What Stalin Knew (13 page)

legation.’’ The fact that he had been named chargé d’affaires cut little ice

48

THE FINNS FIGHT

with the Finns, who knew Rybkin as ‘‘the legation secretary, Yartsev.’’ On

April 14 Rybkin called the Finnish foreign minister, Rudolf Holsti, and

they arranged to meet that evening. Rybkin told Hosti that he had recently

been given full authority by his government to discuss the improvement of

relations with Finland. The government was concerned, he said, that Ger-

many might attack the USSR. One aspect of the attack would include a

landing in Finland, followed by a thrust toward Leningrad. Given its policy

of neutrality, would Finland resist this German attack or would the Ger-

man landings be unopposed? In the latter case, the Soviets would not wait

for the Germans to attack but would enter Finland and engage the German

forces there. If, on the contrary, the Finns planned to resist, the Soviet

Union would provide economic and military assistance and guarantee to

withdraw its troops after the war. After further discussion, the foreign

minister said he would have to have government approval to continue.3

Rybkin met with A. K. Cajander, the Finnish prime minister, in June,

telling him that if Finland would guarantee that Germany would be per-

mitted no bases there, the Soviets would help Finland defend itself against

German attack. When Cajander urged expansion of Finnish-Soviet trade,

Rybkin replied that trade would have to wait until political agreements

were reached; there must be Finnish guarantees. Rybkin did not elaborate

on these guarantees. At this point Cajander asked Tanner, a member of the

cabinet’s Foreign Affairs Committee, to meet with Rybkin to try to clarify

the Soviet proposals, which were still to be kept secret, even from the

Soviet minister and his staff. Accordingly, Tanner met Rybkin on June 30

and asked for a specific proposal. When they met again on August 5, Ryb-

kin did not have such a proposal but suggested that it might be best to shift

the discussions to Moscow. Surprised, Tanner pointed out that doing this

would certainly attract attention, making it difficult to maintain secrecy.

The two met again on August 10 but Rybkin still had no proposal. Prime

Minister Cajander advised Tanner to tell Rybkin: ‘‘Finland will always ad-

here to the neutrality policy of the northern countries; Finland will . . .

permit no violation of Finnish territorial integrity nor consequently the ac-

quisition by any great power of a foothold in Finland for an attack against

the Soviet Union.’’ Tanner did as Cajander instructed, and Rybkin again

spoke of moving the negotiations to Moscow. Then on August 18 Rybkin

read a statement to Tanner in ‘‘slightly defective German.’’ In essence, the

Soviet Union would be satisfied with a written agreement under which

Finland stood prepared to ward off possible attacks and, to that end, to

accept Soviet military aid. The Soviet Union would assent to the fortifica-

THE FINNS FIGHT

49

tion of the Aaland Islands if it could take part in the arming and maintain

surveillance over the use of the fortifications. It was prepared to guarantee

Finland’s inviolability within the present Finnish boundaries, first and

foremost the sea frontiers. In the event of need, the Soviet Union would

assist Finland by force of arms. Moscow would ‘‘also approve an excep-

tionally advantageous trade treaty.’’4

During October, Rybkin had additional discussions with Foreign Min-

ister Holsti and received an essentially negative written response from

him. According to Tanner, it elicited a shrug from Rybkin, who declared

himself ‘‘just an inexperienced young secretary.’’ Rybkin’s final effort in

Helsinki was to talk with the Acting Foreign Minister Vaino Voionmaa

(Holsti had resigned from the government on November 16). When Rybkin

continud to press for a transfer of the negotiations to Moscow, Voionmaa

agreed to use the December 1938 visit of a delegation to dedicate the new

Finnish legation building in Moscow as a pretext. Rybkin returned to

Moscow; his last act in this drama was to tell the Finns that they ‘‘would

have the opportunity to meet a high-ranking Soviet government official.’’

The official turned out to be Anastas Mikoyan, commissar for foreign

trade. It seemed that the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs knew nothing of

the delegation’s purpose beyond the dedication of the new legation build-

ing. As a result, the Finnish minister to Moscow, A. S. Yrjo-Koskinen,

withdrew and did not participate in the discussions that took place in

Mikoyan’s office. These talks, on December 7, covered the same ground

as those held with Rybkin/Yartsev in Helsinki and no agreements were

reached.5

Thus ended Boris A. Rybkin’s adventure in secret diplomacy. When the

Winter War began he returned to Moscow, where he was appointed chief of

a section of the Fifth (Foreign Intelligence) Department, Chief Directorate

for State Security (GUGB), NKVD USSR. In February 1941 he was ap-

pointed a department chief of the First Foreign Intelligence Directorate of

the newly constituted People’s Commissariat for State Security (NKGB).

In September 1941 he was posted to Stockholm as resident. His cover this

time was counselor and he remained Boris N. Yartsev.6 Some historians

believe that the proposals he advanced were seriously intended by Stalin as

a way of improving Leningrad’s defenses without imposing unacceptable

conditions on the Finns. Knowing Stalin’s approach to negotiations of this

type, this seems unlikely. Rather, Stalin may well have used the Rybkin

Yartsev ploy to study Finland’s position and attitudes without revealing his

ultimate demands.

