) Given that its the best consensus that we've been able to achieve, I think it _is_ the consensus barring a change in consensus at a future discussion. --Hammersoft (talk) 20:52, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• All things considered I now also agree with option #4, in this case the result is simply too complex to boil down to a simple victory or defeat. --Nug (talk) 21:30, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Result

I think we need add to result that Finland lost 11% of its territory (including Vyborg (the second largest city)). What do you think about it?--188.170.193.109 (talk) 17:28, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

• That's redundant to the Moscow Peace Treaty. --Hammersoft (talk) 18:04, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Result of the war

I know this was discussed previously, but I feel that either the phrase "Soviet pyrrhic victory" or "Indecisive" should be added to results, as the average viewer won't know the results/"winner" of the war, or possibly add "Finnish tactical victory, Soviet strategic victory" to reflect that while Finland preserved their sovereignty and most of their territory, the Moscow treaty was still preferable to the Soviets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.133.36 (talk) 00:42, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

infobox

The infobox says that SU wished to annex Finland but there isn't a single reference to that on the article, not even one of how SU threatened Finland's independence. But ironically there's one about how they recognized it right away when it was declared. P.S. I saw that in the last discussing this was raised but not addressed, but somehow it appeared on the final result, maybe is it something to think about it? Bertdrunk (talk) 00:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually there is a whole list of sources stating towards that end in the article. In the second paragraph for example. - Wanderer602 (talk) 07:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the reader should search twenty books, half of them in foreign language, to find something that should be in the article? Bertdrunk (talk) 17:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

You claimed that there would have been no references with regards to the SU wishing to annex Finland (or how SU threatened Finland's independence). Instead contrary to your statement there were quite a few of them already in the article. I really have no idea where you are picking up your comments with regards to my statement. I merely pointed out that you were in error when you claimed that it would not have had references to that in the article. Besides it doesn't require a person to read twenty or so books, just reaching the end of the second paragraph in the article is enough. - Wanderer602 (talk) 21:26, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Soviet Annexation plans doesn't have a reference, while it is mentioned in the second paragraph that some have concluded that they had this plan, it doesn't say that there is actually evidence for it, just "some argue". It also says other historians claim they didn't. So the info box takes a controversial subject, and concludes one side is right, without any debate, then links to another wiki page that isn't actually about soviet annexation plans, in fact the word annex is not mentioned once in the article that is linked. This is also against the guide lines for the results of info boxes. Sadly every time I tried to change it to follow the guide lines it was just changed back. CarlGGHamilton (talk) 16:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

In article itself there are several references and had you truly read the linked wikipage you would have noticed that there are four references marked for the statement Headed by Finnish politician Otto Ville Kuusinen, the Finnish Democratic Republic was Joseph Stalin's planned means to conquer Finland. In the very first paragraph of that article. And the Soviet plans for the taking control of Finland are discussed throughout that linked article - which means it is in line with the statement in the infobox that refers to that article. So I really can not see what you are complaining about. - Wanderer602 (talk) 20:01, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

This is actually not discussed at all, it's claimed that because they supported some Finnish communists this means they wanted to annex the whole thing. That article has no debate about this what so ever, and that is despite the fact not every historian agrees that it is so. A result section according to the guide lines should be very clear to the victor, it should state who won, and as little as possible else. Making a claim in the result box, linking to an article that doesn't discuss this claim is so much against the guide lines of what the result box is intended for. CarlGGHamilton (talk) 18:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you are arguing since the statement is rather explicit. "...the Finnish Democratic Republic was Joseph Stalin's planned means to conquer Finland." You may not like that but that is what it is. Besides the infobox is a discussion that has been had repeatedly on this article. That you dislike the current form is not a valid argument in such a discussion. So do read the archives of this talk page and then think if you actually have something to contribute to the discussions that have already been had on this matter. Then if you still think that your reasoning is valid post your argument with actually valid reasoning - something you haven't posted so far - to support it. - Wanderer602 (talk) 19:45, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Also you are severely misrepresenting what the Soviets did. They didn't just "support some Finnish communists" like you stated. It is quite clear in the articles that the Soviet first created a puppet government, then denied the existence (or legality) of the Finnish government, and finally promised to support their self-made puppet government to make its proclamations 'from Helsinki' - as is stated in the puppet government's own pamphlets ([16]) - something which couldn't be done without conquering Finland. - Wanderer602 (talk) 20:01, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

I can't read Finnish, but I can tell you what I am arguing for: The guide lines for the result section info box says, the result section should be clear and not polluted. Right now it's very polluted, and very biased too, it has personal opinions in it, and references to other articles as evidence instead of a source. This shouldn't even be in the result at all, Finland surrendered in the war war, which means the Soviet won. This is what it should say. The current result of the info box breaks the wiki guidelines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CarlGGHamilton (talk • contribs) 23:48, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

That is your opinion. Until you can actually get a consensus behind that is really all it is. That you dislike current infobox doesn't mean it needs to change. - Wanderer602 (talk) 08:45, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

