The Finns kept insisting that they had no intention of allowing Hitler to use their territory; Stalin kept insisting that someone could seize their country as a springboard to attack the USSR.55 He reminded the Finns that territorial concessions were known to history: Russia had sold Alaska to the United States, Spain had ceded Gibraltar to Britain. He further noted that in Poland, he had annexed only the territories with Belorussian and Ukrainian-speaking majorities. “In Poland we took no foreign territory,” he told the Finns, “and now this is a case of exchange.”56 Trying to impart a sense of urgency, Stalin also noted that Finnish soldiers had been mobilized and the nation’s frontier cities evacuated, heightening the risk of war and necessitating an agreement. Paasikivi requested a break in the talks to consult in person with Helsinki.57
The despot repeatedly underscored how his demands were “minimal,” certainly as compared with Hitler’s vis-à-vis Czechoslovakia or Poland. But to the leaders of Finland’s parliamentary democracy, Stalin was a gangster. Paasikivi was inclined to some sort of deal, but he carried rigid directives: no Soviet military bases to compromise Finnish neutrality, no significant territorial concessions. Back in Finland on October 16, Paasikivi told journalists that Mr. Stalin was a pleasant fellow with a sense of humor.58 Beria reported that at a meeting with the Social Democratic parliamentary faction in Helsinki on October 17, Väinö Tanner, the finance minister in the coalition government, had stressed the unexpected scope of Soviet demands, without revealing details, but had also noted that “Paasikivi was surprised that he was received so well and that they tried to create a friendly atmosphere. Stalin joked all the time, and when Paasikivi apologized for his poor Russian, Stalin answered that he could not speak Finnish.”59
Stalin had inside information on the Finnish position. He lacked a spy at the top of the Helsinki government, but Hella Wuolijoki, a Finnish writer and businesswoman and the former mistress of the Soviet intelligence official Meyer Trilisser (her NKVD code name was “the Poet”), hosted a political salon in the capital. She learned details of a Finnish war cabinet meeting on October 16 (perhaps via an intentional leak by Tanner) and concluded that, in terms of Soviet demands, the Finnish defense minister was hostile, the foreign minister passive, and the prime minister wavering. The next day, based upon information from Wuolijoki, the deputy Soviet intelligence chief in Helsinki, Zoya Rybkina (the wife of Boris Rybkin/Yartsev), who posed as the Soviet tourist representative, reported to Moscow that Helsinki might concede some Gulf of Finland islands, but a bilateral military alliance or leases for Soviet bases on Finnish territory had been ruled out. Also on October 17, Soviet intelligence in Helsinki reported that it had gotten word of a secret visit to Berlin by Finland’s former security police chief, who, it was reported, had been told by Himmler, “Stand firm if you want to, but we will not help you.”60 Four days later, Stalin received a report from Soviet military intelligence to the effect that the Japanese military attaché in Moscow, Colonel Doi, had complained to his Swedish counterpart, Vrang, that it was incomprehensible how the Germans could afford the Soviets a free hand in Finland.61
Beria’s rich NKVD reports made plain the narrowness of Finland’s options, but the Finns felt uncertain about Stalin’s real aims.62 Right around this time, the Finnish police rounded up 272 known members of the outlawed Finnish Communist party, expecting to uncover a plot on orders from Moscow for domestic subversion. But it turned out that no organized treasonous activities were under way; most of the arrested Finnish Communists were released within three days. Even some who had been trained militarily in the Soviet Union pledged to take up arms for Finland. The interrogations surprised the Finnish authorities.63
IMPASSE