50

THE FINNS FIGHT

Not until March 1939 would the Soviets, acting this time through

diplomatic channels, ask the Finns to lease several islands in the Gulf of

Finland ‘‘as guard posts for the approaches to Leningrad.’’ The Finns re-

fused, citing their neutrality. The new Soviet commissar for foreign affairs,

V. M. Molotov, reopened the question on October 7, asking that representa-

tives of Finland and the USSR meet in Moscow to resume negotiations. On

October 9 the Finns announced that they would send the Finnish minister

to Sweden, J. K. Paasikvi, to Moscow. He would be authorized to discuss

only the transfer of islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for territorial

compensation elsewhere. During this meeting and those that followed, it

became clear that Stalin’s minimal position went beyond anything that

had been discussed in negotiations to date, including those with Rybkin/

Yartsev. Stalin’s demands included use of the island of Hanko as a Soviet

base, cession of certain islands in the Gulf of Finland, and movement of

the border on the Karelian Isthmus northward. These demands were re-

jected by the Finnish government. Discussion continued sporadically for a

time, but on November 13 the Finnish delegation returned to Helsinki.7

In his memoirs, Kiril A. Meretskov, appointed commander of the Len-

ingrad Military District in February 1939, recalls visiting Defense Com-

missar Voroshilov in Moscow and being told by him to assess the district as

a possible theater of military operations. This would indicate that Stalin

was already considering the use of military force against the Finns. Mer-

etskov found the district’s operational plans out of date, and its infrastruc-

ture inadequate. He also claimed that there was no intelligence on the

Mannerheim Line, the Finnish fortifications of the Karelian Isthmus (a

strange conclusion as the emplacements on this line were designed by

foreign specialists and resembled elements of French fortifications). Mer-

etskov’s recommendation, supported by Andrei A. Zhdanov, first secretary

of the Leningrad Oblast Party Committee and Politburo member, was to

undertake a major effort to construct new roads, airfields, and fortifica-

tions. When it became apparent that the Finns were not ready to accede to

the Soviet demands and that war was likely, Chief of the General Staff

Boris M. Shaposhnikov predicted the Finns would not be easy to defeat

and recommended that a front be created that would drive through the

Mannerheim Line as far as Helsinki if necessary. For reasons that are still

not fully understood, Stalin rejected his advice and placed the entire oper-

ation in the hands of Zhdanov, Meretskov, and the Leningrad Military

District. The operational plan devised by Meretskov involved attacks di-

rectly against the Mannerheim Line by the district’s Seventh Army while

THE FINNS FIGHT

51

the Eighth Army attacked northeast of Lake Ladoga in an effort to envelop

the line. Meretskov estimated that Finnish resistance could be overcome in

twelve to fifteen days.8

On November 26 Finnish artillery was reported to have opened fire on

Soviet border troops. Seven shells had apparently been fired, killing three

Soviet privates and a noncommissioned officer and wounding seven sol-

diers and two officers. The Soviet government protested, proposing that

the Finns withdraw their forces to a distance of twenty to twenty-five kilo-

meters from the frontier. ‘‘The Finns investigated the incidents and found

that Finnish border troops heard seven shots and observed the shells ex-

plode in the village square of the Soviet village,’’ one historian writes. ‘‘The

guards concluded that the gun or guns that produced the seven shots were

located some one and a half kilometers to the southeast of the place where

the shells exploded.’’ No Finnish artillery troops were stationed in this

area. If the Finns’ report was accurate, the so-called artillery barrage must

have been a preplanned Soviet provocation. Whether this is true or not, the

Finnish information was given to the Soviets, who responded by accusing

the Finnish government of having committed an unfriendly act against the

USSR. The accusation freed the Soviet government of its obligations un-

der the nonaggression pact between the two countries. The war could now

begin, which it did on November 30 with a surprise Soviet attack.9

Meanwhile, other preparations had already been made on the Soviet

side. On November 10, 1939, O. W. Kuusinen, former Finnish Communist

Party leader in exile in the USSR and a member of the Presidium of the

Executive Committee of the Communist International, met with Stalin

‘‘regarding Finnish affairs.’’10 Evidently on the basis of decisions reached in

their talks, Kuusinen wrote on November 13 to Arvo Tuominen, secretary-

general of the Finnish Communist Party, then living in exile in Stockholm,

directing him to come to Moscow as soon as possible. As Vaino Tanner later

described the letter, Kuusinen told Tuominen that ‘‘it was necessary to

resort to more forceful measures with respect to Finland . . . of the kind the

Finnish Communist Party had long hoped for and that Tuominen would

find waiting for him a task that would make him very happy.’’11 Tuominen,

whose attitude toward Moscow had changed while he was in exile, re-

sponded on November 17 that he could not come. Before long, he received

a verbal order from the Soviet legation in Stockholm to leave at once for

Moscow. Since this produced no effect, on November 21 a courier arrived

from Moscow with a letter from the Politburo ordering Tuominen to leave

the next day on the Moscow plane. The courier explained that a Finnish

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The Mannerheim Line

THE FINNS FIGHT

53

‘‘popular government’’ would be set up composed of Finnish exiles living in

the Soviet Union. Kuusinen would be president and Tuominen prime min-

ister. Tuominen still refused. Nonetheless, according to a Tass communi-

qué of December 1, 1939, a Finnish Democratic Republic (FDR) was estab-

lished in Terijoki, a small town just inside the Soviet-Finnish border.12

On December 2 Moscow announced a treaty between the FDR and the

USSR whereby the FDR granted to the USSR all that the USSR had de-

manded and then some. The Finnish Social Democrats and other political

parties wholly rejected this ‘‘puppet Kuusinen government.’’13 Why did