RFC: Scope of "result" included in the infobox

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the infobox's "result" parameter include "Finnish independence protected...", "Finnish border areas annexed...", "Heavy Soviet military losses..." and "(more...)"? Bertdrunk (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

No. My opinion: State those multiple results in an aftermath section per "Template:Infobox_military_conflict result – optional – this parameter may use one of several standard terms: "X victory", "Decisive X victory" or "Inconclusive". The choice of term should reflect what the sources say. In cases where the standard terms do not accurately describe the outcome, a link to the section of the article where the result is discussed in detail (such as "See the 'Aftermath' section") should be used instead of introducing non-standard terms like "marginal" or "tactical" or contradictory statements like "decisive tactical victory but strategic defeat". It is better to omit this parameter altogether than to engage in speculation about which side won or by how much."CuriousMind01 (talk) 14:36, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

No. A standard expression, such as 'tactical/strategic (defensive) victory' is best. Best mainstream sources should be used to establish that. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 11:29, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I would favor omitting the term altogether or alternatively linking to an 'Aftermath' section as is suggested in the usage instructions for the infobox template. - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

A good idea. --Jaan Pärn (talk) 14:24, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

No. I'm not one of those that think bullet points should be removed wherever they appear. They can be, and are, useful if they are objective, don't stat questionable opinions as hard facts and present a full view of the outcome (not the we kicked your ass but somehow has to accept defeat). Unluckily that's not the case here, and by past discussions nothing seems to indicate that it will be. And no info is always better than wrong or questionable info. Bertdrunk (talk) 03:25, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

• No Putting stuff like that seems to attract edit warring. It makes more sense to keep the granularity of the results in the prose with the citations. There's no reason to go into detail in an infobox. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• ? And the alternative is....? --Hammersoft (talk) 03:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Winter War Outcome Encourages Hitler to Attack Soviets

Is there a source for the following: "Perhaps more importantly, the very poor performance of the Red Army encouraged Hitler to think that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.25.26.119 (talk) 15:16, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

There are quite a few sources, I've added one. --Nug (talk) 22:01, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Revamping to FA

I'm trying to revamp the article into FA-level (last review of 2009, not listed). Just added 3 citation needed tags and one for a section, Weapons. I would like to remove the Weapons section from the article and put it here for safe keeping since its quite unencyclopedic and would require heavy citing - if there are no objections. I will also remove the uncited material here if no objections. Next up would be to reorganize the references properly and do a full copy-edit. Manelolo (talk) 12:09, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Type	Soviet Union	Finland
Tanks	T-26 tank, T-28, Kliment Voroshilov tank, BT tank (BT-2 and BT-5 mainly), T-37A tank, T-38 tank, and various experimental and prototype fighting vehicles (such as SMK tank)	Vickers-Armstrong 6 ton tank, Renault FT (used only as dug-in bunkers)
Artillery and anti-tank	50mm, 82mm and 120mm mortars, artillery of various calibres ranging from 76mm light field cannons to the super heavy 203mm howitzer	Finnish Tampella 81mm mortars, 82 and 120mm mortars (captured from Soviet stocks), 76 K/02, also known as 76 mm divisional gun M1902, 37 PstK/36 anti-tank gun, Lahti anti-tank rifle model 1939, Boys anti-tank rifle, 20mm Madsen cannon (converted for anti-tank use)
Aircraft	Polikarpov I-15, Polikarpov I-153 "Chaika", Polikarpov I-16, Polikarpov R-5, Tupolev SB, Ilyushin DB-3, Tupolev TB-3	Fokker D.XXI, Bristol Bulldog (MK IV), Gloster Gladiator, Fiat G.50 "Freccia", Morane-Saulnier M.S.406, Fokker C.V, Fokker C.X, Blackburn Ripon, Junkers K 43, Bristol Blenheim Models I, IV, Hawker Hart
Small Arms and grenades	Mosin–Nagant Model 1891/1930 bolt-action rifle, variants included sniper and carbine versions. SVT38 semi automatic rifle, Maxim 1910 belt fed machine gun, DP-27 machine gun, TT33 semi-automatic pistol, Nagant M1895 revolver, F1 pineapple grenade, RGD-33 stick grenade	Mosin–Nagant Model 1891 rifle (captured 1891/1930 rifles as well as locally produced and improved Finnish models of the basic Model 1891 (Models m1891-24, m/27, m/28 and m/28-30)), Fire and Ice, The Winter War of Finland and Russia. Ben Strout. SVT38 (captured from Soviet stocks), Swedish Mauser rifle, Carcano 91/38 rifle (in 7.35 calibre), Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, LS-26 light machine gun, DP-27 (captured from Soviet stocks), Luger pistol, Lahti L-35 pistol, TT33 semi-automatic pistol, Nagant M1895 revolver (the latter two pistol types were captured from Soviet stocks), Maxim 1910 Russian as well as Finnish variants including version 09/21, Satchel charges, Molotov cocktails, Finnish M32 stick grenade, Soviet RGD-33 stick grenade, German MG 08 machine gun

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Reflist now fixed and overhauled as well as pictures trimmed, repositioned and recaptioned as well as general fixes and restructuring here and there. Next: Full copyedit sweep. Manelolo (talk) 13:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Copyedit done on 4 out of 10 sections. Manelolo (talk) 18:27, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Ok, all editing done and nominating for FA. Manelolo (talk) 22:51, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Ping to major editors Peltimikko, Kurt Leyman, Whiskey, Illythr and Pudeo to notify of FAC. Manelolo (talk) 15:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

"firing violently" pic?

