 During Joseph Stalin's rule, Soviet propaganda painted Finland's leadership as a "vicious and reactionary Fascist clique". Marshal C. G. E. Mannerheim and Väinö Tanner, the leader of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, were targeted for particular scorn. With Stalin gaining absolute power through the Great Purge of 1938, the Soviet Union changed its foreign policy toward Finland in the late 1930s. The Soviet Union began pursuing the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia lost during the chaos of the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The Soviet leadership believed that the old empire had ideal security and territorial possessions, and wanted the newly christened city of Leningrad to enjoy a similar security.
