The Wars of 1938 - 1940
(1938-1940)

 

 
"We took just enough land to bury our dead." - Unknown, Soviet comment on the results of the Winter War.

 

The years before the Great Patriotic War were full of hardships for the Red Army. The purges left them with little in the way of leadership and production shortages left them with few supplies. The wars of this period are best described as boarder conflicts where the Soviets attempted to regain territory lost after World War One and the Revolution. It was also during these years that the Soviets fought a viscous war with the Imperial Japanese army in Asia. General Georgi Zhukov led the Red Army to victory against the Japanese. The results of this little known conflict caused the Japanese not to attack Russia during the Great Patriotic War.

On the European front, Stalin and Hitler signed a non-aggression pact in secret, and partitioned Poland between them. This would allow the Soviets to regain the territory they lost during the Revolution. When war broke out in 1939, the German Wehrmacht stormed across Poland with amazing speed. Soon the Red Army invaded and wiped out the Polish reserves.

It was perhaps overconfidence that led Stalin and the Red Army leaders to believe that a war against Finland would be a quick and decisive matter. It was not. The Finnish army proved themselves to be much more resilient than either the Japanese or the Poles. The war ended in 1940 with an armistice. Finland would have to give up some territory, but the Russians would have to end the war.

The poor Russian performance did not go unnoticed by Hitler and the Germans, who would later launch Operation Barbarossa - and begin the largest war in history.

 

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