Echoes from 82 years back - Finland's Winter War against Russia

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This from War History Online. 

November 30th, 1939, following the alleged shelling of Russian troops by Finnish soldiers, the Soviet Union launched an invasion on Finland. The Finnish army of 160 000 men was opposed to an invading Russian army consisting of 2000 Russian tanks and 450 000 soldiers. Numerically and technologically speaking, the massive Soviet force had a tremendous advantage over the smaller Finnish army and should have made short work of any opposition provided by the Finns.

Joseph Stalin and many of his military advisors, confidently expected a short campaign lasting a matter of weeks.  To the surprise of the Russians, and the admiration of the rest of the world, the Finnish army demonstrated an implacable resolve to resist the Russians as well as the military ability to back up that resolve.

We see a pattern.  Russia cooks up a pretext, starts a war with a much smaller neighbor intending to expand its territory, expects quick victory due to overwhelming material superiority, and gets its clock cleaned. Not the first time with Finland, incidentally. Russians are slow learners.

Sir Arthur Keith explains why the Finns fought in his “Evolution and Ethics,” also titled “Essays on Human Evolution,” from that time.  His focus is evolution, which we tend to leave out of the equation.  I’ll post more of Keith shortly.  More later.  Meanwhile, this is what Keith wrote during WWII. 

To see a modern people in the throes of evolution, let us go to Finland in the critical spring of 1940. Listen to the leader of the trade unionists as he described the situation:2

Let us see if we can obtain a reasonable explanation of the state of mind which had been roused in the people of Finland by certain demands made on their country by powerful Russia. At first there was no threat against the corporate life of the Finns; they were requested to surrender certain strong points which were coveted by Russia for defensive purposes. Now, suppose the ultimate purpose of human existence had been such as we have passed in review the development of personality, the provision of greatest happiness to the greatest number, the growth of the soul, glorification of the Creator, security, peace, prosperity; then the Finns ought gratefully to have accepted the demands of Russia. Could not all of these objectives in life have been developed more freely and fully under the protection of Russia than under the weaker power of the smaller state? We receive no explanation from the accepted theories of life. But if we turn to the theory that I have put forward namely, that human nature has been fashioned to advance the cause of evolution then we obtain a ready and sufficient explanation. An evolutionary unit, be it a community, tribe, or a nation, must, to fulfill its destiny, maintain not only its organization and its continuity, but also its independence its right to work out its own destiny. If a nation loses its independence, then it has no longer the power to develop its separate destiny or to pursue the policy of self determination. Thus I regard the spirit of independence which we have seen roused in the hearts of the Finnish people as a fundamental part of the machinery of human evolution.

In every man there is an instinctive and passionate reaction if his person or liberty is attacked. It is not so clearly recognized that a threat to the life or to the independence of a tribe or of a nation calls forth a mass reaction still more powerful and passionate. How strong that reaction can be is seen in the case of Finland. A warlike spirit flamed up; life, individual liberty, ease, and wealth were sacrificed in the passionate hope that the nation might be free to pursue its way to a self appointed destiny. In such reactions the civilized mind sees only a mass hysteria, a form of madness. The rationalist, on the other hand, who has more extended acquaintance with the ways of Nature, will see in the warlike spirit which rises in a nation when its independence is threatened, not a manifestation of madness, but a demonstration of the stern measures used by Nature to carry out her evolutionary purpose. If madness it be, then there is only one cure to bring to an end the methods pursued hitherto by Nature for human advancement. Civilization and Nature are at war.

I have cited the case of Finland to illustrate my evolutionary explanation of "Independence." Many other recent instances are at my disposal, but I shall use only a few of them. There is the case of Yugoslavia. On the morning of March 27, 1941, Mr. Winston Churchill broadcast this announcement: "Early this morning the Yugoslav nation found its soul. . . . Yesterday its freedom and honour were signed away." All the world knows the price in blood and treasure Yugoslavia has paid and is paying for finding her "soul;" yet all the free peoples of the world thrilled approval when she resolved to fight rather than submit to aggressive Germany. Submission would have brought on her the contempt of even the aggressor powers. No spectacle evokes the applause of the world so much as a little nation fighting against overwhelming odds for its right to guide its own destiny. Does not this go to prove how deeply seated the "soul of independence" is in human nature?

That’s the opinion of the moment from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman and the strong man alike are single-mindedly pressing the boy to do his reading. He has chosen Orest Subtelny’s Ukraine - A History over the simpler book I suggested. OK - now READ IT! And write a summary of what you read! Best book I know on the subject, and we have it in both languages.

Graham