I would like, comrades, to touch upon certain questions that were either not raised in the speeches or were raised but not sufficiently illuminated.

The first question concerns the war with Finland.

Did the government and the party act correctly in declaring war on Finland? This question specifically concerns the Red Army.

Was it not possible to get by without war? It seems to me that it was not. It was impossible to get by without war. War was necessary, since the peace negotiations with Finland had yielded no results, and the security of Leningrad had to be ensured unconditionally, for its security is the security of our Fatherland. Not only because Leningrad accounts for some 30-35 percent of the defense industry of our country, and consequently the fate of our country depends on the integrity and preservation of Leningrad, but also because Leningrad is the second capital of our country. To break through to Leningrad, seize it, and establish there, let us say, a bourgeois government, a White Guard government -- that would mean providing a rather serious base for civil war within the country against Soviet power.

There you have the defense and political significance of Leningrad as an industrial center and as the second capital of our country. That is why the security of Leningrad is the security of our country. It is clear that since the peaceful negotiations with Finland had led to no results, war had to be declared in order, with the aid of military force, to organize, establish, and secure the safety of Leningrad and, consequently, the safety of our country.

The second question: did our government and our party not act too hastily in declaring war precisely at the end of November, at the beginning of December? Was it not possible to postpone this matter, to wait two, three, or four months, prepare, and then strike? No. The party and the government acted entirely correctly in not postponing this matter and, knowing that we were not fully prepared for war under Finnish conditions, in beginning active military operations precisely at the end of November and the beginning of December. All this depended not only on us but, more likely, on the international situation. There, in the West, the three largest powers had seized each other by the throat -- when, if not under such conditions, when their hands are occupied and a favorable situation presents itself for us to strike at that moment, should the question of Leningrad be resolved?

It would have been a great stupidity, a case of political shortsightedness, to let the moment slip and not try as quickly as possible, while the war in the West was going on, to raise and resolve the question of Leningrad's security. To postpone this matter by two months would have meant postponing it for twenty years, because, after all, one cannot foresee everything in politics. They are fighting over there, true enough, but the war is somehow feeble: are they fighting, or are they playing cards?

Suddenly they might go and make peace, which is not out of the question. That means the favorable situation for raising the question of Leningrad's defense and ensuring the security of the state would have been lost. That would have been a grave mistake.

That is why our government and party acted correctly in not putting this matter off and in opening military operations immediately after the breakdown of negotiations with Finland.

The third question. Well, war was declared, military operations began. Did our military leadership correctly deploy our troops along the front? As is known, troops were deployed along the front in the form of five main columns. One, the most substantial, column of our troops was on the Karelian Isthmus. Another column of our troops, and the direction of this column, was the northern shore of Lake Ladoga, with the main direction toward Sortavala. A third, smaller column, in the direction of Oulu. A fourth column in the direction of Tornio, and a fifth column from north to south toward Petsamo.

Was such a deployment of troops along the front correct? I think it was. What did we seek to achieve by this deployment of our troops along the front?

If we take the Karelian Isthmus, the first task was as follows. In war, after all, one must count not only on what is good but also on what is bad, and better still, anticipate the worst. The largest column of our troops was on the Karelian Isthmus in order to make impossible the emergence of any contingencies against Leningrad from the Finnish side.

We knew that the Finns were supported by France, by England, that the Germans were supporting them on the sly, as were the Swedes, the Norwegians, and that America and Canada were also providing support. We know this well. In war, one must anticipate all possibilities, and especially not lose sight of the worst possibilities. Proceeding from this, it was necessary to create a large column here -- on the Karelian Isthmus -- which could above all secure Leningrad against all possible contingencies.

Secondly, this column of troops was needed in order to probe with the bayonet the state of Finland on the Karelian Isthmus -- its disposition of forces, its defenses -- two objectives.

Thirdly, to create a bridgehead so that, when we bring up more troops, they would have a bridgehead for a leap forward and further advance. And fourthly, to take Vyborg, if possible.

In any case, the deployment of troops on the Karelian Isthmus pursued three objectives: to create a serious shield against all possible contingencies and threats to Leningrad; secondly, to carry out reconnaissance of Finnish territory and rear areas, which we badly needed; and thirdly, to create a bridgehead for a leap, to which troops would be brought up.

The next sector, north of Lake Ladoga. Our troops pursued two objectives -- also the objective of reconnaissance -- actually, three objectives: the objective of armed reconnaissance -- I am speaking of bayonet reconnaissance, which is a very serious and the most reliable form of all types of reconnaissance. The creation of a bridgehead in order, with the arrival of troops, to get behind the Mannerheim Line. The second main objective was the creation of a bridgehead and an exit to the rear, if this could be achieved.