A Soviet T-26 Model 1937 advancing on the eastern side of Kollaa River during the battle of Kollaa and firing violently as described by the photographer

First, thanks to Manelolo (talk · contribs) for all the recent work to improve the article. Among all of this, I have only one, very minor, issue.

The addition of this pic has "firing violently" in the description. Although that's apparently an accurate translation of the original photographer's description according to Google Translate, it makes no sense in English. "Violently" isn't an adjective that can be applied to a tank gun firing, as there is no such thing as comparative range of violence for a tank gun -- it goes "boom" the same "violent" way every time. Further, the tank doesn't seem to be firing at all at the moment the pic was taken. It seems we're missing something, without any way of knowing what it is. I suggest changing the description, being a little less specific while still covering the general intent, to something like "advancing aggressively"; even if the tank was somehow actually "firing violently" by some means we will never understand, a description of this sort would still agree with that, yet avoid having us appear like we might not be fluent in English. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 17:02, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Hey A D Monroe III, would agree! Sorry, was too tired yesterday to concentrate. Having served a few years in the military, I'm guessing the photographer meant something like all guns (incl. main gun and MGs) blazing all the time without respite (i.e. something akin to violently) instead of aimed and controlled bursts with MGs and slowly choosing the best targets with the main gun (i.e. something akin to calmly) = thus more in the sense of aggression. But I wanted to try and capture the photographer's opinion and description of the actual scene (although it might not come out from the picture so well)! Advancing aggressively sounds excellent! Manelolo (talk) 17:09, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

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Citations in the lead

Why do we need 13 references in the lead, including 9 for one sentence? Really the article should not have passed FAC looking like this. --John (talk) 18:41, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for copyediting and streaming the article! Regardless, it passed (most likely because function trumps form in this particular case). The whole talk archive is full of discussions (almost as long as the article, mind you) on touchy issues, such as the ones cited. I agree that it looks very clunky with a lot citations. You may want to try WP:BUNDLING as one option, but WP:TNT is definitely not the way. Manelolo (talk) 23:11, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Bundling would be a good idea for the body. Honestly, they aren't needed in the lead and don't add anything to the reader's understanding. I'm as astonished that you are defending this as I was to see you edit-warring this into a supposed featured article. Touchy issues can be dealt with other than by having nine sources for a single sentence. On an FA they have to be. --John (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

As it stands 1) FA is the very recent consensus for the article by experienced editors; and 2) policy leaves lede citing up to a case-by-case basis (verbatim: "Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations."). I believe I and the FA reviewers are in the right here, but bundling for the lede might be very well be the option if you wanna go for it. The citations are there to reaffirm that statements on touchy issues are based on RS; not necessarily for the average reader, but for the ends of the spectrum. Manelolo (talk) 23:26, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Bundled the biggest group since I'm a jolly cooperative guy. Manelolo (talk) 23:36, 4 March 2018 (UTC) PS: GOCE just did a run over another article I'm building with similar touchy issues and a bit of cite overkill in the lede without even a hitch, haha.

Neither GOCE nor FAC is perfect. Let's assume I'm also an experienced editor. Saying it passed FA like this isn't convincing me, and saying it isn't prohibited from looking like this isn't convincing me. Saying it has been a touchy subject isn't convincing me either; I haven't seen anything recent in talk that makes me think this is required. So, you agree that it looks clunky with lots of citations; why do we really need them then? Who are they for? --John (talk) 23:51, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

The largest group is now bundled. I found the first overtly long debate on the cited stuff within 10 seconds @ Talk:Winter_War/Archive_3#Changes_to_intro, monsieur. Otherwise I don't see any merit against a huge margin of consensus here. RFC maybe? Case closed for me. Manelolo (talk) 00:03, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

I found that too. It was over three years ago! This article is coming up as TFA in a week and I'd rather get it fixed up before then. If we need to run an RfC to fix it then so be it. --John (talk) 07:22, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Over three years ago is an immensely short time in debating history, no? :D Similar people will always arrive later on and be astonished how there are rough statements in the introduction of the article without any sourcing (a lot people might not even know that differing opinions exist apart from their national historiography i.e. west and east divide). A lot of touchy articles never make it to even GA, let alone FA, because discussions never reached even remote consensus. So please respect that this article has been years in the making and people have inserted the references there in good faith after spending a few dozen keyboards on debating them in talk. I agree that it is poor form, but function-wise I (and apparently lots of other people too as well as policy) consider it necessary. But what's wrong with bundling, I ask? Get to work rather than debating it, as I usually do. :) Manelolo (talk) 08:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Over three years is a very long time on Wikipedia. It is apparently your view that "it is poor form" but you "consider it necessary". I agree that it is poor form, and I don't think after three years that it is necessary. The article was riddled with basic errors of grammar and spelling as well as this problem, so I don't think the FAC was properly conducted. Sometimes that happens. In any case, let's fix the problem. I tried to just fix it but you repeatedly reverted and won't or can't explain why. Having an RfC during TFA is unfortunate; I wonder if we could run a short one? Alternatively we could pull this from TFA until it is properly ready. What do you think? --John (talk) 09:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Proposal

