Shelling of Mainila
Encyclopedia
The Shelling of Mainila was a military incident on November 26, 1939, where the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

's Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 shelled the Russian village of Mainila (located near Beloostrov
Beloostrov
Beloostrov , from 1922 to World War II—Krasnoostrov , is a municipal settlement in Kurortny District of the federal city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, located on the Sestra River, Karelian Isthmus, and a key station of the Saint Petersburg-Vyborg railroad since 1870 at the junction of Saint...

), declared that the fire originated from Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 across a nearby border and claimed losses in personnel. Through that false flag
False flag
False flag operations are covert operations designed to deceive the public in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own...

 operation the Soviet Union gained a great propaganda boost and a casus belli
Casus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...

for launching the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

 four days later.

Background

The Soviet Union had signed international and mutual nonaggression treaties with Finland: the Treaty of Tartu
Treaty of Tartu (Russian–Finnish)
The Treaty of Tartu between Finland and Soviet Russia was signed on 14 October 1920 after negotiations that lasted for four months. The treaty confirmed the border between Finland and Soviet Russia after the Finnish civil war and Finnish volunteer expeditions in Russian East Karelia. Ratifications...

 of 1920, the Non-aggression Pact between Finland and the Soviet Union signed in 1932 and again in 1934, and further the Charter of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

. The Soviet government attempted to adhere to a tradition of legalism, and a casus belli was required for war. Earlier in the same year, Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 had staged the similar Gleiwitz incident
Gleiwitz incident
The Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany on the eve of World War II in Europe....

 to generate an excuse to withdraw from its nonaggression pact with Poland.

The incident

Seven shots were fired, and their fall was detected by three Finnish observation posts. These witnesses estimated that the shells detonated approximately 800 meters inside Soviet territory. Finland proposed a neutral investigation of the incident, but the Soviet Union refused and broke diplomatic relations with Finland on November 29.

Materials in the private archives of Soviet party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...

 leader Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician.-Life:Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks, becoming the All-Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934...

 heavily hint that the entire incident was orchestrated in order to paint Finland as an aggressor and launch an offensive. The Finnish side denied responsibility for the attacks and identified Soviet artillery as their source — indeed, the war diaries of nearby Finnish artillery batteries show that Mainila was out of range of all of them, as they had been withdrawn previously to prevent such incidents.

In the days following the shelling, the Soviet propaganda machine generated much noise about other fictitious acts of Finnish aggression. The Soviet Union then renounced the non-aggression pact with Finland, and on November 30, 1939 launched the first offensives of the Winter War.

Aftermath

The Finns conducted an immediate investigation, which concluded that no Finnish artillery or mortar
Mortar (weapon)
A mortar is an indirect fire weapon that fires explosive projectiles known as bombs at low velocities, short ranges, and high-arcing ballistic trajectories. It is typically muzzle-loading and has a barrel length less than 15 times its caliber....

s could have reached the village of Mainila. Field Marshal
Field Marshal (Finland)
In Finnish Defence Forces Field Marshal is officially not an active military rank but an honorary rank that can be bestowed upon 'especially distinguished generals'...

 C.G.E. Mannerheim
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and a Finnish statesman. He was Regent of Finland and the sixth President of Finland...

 had ordered all Finnish guns drawn back out of range. Furthermore, Finnish border guard
Border guard
The border guard, frontier guard, border patrol, border police, or frontier police of a country is a national security agency that performs border control, i.e., enforces the security of the country's national borders....

s testified that they had heard the sound of artillery fire from the Soviet side of the border.

The Russian historian Pavel Aptekar analyzed declassified Soviet military documents and found that the daily reports from troops located in the area did not report any losses in personnel during the time period in question, leading him to conclude that the shelling of Soviet troops was staged.

Years after the incident the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

 wrote that the Mainila shellings were set up by Marshal of Artillery Grigory Kulik
Grigory Kulik
Grigory Ivanovich Kulik was a Soviet military commander and was born into a peasant family near Poltava in Ukraine. A soldier in the army of the Russian Empire in World War I, he joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and the Red Army in 1918...

. In 1994, the President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...

, denounced the Winter War
Winter War
The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

, agreeing that it was a war of aggression
War of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...

.

See also

  • Background of the Winter War
    Background of the Winter War
    The background of the Winter War covers the period before the outbreak of the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1939–1940, stretching from Finland's Declaration of Independence in 1917 to the Soviet-Finnish negotiations in 1938–1939. Before its independence, Finland was an...

  • Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact
  • Operation Himmler
    Operation Himmler
    Operation Himmler was a Nazi Germany false flag project to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany, which was subsequently used by Nazi propaganda to justify the invasion of Poland...

     / Gleiwitz incident
    Gleiwitz incident
    The Gleiwitz incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia, Germany on the eve of World War II in Europe....

  • Reichstag Fire
    Reichstag fire
    The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....


External links

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