In the "Finnish War" of 1808, Sweden was defeated and Finland was occupied by the army of Tsar Alexander I, and Finland broke away from Sweden and became an autonomous power within the Russian Empire. Shortly after the October Revolution, Finland declared its independence and became a permanently neutral country.
After Finland's independence, the Soviet Union's border with it was disputed, believing it to threaten the safety of Leningrad, the second largest city in the Soviet Union. Moreover, Finland had close relations with Germany during the War of Independence, and the Soviet Union felt that Finland was an accomplice to the German invasion of the country. Thus, the Soviet Union used negotiations, threats, and even the overthrow of the Finnish government to resolve the border issue and attempted to regain control of Finland.
Finland, in order to protect itself, regarded the Soviet Union as its only imaginary enemy and continued to use diplomacy to avoid war. Around 1930, after several fruitless Soviet-Finnish negotiations, the Soviet Union decided to invade Finland by force. On November 26, 1939, the Soviet Union created the "Manilla Shelling" as a pretext to declare war against Finland and launch a full-line offensive on the border between the two countries.
After nearly 20 years of socialist construction, heavy industry developed rapidly and its military strength was greatly enhanced. Finland, on the other hand, is a small country with a total population of only about 4.4 million and a standing army of only 32,000, and all countries are not optimistic about Finland. The Soviet Union's initial battle plan was to concentrate 45 divisions and fight an uphill war of at least several months without the Participation of western countries. However, this plan was rejected by Stalin, and the Soviet Union had to redraw its battle plan. According to Stalin's wishes, the Soviet Union made a plan to defeat the main force of the Finnish army in a few weeks, ensuring the safety of Leningrad and Murmansk, thus forcing Finland to sign a contract.
Before the war, the Soviet Union concentrated more than 300,000 troops, 1,000 tanks, and more than 800 aircraft on the border between the two countries, with Meretskov as the commander-in-chief. The Soviet Union was more than ten times more powerful than Finland, which was in danger of being destroyed. Finland's plan was to rely on the Mannerheim Line to contain and deplete soviet forces, while enlisting foreign aid, and when reinforcements arrived, they began to counterattack and negotiate peace with the Soviet Union under favorable conditions. Later, the Finnish Army was expanded to 127,000 people, with 300,000 reserve personnel, 100,000 reserve "Civil Guard" and 100,000 women's service teams, and the Finnish people united to fight the enemy together in the face of external forces.
However, Finland lacked anti-tank guns and ammunition, and the whole army only had about 100 anti-tank guns, only enough ammunition for two months and shells for only three weeks. The Air Force was also severely under-equipped, with only 30 bombers, 56 fighters, and 59 reconnaissance aircraft.
During the war, Finland hoped that the Western powers would lend a helping hand, and Germany was busy invading Western Europe and was unwilling to fight the Soviet Union, so it took a wait-and-see attitude in the Soviet-Finnish War. Britain and France offered to send troops to support, but Norway and Sweden, fearing that Germany would spread the war throughout Scandinavia, did not agree to the crossing of The Anglo-French troops. Finland fought alone until February 1940, when it received British and French assistance. At this time, the Soviet Union also expanded the number to 540,000 people.
When the Anglo-French support arrived, Finland was already in a situation of running out of ammunition and running out of troops, and Finland had to endure humiliation and seek peace. Although the Soviet Union won the war, it also paid a heavy price, not only failing to achieve the goal of conquering all of Finland, but also affecting its international reputation. At the same time, the state of the Soviet Union in this war gave Hitler more confidence in the conquest of the Soviet Union and began to join the plan with Finland. This eventually led to the "Continuation War" at the end of June 1941, when the Finn-German coalition recaptured the land lost in the Winter War.
After the end of World War II, Finland developed rapidly and is now one of the five Nordic countries, a highly industrialized and liberalized market economy. GDP per capita is much higher than the EU average and about the same as Sweden. People enjoy an extremely high standard of quality of life, and data released in February 2019 shows that Finland was the country with the highest happiness index in the world in 2018. Who would have thought that Finland, which was once almost destroyed by the Soviet Union, could have today's development.