I suggest that instead of "Many sources conclude that the Soviet Union had intended to conquer all of Finland, and use the establishment of the puppet Finnish Communist government and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocols as proof of this,[F 9] while other sources argue against the idea of a full Soviet conquest.[F 10]" the article should state: There is still debate about whether or not the Soviet Union intended to conquer all of Finland".

The reason for this is that it is simpler (the lead should be simple), avoids the perceived need for distracting reams of sources in the lead (good in a FA), and avoids the unsatisfactory "x says, y says" structure that we have now. Most articles go through a stage of "x says, y says" early in their development but it is unfortunate to see it on a FA. --John (talk) 09:31, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Seems ok. Although to avoid a totally muddled version prone to 'clarification needed' tags and subsequent edit wars ("what freaking debate, it's clear as day??") maybe something like "There is still debate among historians and scholars about whether or not the Soviet Union intended to conquer all of Finland based on different primary sources before and during the war." as well as clean incorporation of an explanatory note(s)? Manelolo (talk) 09:53, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

See amended version for your perusal. As you may have noticed, I deleted the refs from the not-so-debated sentences a while back. Manelolo (talk) 11:13, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

One advantage of mine is that you wouldn't, I hope, feel the same need to have the distracting references in the lead. As well as being more encyclopedic. Win-win. Could we compromise on "There is still debate among historians and scholars about whether or not the Soviet Union intended to conquer all of Finland." ? And I would prefer a hidden comment to a visible explanatory note. Trust me, there are other ways to deal with disruption if it should arise. --John (talk) 14:18, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

What the? :D You really want it to be clean of any footnotes. We can delete the whole sentence, no skin of mine in it. I'm merely trying to stick to the fact that this is a consensus and community-built project, not a "oop, I just popped by and I think this is better and I like it more as a grammar-and-form guy regardless of FAC, GOCE, policy, consensus of previous editors etc." Especially when FA criteria stricly refer to policy, such as "As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate" and "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus [i.e. not by John]."

Ergo, the compromise of compromises is that we go with your sentence and keep my notes. Three notes shouldn't be distracting to even the most distracted reader (especially considering we've managed to skim the footnotes by approx 90% already). :( Manelolo (talk) 14:45, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

PS. Mind putting Continuation War in your to-do list? I recently totally rebuilt it and it's going through a GOCE c/e now (1/3 done I think). I'll GAN it afterwards, but another c/e by you would be appreciated. Especially on the fluffy lead. Although it's an even more contested topic and notes will certainly be needed in the lead, hmmmh. Manelolo (talk) 14:50, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

Among other

"Among other concessions" doesn't need to be indicated with emdashes. Just commas would be sufficient. -Inowen (talk) 08:56, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Battle of Raate road

It doesn't seem reasonable to compare the 7,000–9,000 Soviet casualties to the 400 Finnish losses, unless I've misunderstood what "loss" means here. You would want to compare casualties to casualties, or losses to losses. If "loss" here means "casualty", we should change the wording to avoid the ambiguity. Kendall-K1 (talk) 06:32, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Casualty meant loss, most likely just used to avoid repetition. I changed it to "The Soviets suffered 7,000–9,000 casualties; the Finnish units 400." I don't know if it's the right wording, but should be a bit clearer? Suggestions welcome. Manelolo (talk) 06:41, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

"Losses" to me means death, but I don't think it's got an official definition, at least it's not in the NATO glossary. "Casualties" is usually a much higher number, because it includes anyone who can't fight due to any reason, not just death. If these numbers are both for casualties, then I think your wording is fine. Kendall-K1 (talk) 12:41, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually 'loss = casualty' per NATO definition: "casualty / perte; In relation to personnel, any person who is lost to his organization by reason of having been declared dead, wounded, diseased, detained, captured or missing." [17] But amended nevertheless. Manelolo (talk) 14:20, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on citations in the lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should the lead paragraph of this article contain citations? --John (talk) 16:56, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

• Yes - the appropriate amount per
  • WP:LEAD "As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate";
  • WP:CITELEAD "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus"; and
  • WP:CREATELEAD "While not usually required, we often include a few references with any controversial content in the lead to prevent edit wars. Controversial content often draws fire and demands for references, so we usually oblige."

