Stalin's plan to bisect Finland Stalin's plan to bisect Finland S ixty years have passed since the outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. The fighting began on the last day of November 1939 and ended in March 1940. The Red Army regarded Finland as an easy tit-bit, but found itself choking as the Finns offered fierce resistance in their country's wintry terrain. Finland's heroic struggle against an aggressor with immense numerical superiority gained the admiration of the entire Western world.
Cold numbers tell the essential facts of the fighting.
The Finnish loses were 23,000 killed and 45,000 wounded. Soviet casualties totalled about 600,000 men. All in all, the invading force that the Finns had to oppose was about one million strong. In the face of that superior power Finland bent, but did not break. Under the terms of an armistice signed in Moscow in 1940, Finland ceded the territories that the Soviet Union demanded.