Soviet Manchuria offensive.

Think I have already explained this in my previous posts.

For Stalin the summer 1944 for crucial. He did not want to risk loosing the race towards Berlin. The Western Allies were seemingly advancing rapidly. Therefore he felt he was now forced to choose between Finland and Berlin, since too much time had already been lost. The Finnish "defensive victories" (with German help) had exhausted the soviet offensives on all sectors - at least for now.

Stalin decided to settle for less with Finland and concentrate all available resources against Germany. After the German defeat in 1945 there was no such problem.

Yes. It was finished on 15th May 1941 and connected to the soviet railroad. Personally I think the invasion would/could have started in summer 1941 - together with the greater soviet westward offensive or even without it. As it happened it was too late...

 

If there was not problem after the German defeat, then why not occupy FInland?

 

The peace had already been done with Finland. The stream of war booty was already flowing from Finland to the greedy and needy hands of the soviets - and that stream kept flowing until 1952! "Why kill a hen which is laying eggs?"

The freed Finnish communist traitors in the soviet lead were thought to be able to snatch the power in Finland in the same way as later in the soviet controlled countries. Did not happen though, but that threat lasted until 1948.

 

But you Finns lived in a kind of tense atmosphere during the Cold War, isn't? The policies needed to be balanced between the East and West. But they were really balanced? For example, there was a political influence by one side or the other by school teachers?

 

Yes.

The years after the war until the end of the 40's were called the years of danger, because the threat of a communist coup was then at it's highest - not least because of the communist take overs in the soviet occupied countries. Right after the war the communists became the second largest party after the socialists. The new interior minister was a communist and the secret police under him became communist too. This lasted until the next elections in 1948 when the communists dropped from 49 seats (out of 200) to 38 seats and were kicked out of the government. The secret police was cleansed from the communists too.

After that the situation "normalized". During the Cold War Finland was balancing on a tight rope trying not to fall - i.e. not to annoy the soviets. The policies were supposedly balanced between the East and the West, but in reality the East was listened more carefully.

Historically the school teachers had luckily been more conservative than the governments. In the 60's and the 70's though the general leftward tendency in Finland and in the rest of Europe reached some of the teachers as well. During the 80's the political atmosphere became more relaxed and the soviet butt licking was reduced.

 

Thanks for the informations.

 

Manchuria related Trivia.

I live in Vernon British Columbia Canada which is at the north end of Kalamalka Lake.

The town of Oyama sits 15 Km south, right at the south end of Kalamalka Lake.

Oyama is not a Native Canadian Indian name like many towns around here, but that of Prince Iwao Oyama (1842-1916), Japanese Field marshal,
captor of Port Arthur in the First Sino-Japanese War and commander in Manchuria in the Russian-Japanese War.