  I see no rationale to stray from policy or previous consensus (such as FAC less than two months ago). See Talk:Winter_War#Citations_in_the_lead for most recent discussion and merits both ways. Manelolo (talk) 17:44, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

• Sometimes - The lead should only contain subjects which are already in the main body, where they should be cited anyway. There is little point disrupting the lead section, with what would likely be a citation per sentence, unless it's something that's likely to be constantly challenged, then a citation is useful. (Hohum ^@) 17:48, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
• Speedy close: malformed RFC. As stated, the question is about the policy, not about the article, and the answer is covered in the guidelines cited by Manelolo. Please restate the question in the form specific to this article (which citations, to what statements). Otherwise this is just a waste of time of uninvolved wikipedians like me. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Clarification I'm extremely well aware that an article may contain citations in the lead. The question is, should this article use them? The discussion (and it's just above here) has Manelolo maintaining that the statement that there continues to be debate among historians about whether the USSR intended to fully conquer Finland in this war, or not, is so contentious that it needs lead citation to avoid disruption. I argue that it doesn't seem all that contentious, it is sourced in the body, we have made the wording less contentious and more encyclopedic, and that there are other ways to prevent disruption should it arise. Note that this was last argued about two years ago, so it hardly seems a hot topic. Hohum, Staszek Lem, if you could please take a second look? --John (talk) 22:57, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Is there something not source in the body that we metion in the lead?--Moxy (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

No. --John (talk) 22:57, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Clarification: article body does not dwell upon the divergence of opinions; it simply repeats the lede. This and bearing in mind that it is hard to find the two sentences in the article body, to find the supporting references, I conclude The two footnotes in question must be retained in the lede until the time a good section "Soviet intentions" written. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:30, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Previous editors argued about it for almost a year between 2014 and 2015 and typed more than 10,000 words before coming to the current format. Since then, that part of the article has been stable (with debates rather focusing on the infobox). I recently cleaned the article up for FA without substantially amending the format that reached consensus. The article passed without remarks on lede cites. I'm all for article improvement and have no skin in the issue (planning to retire after a few more GAs). But if policy refers this sort of situation to "editorial consensus" on "a case-by-case basis", I would rather respect Wikipedia's ideals and let that established editorial consensus (approved by FAC) prevail.

I don't even know how "it's been stable for 2 years" is an argument to changing something? It should rather be a counter-argument since a well-structured consensus had been found. FYI, John, I changed it back to the editorial form since the compromise led nowhere and I felt mixed about watering down consensus-based issues which clearly are contentious (i.e. motivation to start an invasion with RS on both sides of the aisle). Manelolo (talk) 23:20, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

• Yes I agree with Manelolo. If the status quo is acceptable to the partisans who want to rewrite history, then it should stay there. I don't see anything wrong with the FAC review, and they saw no problem with the notes in the lede. I don't think John should involve himself just because this article will be seen on the main page again. (Summoned by bot) Chris Troutman (talk) 04:50, 7 March 2018 (UTC)
• Yes If we are starting sentences with "Many sources..." and "Other sources..." then I would feel some sources need to be at least cited, even in the lead. I am assuming this is spelled out better in the body and not as vague. There may be better wording that does away with the need for references, but in its current form I would say that we do need those citations in the lead. AIRcorn (talk) 04:21, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• Info: Per various comments above, I expanded the prose around the 'Soviet intention' part (basically paraphrased a few books a bit more) and tried to guide readers more into the relevant section. Manelolo (talk) 19:39, 9 March 2018 (UTC)
• Comment I generally think that not including citations in the lede improves readibility of the article so I prefer no cites in the lede - as long as the content is cited in the main article. Seraphim System ^(talk) 05:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
• Keep As Is in this outstanding article. The citations are appropriate and useful. I find no interference in reading comprehension. (Also summoned by bot) Horst59 (talk) 23:49, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Distinction between Winter War and WWII?

See Talk:Finnish submarine Vesikko#Winter War. Should the submarine's service in both be described as one conflict or two? Is the Winter War merely an early phase of WWII? Andy Dingley (talk) 11:49, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

why is this war not a finish military victory

am interested in the winter war it's one of my favourite David vs goliath moments ive studied the war and i believe the finish dominated militarily and won the war which later led to the Moscow peace treaty signed in the soviet union capital of moscow. This is definitely not just a finish military victory but a victory which forced the Soviets to seek a peace treaty in Moscow itself a finish propaganda victory as well. Am just wondering if any editors can help me out and explain why the article results description doesn't include any military finish victory or a finish propaganda victory but just a Moscow peace treaty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gashaamo (talk • contribs) 04:50, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Casualties

