Moscow Peace Treaty

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Moscow Peace Treaty was signed on the evening of the 12th of March 1940, bringing to a close a war that had lasted 105 days and reshaping Finland's borders in ways that have never been undone. Finland had held off the Soviet Union through one of the fiercest winters in memory, and yet the terms of peace were harder than anything the Soviets had demanded before the first shot was ever fired. The man tasked with signing those terms, Finnish President Kyösti Kallio, did not do so quietly. As his pen touched the document, he spoke words that would be remembered for generations: "Let the hand wither that signs this monstrous treaty." What had brought Finland to that moment? What did it give up? And why does the question of that lost territory continue to echo inside Finland today?

• 2. The Road to Moscow

  ›

  The Soviet Union launched its invasion of Finland on the 30th of November 1939, and for weeks the world watched a small nation hold its ground against a vastly larger power. By the 29th of January 1940, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had dissolved the puppet Terijoki Government and formally recognised the Ryti-Tanner government as Finland's legitimate authority. Two days later, through intermediaries in Stockholm, the Soviets sent Finland their first tentative peace conditions. Those conditions were already more demanding than anything Moscow had proposed before the war began. They called for Finland to hand over the Karelian Isthmus, including the city of Viipuri, as well as Finland's shore of Lake Ladoga. The Hanko Peninsula was to be leased to the Soviet Union for a period of 30 years. Finland rejected these terms outright. The Finnish government intensified its appeals to Sweden, France, and the United Kingdom for military support in the form of regular troops. Encouraging, if inconsistent, signals had come from France and Britain. Plans and preparations for Swedish troop support had been in development throughout the 1930s. Those possibilities, however uncertain, gave Finland reason to hold out rather than rush toward a negotiated settlement. The moment of reckoning came in February 1940, when Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Finland's commander-in-chief, told the government he was pessimistic about Finland's military position. On the 29th of February, the government opened peace talks, the same day the Red Army launched its assault on Viipuri.

• 3. The Negotiations

  ›

  On the 6th of March, a Finnish delegation led by Prime Minister Risto Ryti boarded the train to Moscow. While the diplomats talked, the military situation deteriorated rapidly. The Red Army was closing in on Viipuri, and Finnish forces were under immense pressure along the front. President Kallio resisted the loss of any Finnish territory for as long as he could, but circumstances left little room for refusal. The treaty was signed on the Soviet side by Vyacheslav Molotov, Andrei Zhdanov, and Aleksandr Vasilevsky. For Finland, it was signed by Risto Ryti, Juho Kusti Paasikivi, Rudolf Walden, and Väinö Voionmaa. A protocol attached to the treaty set the cease-fire for noon, Leningrad time, which was 11:00 in Finland. The fighting continued right up to that hour. Ratifications were formally exchanged nine days later, on the 21st of March.

• 4. The Price of Peace

  ›

  Finland ultimately ceded approximately half of Finnish Karelia under the treaty, an amount that actually exceeded what the Soviets had demanded before the war began. Viipuri, Finland's second-largest city by one census measure and fourth-largest by another, was among the losses, along with Käkisalmi, Sortavala, Suojärvi, and the whole of Viipuri Bay with its islands. Finland also gave up part of the Salla area, the Finnish portion of the Kalastajansaarento Peninsula in the Barents Sea, and several islands in the Gulf of Finland, including Suursaari, Tytärsaari, Lavansaari, Peninsaari, and Seiskari. The Hanko Peninsula was leased as a Soviet naval base for 30 years at an annual rent of 8 million marks. When the losses were tallied, Finland had surrendered roughly 9% of its total territory. Much of the ceded land was still physically held by Finnish troops when the treaty was signed. Military forces and the civilians who remained were evacuated hastily across the new border. The scale of the displacement was staggering: 422,000 Finns, representing 12% of the country's entire population, left their homes. Beyond land, Finland was required to hand over 75 locomotives, 2,000 railroad cars, and a number of cars, trucks, and ships. The Enso industrial area, which sat clearly on the Finnish side of the boundary as drawn in the treaty, was soon added to the losses as well. One territory moved in the opposite direction: Petsamo, which Russian forces had seized during the fighting, was returned to Finland by the treaty's terms, though Finland was simultaneously required to grant free passage through Petsamo for Soviet civilians traveling to Norway.

• 5. Consequences and the Karelian Question

  ›

  A common assumption holds that the peace treaty granted Soviet troops transit rights by railway to the Hanko base, but that provision was not in the treaty itself. Those transit rights were demanded separately, on the 9th of July, after Sweden had permitted Wehrmacht troops to travel by rail to occupied Norway. The broader consequences of the Winter War and the treaty proved transformative. They were central factors in the chain of events that led to the Continuation War, when Finland and the Soviet Union resumed hostilities in 1941. After the Soviet Union itself dissolved decades later, the terms of the Moscow Peace Treaty were not reversed. The land Finland ceded in March 1940 remains outside Finnish borders today. Within Finland, this has given rise to what is known as the Karelian question: an ongoing debate about whether Finland should seek to reacquire the territory it lost. That debate keeps the memory of the 12th of March 1940 alive, along with Kallio's anguished words at the moment of signing.