Workshop
Sowjetische Besatzungstruppen in Osteuropa
Max Weber Network Eastern Europe
Helsinki – April 22, 2026
“We were victorious, but you won” (Мы победили, но вы выиграли) was the wry comment of a famous Russian author when I showed him around the Finnish Embassy in Moscow. It is an imposing white building in functionalist style, dating from 1938, located in the centre of old Moscow — the first Finnish embassy built abroad and the first purpose-built embassy in the Soviet capital.
When occasionally asked where the Finnish Embassy was, my cheeky reply was: “Знаете ли вы Институт Сербского?” (“Do you know the Serbsky Institute?”) “We are on the same street, Kropotkinsky pereulok.” The reaction was often one of mild shock. The institute was infamous for the systematic political abuse of psychiatry in Soviet times.
The new building was opened exactly one year before the Soviet attack on Finland in November 1939. Among the guests of honour at the inauguration were the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, Maxim Litvinov, and Marshal of the Soviet Union, Semyon Budyonny. In his recently published memoirs Notes from Moscow, former Finnish Ambassador to Moscow Antti Helanterä recounts a comment from a Russian observer upset by Finland’s decision to join NATO: “We have always treated you well, except for the Winter War.”
The crucial difference between Stalin and Putin is evident: Stalin knew when to stop; Putin does not. After the Red Army broke through the main Finnish defence line, Stalin was ready to conclude peace. He was apprehensive about the risk of escalation — for example, rumours that Britain might bomb Baku. After the Peace Treaty was signed on 13 March 1940, Stalin sent one of his NKVD henchmen to “purge” Vyborg. The envoy found Finland’s second city empty and abandoned: the entire population of the ceded territories in Karelia had been evacuated under the protection of the retreating Finnish army. Molotov’s reaction to a Swedish cabinet minister was telling: “Do they consider us barbarians?”
Molotov’s surprise was understandable. In previous wars, invading armies crossed borders while civilian populations remained in place. But the Finnish peasant refused to live under Soviet rule: he set his own house on fire and fled westward.
Another remarkable Finnish practice was to bury fallen soldiers in their hometowns and home villages rather than in large, impersonal military cemeteries. When Charles de Gaulle’s Minister of Culture, André Malraux, learned of this custom during his visit to Finland, he was visibly moved and exclaimed: “Enfin un peuple civilisé!”
Becoming a Waffenbruder of the Wehrmacht and attacking the Soviet Union together in June 1941 was a direct consequence of the Winter War and the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states. Finland joined Beelzebub to fight the Devil and reclaim what had been taken. After Stalingrad, both the military leadership and the government knew Finland had to find a way to conclude a separate peace with Stalin. A major Red Army offensive in June 1944 was halted with Luftwaffe assistance, and the front stabilised in July. Marshal Mannerheim was elected President in August, opening the path to negotiations. One key Soviet precondition was that Finland force the Germans out. The Finnish Army turned its weapons against the Wehrmacht, leading to the Lapland War — Finland’s third war.
Despite the Armistice of September 1944, which limited Finnish sovereignty in various ways, the country was not occupied, and its core institutions survived. The army of over 500,000 men was demobilised in October 1944, even as fighting continued against the Wehrmacht in the north. By January 1945, 200,000 loggers with their horses were already back at work in the forests — paper and pulp being Finland’s main export commodity. In March 1945, Finland held parliamentary elections, becoming the first European country to do so after the war.
When the war started in 1939, Finland was the only new state to emerge from World War I that had preserved its parliamentary democratic system. In 1945, Helsinki — together with London and Moscow — was one of only three capitals in war-torn Europe that had not been occupied.
Avoiding occupation was the decisive factor. No Finnish grandmother, mother, or young girl ever encountered a Red Army soldier. Civilian losses across the wars were minimal: only about 2,000 Finns lost their lives, most in the bombardments of Helsinki. Military deaths totalled around 90,000. Avoiding occupation preserved Finnish society, the parliamentary system, the market economy, and the defence forces. The Iron Curtain remained firmly at the Soviet border. Evacuating the whole population from the ceded territories meant avoiding an irredentist problem, where part of the Finnish population would have been left under foreign rule.
The Gulf of Finland is narrow, but the connection between Helsinki and Tallinn remained blocked until a passenger ferry service opened in 1965. A year earlier, President Kekkonen had visited Tartu and its old university, founded during Swedish rule in 1632. He surprised the Estonian officials — and shocked the Russians present — by speaking Estonian, a language the Estophile Kekkonen had mastered in his youth. Kekkonen was criticised by some for recognising Soviet Estonia, but the opening of passenger traffic across the Gulf of Finland was a real turning point.
Dresden and its surroundings in Saxony were known as the “Valley of the Clueless” (Das Tal der Ahnungslosen) because it was the main area in the GDR that could not receive West German TV. The “desert” in the Soviet Union was much wider. Only Estonia could watch Finnish TV. Lennart Meri, later President of Estonia, used to joke that the Estonians were the only people in the Soviet Union who knew that Lech Wałęsa had a moustache — because they saw him every night on the news from Finland.
The demise of the Soviet empire ended half a century of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe and brought an end to the occupation of the Baltic states. It is sometimes difficult for us Finns to fully grasp what occupation really meant for the people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — what it means to have to suppress your true identity in favour of opportunism, manipulation, and sheer survival. I vividly remember meeting, in 1993, the new Estonian Ambassador to Helsinki, Jaak Jõerüüt, and his wife, the renowned author Viivi Luik. I had read her book The Seventh Spring of Peace (Seitsmes rahukevad), in which she describes how she and her grandmother secretly brought food to the “Forest Brothers” hiding in the woods from the Soviet authorities. Viivi and I were born the same year. I told her that in 1952 — the seventh summer of “peace” — my father took me to the Olympic Games in Helsinki. In September 1952, one month after the Games ended, the last train carrying war reparations crossed the border. The next train already carried export goods.
The regaining of independence by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania dramatically changed the geopolitics of the Baltic Sea. From a Finnish point of view, the opposite shore — die Gegenküste of the Gulf of Finland — was now free.
Dealing with Stalin and his heirs was a daunting task, but Finland’s superior economic and social system gradually created something approaching a level playing field. The 1975 Helsinki Summit of the CSCE marked a key step in Finland’s quest for recognised neutrality.
It may surprise many that more Russians live in Finland today than in 1917. Although Finland was part of the Russian Empire, the autonomy of the Grand Duchy was exceptionally broad. Finnish subjects could move and settle freely throughout the empire, but Russians needed explicit permission from the Imperial Finnish Senate in Helsinki to settle in Finland. This fact is difficult for Russians to understand today.
In 1917 there were only 7,000–10,000 Russian civilians in Finland. Today the country is home to over 102,000 Russian speakers and nearly 47,000 Ukrainian speakers.
Joining the EU in 1995 was the logical outcome of postwar European integration for Finland — but it was primarily a security-policy decision. At no point did we succumb to “peace dividend” reasoning. Finland never abandoned the concept of a strong reserve-based defence force supported by general conscription and continued to strengthen its military capabilities. Immediately after German unification, Finland purchased a substantial quantity of armour and ammunition from the GDR’s Volksarmee arsenal at bargain prices in 1991. A year later, it acquired F-18 Hornet fighter aircraft, replacing Soviet MiGs and Swedish Drakens. Twenty years later, in 2021, the decision was made to replace the F-18 Hornets with F-35s.
Joining NATO was not a foregone conclusion. NATO integration had already progressed significantly, and the Finnish Defence Forces were largely NATO-compatible. But the decisive push for both Finland and Sweden came with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.