User:Kovanja referred in his edit to a Russian source (in Russian) which claims that "in 1945 Finns recognised the losses in Winter War as 48300 soldiers killed". However, I've been unable to find such Finnish source, and all sources based on the Finnish civil registry (Finland has had centralised civil registry for the whole duration of its independence) don't support such claims. The source referred by him also gets it wrong, as it claims that the Civil Guardsmen wouldn't be counted in the military casualties - while in fact the Civil Guard was a part of the Finnish Defence Forces organisation already. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front) based on the Finnish civil registry, and it doesn't support such claims. Without any Finnish source to support the claim of Finnish sources at the Russian source, combined to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Finnish casualty statistics in the source, in my opinion the source referred by User:Kovanja doesn't have enough credibility. --XoravaX (talk) 08:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It is an old error in the Russian data, possibly due to translation issues. That being said i would be really interested if some one could kindly link or otherwise point to the document from which the Russian author claims to have taken the number in the first place. - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Yet the source User:Kovanja refers to claims so, and it makes the source lose credibility (at least until User:Kovanja provides where the claimed source of the militera.lib.ru, Танкомастер 2/97 journal, sources the claim to - though, I have been unable to find such a Finnish source militera.lib.ru claims it is attributed to), especially in light of the Finnish civili registry which has been very accurate for the whole independence era. 48 000, that is roughly double the amount of the consensus of around 26 000 casualties would be quite the revelation. --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Real Finnish Casualties

After WW2 Finns admited 48k casualtes, 25k is old WW2 propaganda source. According to official Soviet propaganda Soviet casualties were also significantly lower. --Kovanja (talk) 11:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you please provide a credible source to that "Finns admited [sic] 48k casualties", preferably the Finnish source? Finnish civil registries are almost completely exact, and over 20 000 unmarked deaths would be quite the revelation. Especially that the mortality in 1939 and 1940 was only roughly 25 000 more than the standard mortality according to our statistics agency (in the graph, 1939 is the slightly alleviated over the 50 000 standard total mortality, 1940 is the first over 70 000 total mortality, 1941 the second over 70 000, 1942 and 1943 the two lower in between and 1944 again over 70 000 total mortality). Over 20 000 on top of that doesn't just suit anything in the civil registry. And not to mention how much your source lacks credibility - its claim that the Civil Guard, Lotta Svärd or non-combatant FDF casualties weren't counted is completely false. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front). --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed - if that is referred to a Finnish source then for that claim to be credible we need to see that claimed Finnish source since the number that the particular Russian source uses contradicts many contemporary as well as current records. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Map for Soviet territory exchange

The Soviets offered a territory exchange, no map is show of this. 2A01:4B00:881D:3700:51A:9D63:8D98:68A7 (talk) 10:54, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Lapland and trees

While in southern Lapland there are plenty of trees the further north they grew sparse. Link to a map 'Männyn puuraja' = 'Tree limit for pine', 'Männyn metsänraja' = "Forest limit for pine', 'Kuusen metsänraja' = 'Forest limit of spruce'. Beyond these limits there are just these Betula nana or 'dwarf birches' (which are not trees but rather twigs and small bushes) and limited amount (on sheltered locations) of Betula pubescens variants or hybrids called 'fell birches' which are typically around 2 to 6 meters tall a 'tree' (looks like a tree from distance but is in fact more like a tall bush). Plenty of exposed or elevated terrain in northern Finnish Lapland is however devoid of trees. The passage about there being no trees refers to the conditions faced when fighting in the Petsamo direction. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:06, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

I assume this relates to this edit of mine?

I appreciate the information on Lapland trees. I think it would be a good idea to add this to the Lapland (Finland) article, which seems to paint a more tree-ful picture.

I'm still in favor of keeping trees out the specified paragraph in this article, as the only significance it gave for this was that it made the area good for tanks, which was dubious as everything else in Lapland is bad for them. The paragraph is about how and why the Finns expected little from the Soviets in the area; I see nothing relevant to this about trees or lack thereof. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 00:52, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes it was about that. Mainly the point that the 'treeless' bit was accurate for the area. I didn't edit directly because i agree with you. Just offered a bit of information if you wanted to formulate the edit in a different manner. Also the lack of trees did not make the terrain 'good'. It is not nice and flowing plains of soft soil but instead a rocky mess. - Wanderer602 (talk) 06:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Маршал Тимошенко 1940 01.jpg

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Protection

Wouldn’t it be time for this article to put protection against anonymous vandals? This is, of course, just an opinion. —Kindt (talk) 12:07, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Casualties

User:Kovanja referred in his edit to a Russian source (in Russian) which claims that "in 1945 Finns recognised the losses in Winter War as 48300 soldiers killed". However, I've been unable to find such Finnish source, and all sources based on the Finnish civil registry (Finland has had centralised civil registry for the whole duration of its independence) don't support such claims. The source referred by him also gets it wrong, as it claims that the Civil Guardsmen wouldn't be counted in the military casualties - while in fact the Civil Guard was a part of the Finnish Defence Forces organisation already. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front) based on the Finnish civil registry, and it doesn't support such claims. Without any Finnish source to support the claim of Finnish sources at the Russian source, combined to a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Finnish casualty statistics in the source, in my opinion the source referred by User:Kovanja doesn't have enough credibility. --XoravaX (talk) 08:57, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

