Page 176 - The Chief Culprit

e Winter War: Finland y 137

offering a huge piece of swampland and marshy woods, in which no one lived and which no
one needed.
e “exchange” of territories was the first step in the plan. Stalin had prepared a second
step as well—a revolution in Finland and takeover by the Communists. Already in October
1939 the 106th Rifle Division of the Red Army was supplemented with Finnish Communists
who lived in the Soviet Union. When necessary, this division could be declared the “national
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army of Finland” and used as a weapon against the legal government. Stalin had prepared
a new Communist “government” as well, which was strengthened with officers from the
NKVD and the military intelligence. is “government” could at any moment, in accor-
dance with “the will of the Finnish people,” be sent to Helsinki. Stalin had started the forma-
tion of this “government” already in June 1939. He decided to appoint Division Commander
A. Anttila of the Red Army to the position of “minister of defense.” Down the road, the same
man became a major general in the Soviet army. In the plans, the future “minister of the inte-
rior” of Finland was an operator of the NKVD, T. Lekhen. At the head of the “government,”
Stalin had put the Soviet intelligence officer Otto Kuusinen. Conveniently, Kuusinen was
also appointed as “minister of foreign affairs.”
Kuusinen had already once been the member of a Communist government in Finland.
In 1918, he had created the Communist party of Finland using Soviet money, and had tried
to stage a coup. After his plans for a government turnover failed, he spent over a year in
the country underground and conducted intensive terrorist activity against Finland in the
interests of the World Revolution. After his cover was blown, he fled to the Soviet Union. In
1921 Kuusinen entered the ranks of the highest officials of the Comintern and became one
of the leaders of the World Revolution. In 1937 Stalin mercilessly cleansed the Comintern,
and a large majority of the leaders were executed. Kuusinen, for some particularly useful
service, escaped execution and in 1941 he became a member of the Central Committee of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). In 1952 he became a member of the
Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU, meaning he entered the most elite group
of leaders of the Soviet Union.
Kuusinen’s wife, Aino, was an intelligence agent for the General Staff of the Red Army.
From 1931 to 1933 she was in the United States illegally, and from 1934 was in Japan
working with Richard Sorge. In 1938 Stalin ordered her to return to the Soviet Union and
threw her in jail. And so, this Communist Otto Kuusinen made preparations for delivering
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freedom and happiness to the Finns, while his own wife roted in Stalin’s jail, and Stalin could
at any moment either raise him to the highest leadership position in the USSR or place him
before a firing squad.
ree months before the start of the war in Finland, in August of 1939, the Red Army
in a surprise attack obliterated the Japanese Sixth Army in Mongolia. Logic would lead us to
the conclusion that if the Red Army had the capacity to destroy an entire Japanese field army,
Finland could not possibly present any difficulties. Stalin knew the strength of the Red Army,
and was certain that Finland would accede without a fight to all his demands. For this reason
he did not conduct any serious preparations for war. However, the people and the govern-
ment of Finland turned out to be unwilling to bend to Stalin’s requests.
Stalin issued an order to crush Finland. For an attack, the Soviets needed a pretext. As
if on demand, on November 26, 1939, seven artillery shells allegedly flew in from the Finnish