83. Rentola, “Intelligence and Stalin’s Two Crucial Decisions,” 1091 (citing report by the Swedish military attaché to Moscow, Major Vrang, no. 44, Oct. 4, 1939, KrA, FST/Und, E I: 15).
84. Mannerheim, Memoirs, 300–3, 315; Jakobson, Diplomacy of the Winter War, 64, 150–1; Virmarita, “Karl Gustaf Emil’ Mannergeim,” 65–6.
85. Rei, Drama of the Baltic Peoples, 259–60. Rei was the notetaker for Estonian foreign minister K. Selter with Molotov. “Soviet Russia’s period of weakness was over,” Paasikivi observed of the Pact. Paasikivi, Meine Moskauer Mission, 56.
86. Tanner, Winter War, 73.
87. Van Dyke, Soviet Invasion, 21 (citing AVP RF, f. 0135, op. 22, pap. 145, d. 1, l. 22–3: Yeliseyev to Dekanozov, Nov. 12, 1939). Sinitsyn captured the rivalry between Beria and Molotov firsthand. He also had an audience with Stalin, evidently on Nov. 27, 1939, which is not recorded in the office logbooks. He noted that “Mikoyan, Zhdanov, Kaganonovich and even Voroshilov behaved like bad pupils in front of a strict teacher, or, more accurately, like mannequins.” Sinitsyn, Rezident svidetel’stvuet, 20–56 (quote at 40).
88. Tanner, Winter War, 75–6.
89. Na prieme, 279.
90. Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 221 (citing RGALI, f. 1038, op. 1, d. 2076, l. 31ob.), 225–6 (l. 68). The very same day, the all-Union Society of Cultural Ties Abroad demonstratively assembled novelists, film directors, composers, painters, journalists, and more to affirm friendship with Nazi Germany, according to the head of the import agency International Book (A. Solovyev). The next day, Vishnevsky told a meeting of screenwriters that “the question of the British empire, the destruction of this gigantic colonial empire, has been sharply posed, and here, paradoxically, . . . Germany is doing a progressive thing.” Solov’ev, “Tretrady krasnogo professor, 1912–1941 gg.,” IV: 205; Golubev et al., Rossiia i zapad, 221–2, citing RGALI, f. 2456, op. 1, d. 445, l. 23).
91. Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 55–8; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 238. Isolationist sentiment in Britain had not receded despite the guarantees to Poland. “What concerns me is the fate of the British empire!” Lord Beaverbrook, the conservative press baron, told Maisky in London on Nov. 15, 1939. “I want the empire to remain intact, but I don’t understand why for the sake of this we must wage a three-year war to crush ‘Hitlerism.’ To hell with that man Hitler! If the Germans want him, I happily concede them this treasure and make my bow. Poland? Czechoslovakia? What are they to us?” Maiskii, Dnevnik diplomata, II/i: 60–1; Gorodetsky, Maisky Diaries, 239.
92. Upton, Finland, 25–50; Tanner, Winter War, 80–1; Spring, “Soviet Decision for War.”
93. A Soviet protocol official improbably reported that he found the departing Finns in high spirits. Baryshnikov, Ot prokhaldnogo mira, 259 (citing AVPRF, f. 06, op. 1, p. 1, d. 7, l. 64 [B. Pontikov]).
94. Murin, Stalin v ob”iatiakh sem’i, 63 (APRF, f. 45, op. 1, d. 1552, l.15–6).
95. RGASPI, f. 558, op. 11, d. 66, l. 13.
96. DGFP, series D, VIII: 427–8. Molotov would blame the “Social Democrat” Tanner, rather than the prime minister and foreign minister back in Helsinki. See also Kollontai, “‘Seven Shots’”; and Kollontai, Diplomaticheskie dnevniki, II: 466–7. Paasikivi would make telling criticisms of Tanner in his memoirs.
97. Domarus, Hitler: Reden, III: 1422–4; Domarus, Hitler: Speeches, III: 1882–91; DGFP, series D, VIII: 439–46.
98. Khristoforov et al., Zimniaia voina, 171 (TsA FSB, f. 3, op. 6, d. 31, l. 282–4). Tanner recorded a different version of Stalin’s flippancy (“You are sure to get 99 percent support”). Tanner, Winter War, 30.
99. Paasikivi later recalled, “The proposals Stalin made to us in the fall of 1939 were completely different from those to the Baltic countries . . . Stalin from the very beginning backed off discussing with us a mutual assistance pact.” Baryshnikov, Ot prokhladnogo mira, 238.
100. Tuominen, Bells of the Kremlin, 154–5.
101. Upton, Finland, 30–2.