It is an old error in the Russian data, possibly due to translation issues. That being said i would be really interested if some one could kindly link or otherwise point to the document from which the Russian author claims to have taken the number in the first place. - Wanderer602 (talk) 11:12, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Yet the source User:Kovanja refers to claims so, and it makes the source lose credibility (at least until User:Kovanja provides where the claimed source of the militera.lib.ru, Танкомастер 2/97 journal, sources the claim to - though, I have been unable to find such a Finnish source militera.lib.ru claims it is attributed to), especially in light of the Finnish civili registry which has been very accurate for the whole independence era. 48 000, that is roughly double the amount of the consensus of around 26 000 casualties would be quite the revelation. --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I suppose this constitutes an act of heinous (auto-)necromancy, but I can answer this in some detail, thanks to a bit of original research I conducted on this very question. The "Finnish source" all these Russian sources cite is fi:Helge Seppälä's article in a Finnish journal where he states that Finnish military casualties in the war were 23000 and total, military and civilian, casualties were 25000. This article was translated in a Soviet journal in 1989. The translator mistook the second figure for additional "military civilian" casualties (this is where all this mention of Civil Guard, Lotta Svärd and other non-regular military units comes from), effectively doubling the total number. From there, this figure has spread into many, many works by reputable Russian historians (including Krivosheev), where it seems to persist to this day - specifically as a "Finnish figure". It was a real pain keeping it out of the Finnish casualties bracket in the ruwiki article, since, technically, it was very well sourced there, whereas the fact that it comes from a translator error is pure original research by nameless Wikipedians. --illythr (talk) 21:42, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Real Finnish Casualties

After WW2 Finns admited 48k casualtes, 25k is old WW2 propaganda source. According to official Soviet propaganda Soviet casualties were also significantly lower. --Kovanja (talk) 11:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Can you please provide a credible source to that "Finns admited [sic] 48k casualties", preferably the Finnish source? Finnish civil registries are almost completely exact, and over 20 000 unmarked deaths would be quite the revelation. Especially that the mortality in 1939 and 1940 was only roughly 25 000 more than the standard mortality according to our statistics agency (in the graph, 1939 is the slightly alleviated over the 50 000 standard total mortality, 1940 is the first over 70 000 total mortality, 1941 the second over 70 000, 1942 and 1943 the two lower in between and 1944 again over 70 000 total mortality). Over 20 000 on top of that doesn't just suit anything in the civil registry. And not to mention how much your source lacks credibility - its claim that the Civil Guard, Lotta Svärd or non-combatant FDF casualties weren't counted is completely false. The Finnish war casualty registry website Sotasampo has Finnish casualties during WW2 quite thoroughly listed (including all Civil Guard, all Lotta Svärd, all civilian medical personnel and other civilians in FDF service and civilian casualties of the warzone as well, though apparently not all civilian casualties at the home front). --XoravaX (talk) 12:09, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed - if that is referred to a Finnish source then for that claim to be credible we need to see that claimed Finnish source since the number that the particular Russian source uses contradicts many contemporary as well as current records. - Wanderer602 (talk) 12:21, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

So yeah, there you have it. --illythr (talk) 21:42, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Soviet casualties and Krivosheev

According to the work cited, 188 671 are wounded (also burned and contused) hospitalizations, not wounded and sick and frostbitten. The same source gives the number of sick as 58 370 and the number of frostbitten as 17 867, all adding up to 264 908 sanitary losses. - — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.9.167 (talk) 23:28, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

30% of economy

@Jirka.h23: @Betelgeuse X: - Both of you are engaged in a slow edit war on this article. I would have to imagine that both of you have learned you are not successful in communicating via your edit summaries aimed at each other. Continuing to edit war over this is not an option. It will lead to blocks on one or both of you if you persist in this behavior. The next steps are to discuss it here, per Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Discuss with the other party. I expect both of you will engage in such discussion here on the talk page of the article where the content is in dispute. Thank you, --Hammersoft (talk) 23:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Soviet Victory

Shouldn't the result be "Soviet Victory"? Because the Finns agreed to give up more land than they were originally offered before the fighting. I could edit the change now, but there was a note asking to seek consensus before doing so. Just because it was an embarrassing victory, doesn't mean it wasn't a victory. Greyfield44 (talk) 13:40, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Souldn't the result be 'Phyrric Soviet Victory'? I have a reason. Even though the Soviet Union won, they suffered serious casualties. This humiliated the Soviet Union. This war would result in Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Ulysses S. Grant III

Based on the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the resulting occupations, along with Soviet plans regarding the anticipated arrival of the Red Army in Helsinki, it's clear that the intention of the USSR was to conquer the country. This objective was not achieved, i.e. Finland defended its independence. Clearly not a "Soviet Victory". Betelgeuse X (talk) 17:41, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

• See Talk:Winter_War/Archive_3#'Soviet_Victory'_is_Inaccurate/Misleading. We've hashed this out before (not that consensus can't change). --Hammersoft (talk) 18:25, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Seige of Leningrad

I believe that the Finnish involvement in the seige of Leningrad is considered a direct result of the winter war, yet see no mention of it in the article. Did I just miss it or is this something that should be added? Nikolaih^☎️📖 19:58, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

The siege of Leningrad was during the Continuation war. So the Continuation war was the result of Winter war. --Willy der Kaiser (talk) 09:02, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

The Aftermath and Casualties section has the following sentence: "This later brought Finland into the Axis to get revenge on the Soviet Union". The term "revenge" seems a bit vague, perhaps it could be replaced with a more direct description stating that Finland's involvement with the Axis led to the Continuation War, which in turn led to the Siege of Leningrad. Finland's involvement with the siege has been debated, but it seems fairly obvious that if Finland wasn't involved with the attack on the USSR then the siege wouldn't have happened. And Finland's attack on the USSR was a result of the Winter War, as pointed out. Betelgeuse X (talk) 20:25, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Update: the section has been expanded. Betelgeuse X (talk) 18:39, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Wrong Map?

