 In 1939, before the Soviet forces attempted to invade Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, entitled Suite on Finnish Themes to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army would be parading through the Finnish capital Helsinki. The Winter War was a bitter experience for the Red Army, the parade never happened, and Shostakovich would never lay claim to the authorship of this work. It was not performed until 2001.
