The Soviet-Finnish War of 1939—1940
Ideas of Great Finland, uniting the peoples of the Finnish-Ugric group; Finns, Karelians, Estonians, from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Ural Mountains, are spreading with the separation of Finland proper from Russia in 1918. The Government of Suomi sends a petition to the warring Germany; conclude a Brest peace with the condition of joining Finland (an ally of the Austro-German Empire), East Karelia.
In the course of their own civil war, on April 29, 1918, the White Finns capture Vyborg, arrange the genocide of all people who do not speak Finnish (retired military, schoolboys in Russian uniforms, even Poles). Three thousand people die.
On May 15, 1918, the Finnish government declared war on Soviet Russia. Its troops occupy, in particular, the Russian, from the 16th century, Pechenga, rename the name of this village in «Petsamo». Later, large deposits of nickel ore will be explored here, since 1935 their industrial development by Anglo-American corporations will begin.
The Finnish military partially block Petrograd, contributing to the first great famine in this city (according to averaged data, one hundred thousand people become victims of it, as well as «red» terror). At the rate of Mannerheim, a plan for «national uprisings» is being developed, Finnish instructors are being allocated to create centers of insurgency. However, the plans of the Field Marshal to conquer East Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, the offensive against Petrograd, Germany does not support. After the Vyborg tragedy, any joint operations to overthrow the Bolshevik government along with the Finns, the White Army refuses to conduct either.
By May 1920, parts of the Red Army were eliminating the puppet North-Karelian state. In October of the same year, Finland and the USSR signed the Tartous Peace Treaty, according to which Russia was losing part of its territories. However, in 1921 Helsinki unleashed the second Soviet-Finnish war, by forces of «forest partisans» committing acts of sabotage and killing of supporters of Soviet power. The fighting ends in March 1922, a document is signed to ensure the inviolability of the Soviet-Finnish border. About 30,000 people dissatisfied with the new order go to Finland and, up to the end of the 1920s, armed groups formed from them, make raids on Soviet territory.