It looks to me like the wrong map is being used for the territorial concessions of Finland. The map used in the article "Karelian Question" seems to me to be the correct map. The difference is the city of Petsamo and the entire Petsamo region separating Norway from the USSR. Various sources I have looked at provide quite different maps of where the Soviet occupation line was drawn. Can anyone provide a definitive answer as to which map is correct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5440:D60:B1D8:C37A:A2C:34AD (talk) 21:16, 4 October 2021 (UTC)

Petsamo was ceded after the Continuation War. Betelgeuse X (talk) 17:15, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Akseli Anttila

Akseli Anttila is currently listed under the "Commanders and Leaders" section due to him being the Minister of Defense of the Finnish Democratic Republic and commander of the Finnish People's Army. The section should include people who played key roles in the war, and I don't think that Akseli Anttila qualifies as such. In David Kirby's "A Concise History of Finland", he states that the Finnish Democratic Republic was "headed by the one surviving Finnish communist of any significance, Otto Ville Kuusinen, but otherwise stuffed with unknown nonentities who had managed to escape the purges..." (page 198). This indicates that Anttila's role as Minister of Defense was irrelevant with regard to the war. Havsjö provided the following link with information regarding the army: https://twitter.com/armas_aallontie/status/1388845875900911621. One tweet states that the Finnish People's Army "...spent most of the war in rear guard duty and training for the coming victory parade in Helsinki. However, its men did see some real combat towards the end of the war". Twitter is not a reputable source, though the thread does include a link to several books. Assuming the statement can be sourced, I still don't feel as though this qualifies Anttila as a key player in the war. It seems as though his role was negligible at best.

The Winter War page has been locked due to our edit warring, so I've initiated this discussion to resolve the dispute. Any evidence/reasoning supporting Anttila being listed is more than welcome. The goal here is to come to an agreement on whether or not Akseli Anttila should be listed under "Commanders and Leaders". Betelgeuse X (talk) 09:15, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

Right now, the inclusion of Akseli Anttila is effectively unreferenced. This is not acceptable at the FA level. To solve this without removing him from the infobox, we'd need to add a referenced description of his role into the prose. One suitable source would be The Finnish National Biography which states the following (transl.): Anttila acted as both the Minister of Defense of the Terijoki government, and as the commander of the Finnish National Army. [..] The FNA was founded as a single division (106th), but was expanded to a four-division corps which was intended to occupy Finland after the war.. See [18], which is unfortunately paywalled. This would probably be worth a sentence or two irrespective of what happens with the infobox.

However, even if we source his role, I'm not sure Anttila is sufficiently prominent to warrant an inclusion in the list. The {{infobox military conflict}} documentation says that For wars, only prominent or notable leaders should be listed, with an upper limit of about seven per combatant column recommended.. He's effectively a corp commander, and for the Soviet side we've listed only the prime political decision makers and the army commanders. All that said, I don't hate his inclusion either, assuming it's not left unreferenced. Ljleppan (talk) 11:00, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

I have a hard time justifying his inclusion when the other names on the list were commanders of armies, or higher. Not to mention that there is no indication of the extent to which his division actually participated in the war. Betelgeuse X (talk) 15:52, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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insufficient Reference Material for Claims Made

e.g this stuff:

Their gains exceeded their pre-war demands, and the Soviets received substantial territories along Lake Ladoga and further north. Finland retained its sovereignty and enhanced its international reputation. The poor performance of the Red Army encouraged German Chancellor Adolf Hitler to believe that an attack on the Soviet Union would be successful and confirmed negative Western opinions of the Soviet military. After 15 months of Interim Peace, in June 1941, Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa, and the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviets began 118.93.251.7 (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Edits to lede

@Real Robert J. Oppenheimer: thanks for your recent edit to the lede. I've undone it, because I believe it constitutes undue repetition of something that already stated a few line down the page in a location that is much more narratively coherent. Do you have any specific reason why you think this repetition is warranted? Ljleppan (talk) 15:31, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Actually you are right. I put it in the lead because the Soviets won the Winter War at the end. Real Robert J. Oppenheimer (talk) 02:18, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

As has been discussed ad nauseam, the Soviets invaded Finland in order to annex it into the USSR, and failed to do so. Betelgeuse X (talk) 06:00, 28 September 2023 (UTC)