The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939-40 (Soviet (Russian) Military Experience)

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Western accounts of the Soviet-Finnish war have been reliant on Western sources. Using Russian archival and previously classified secondary sources to document the experience of the Red Army in conflict with Finland, Carl Van Dyke offers a reassessment of the conflict.

The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939-40 (Soviet (Russian) Military Experience) Review

Don't expect to get a first hand account of the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 in this book. It is actually a study of the failure of the Soviet Armed Forces in the attack on Finland and an analysis of how that failure resulted in major changes to Soviet military doctrine, equipment and tactics. It does included a day by day account of specific parts of the war from the Soviet point of view. Its well written but it is aimed at the academic rather than the casual reader (that is probably reflected in the price too..)

The author makes extensive use of former confidential Soviet sources, and that point alone it makes the book interesting. However, the author does use a lot of jargon involving the Soviet system, which, while probably understandable by the academic audience this book is intended for, makes the book a bit of a challenge for the casual reader. It does not detract from the book, just makes it a bit more work to get thru.

Content. Chapter 1 - covers the diplomatic and strategic background of the war. Chapter 2 - covers the initial stage of the war. Chapter 3 - the mid-war reforming of the Soviet Army's doctrine. A chapter on the final Soviet victory by Timoshenko is followed by an interesting chapter on "Lessons Learned," and finally an epilogue. The bibliography is extensive and the book is heavily footnoted.

Comments on the book itself. Parts I found really interesting - A number of reasons are given for the poor performance of the Soviet Forces - at the beginning, it is clear that the Red Army was in virtual chaos. The preface covers this well, with an outline of how the Red Army emerged from the revolution and subsequent civil war with a sophisticated military doctrine and decentralized command and organizational flexibility - however, this doctribe and structure, forged in the maelstrom of the Civil War and the Red Armys struggle against foreign invaders supporting the Whites, contradicted Stalin's "centralized political system." In the conflict between the professional military and Stalin, the military lost. The end result was Stalin's purges, and the dismissal, execution, or imprisonment of 40,000 army commanders and about 3,000 naval commanders. The troops were untrained, and as a result of the purges, unlead. Additionally, Stalin had attempted to integrate political commisars and political control into every aspect of military command and operations.

Other problems in the Red army involved the vertical command structure that limited horizontal communication between units. Combined actions using artillery, armor, and infantry often disintegrated into "mob tactics." According to Van Dyke, even the structure of the Soviet Army was known only to the NKVD. In addition to covering military tactics and doctrine, the book provides a fascinating study of what happens when the political aspects override military capability (Iraq anyone?). Some of these ideological concepts are hard to understand, and harder to describe. Others are just hard to believe. I wont go into them here, read the book and you will see what I mean.

The Lessons Learned section focuses on the military lessons learned by the Red Army. Its an interesting thought as to what the result might have been had the Red Army been forced to make such major changes in the middle of an attack by the Wehrmacht, rather than during an invasion of Finland. There is a lot more in the book - I have just touched on aspects I found interesting. The author covers problems with supplies, intelligence, and the continuing lack of competent leaders. These problems and numerous others were apparantly not really fixed until the middle of WW2.

The book itself - very few editorial errors and typos - I would have liked to have seen more maps abd pictures though. The footnotes and bibliography often contain references to documents in Russian - unless you read Russian, you will need a translator for these. I would recommend this book to those who want to understand the "other side" in the Winter War, and how that experience brought about changes in the Soviet military.

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