The third group had the same objective -- reconnaissance of territory, of the population, creation of a bridgehead...

The fourth group, in the direction of Tornio: reconnoiter in this direction, create a bridgehead for troops that would later be brought up.

The fifth group -- the Petsamo group. Reconnaissance -- creation of bridgeheads, deliver a blow against the town. All these groupings pursued one concrete objective -- to force the Finns to disperse their forces. Our reserve is greater than theirs; weaken the direction -- the pressure on the Karelian Isthmus -- in the end break through the Karelian Isthmus and advance northward to the Gulf of Finland.

The group north of Ladoga set itself the task of taking Sortavala and getting behind the lines. The Oulu group -- to occupy Oulu. The Kandalaksha group -- to reach Tornio; the Petsamo group -- to link up with the Kandalaksha group.

We did not reveal our cards -- that we had another objective: to create a bridgehead and carry out reconnaissance. Had we revealed all our cards, we would have dampened the spirit of our army units. The task was as follows. Why did we approach this question so cautiously and with a certain hidden purpose? Why was it not possible to strike from all five directions and squeeze Finland? We did not set ourselves such a serious task because war in Finland is very difficult. We know from the history of our army and our country that Finland was conquered four times... We attempted to shake it a fifth time. We knew that Peter I fought for twenty-one years to wrest all of Finland from Sweden. Finland was then a province of Sweden -- precisely that region which we have now obtained: the Kohtla-Jarve region and Petsamo. That does not count. The entire Karelian Isthmus up to Vyborg, including Vyborg Bay, and Peter did not get the Hanko Peninsula at that time -- but he fought for twenty-one years.

We knew that after Peter I, the war to expand Russia's influence in Finland was waged by his daughter Elizabeth Petrovna for two years. She achieved something, expanded the territory, but Helsingfors remained in Finnish hands. We knew that Catherine II waged war for two years and achieved nothing of particular note.

We knew, finally, that Alexander I waged war for two years and conquered Finland, winning back all the regions.

Exactly the same things happened with Russian troops then as now: they were encircled, taken prisoner, staffs were captured; and Finns were encircled, taken prisoner -- the same things that happened before. We knew all this business and reckoned that the war with Finland might last until August or September 1940. That is precisely why, just in case, we took into account not only the favorable outcome but also the worst, and from the very beginning of the war we set about preparing bridgeheads in five directions. Had the war dragged on, and had some neighboring state intervened in the war, we planned to deploy along those directions, where ready bridgeheads already existed, 62 infantry divisions plus 10 in reserve -- 72 in all -- to discourage any desire to meddle in this matter. But things did not come to that. We had only 50 divisions in all. The reserve remained in reserve -- 10 divisions -- but that was because our troops did good work, smashed the Finns, and pressed them hard. Before the Finns, from the very start of the war, we posed two questions: choose one of two things -- either agree to major concessions, or we will pulverize you and you will get the Kuusinen government, which will gut your government. That is what we told the Finnish bourgeoisie. They preferred to agree to concessions so as to avoid a people's government. Very well. The matter was settled amicably. We agreed to those terms because we obtained quite serious concessions that fully secure Leningrad from the north, from the south, and from the west, and which put all the vital centers of Finland under threat. Now the threat to Helsingfors stares from two directions -- Vyborg and Hanko. This means the grand plan for a grand war was not carried out, and the war ended after three months and twelve days only because our army did good work and because our political ultimatum, set before Finland, proved correct. Either you, gentlemen of the Finnish bourgeoisie, agree to concessions, or we will give you the Kuusinen government, which will gut you -- and they preferred the former.

A few more questions. You know that after the initial successes in advancing our troops, as soon as the war began, we discovered problems in all sectors. They were discovered because our troops and the command staff of our troops were unable to adapt to the conditions of war in Finland.

The question is: what especially hindered our troops from adapting to the conditions of war in Finland? It seems to me that what especially hindered them was the psychology created by the preceding campaign among troops and command staff -- "we'll bury them under our caps." The Polish campaign did us terrible harm; it spoiled us. Whole articles were written and speeches were made that our Red Army is invincible, that it has no equal, that it has everything, that it lacks nothing, that there never have been and there are no shortages, that our army is invincible. In general, invincible armies have never existed in history. The very best armies, which were here and there, suffered defeats. Our comrades boasted that our army was invincible, that we could bury everyone under our caps, that there were no shortages. In practice there is no such army, and there will not be.

This prevented our army from immediately recognizing its shortcomings and reorganizing, reorganizing in accordance with the conditions of Finland. Our army did not understand -- did not immediately understand -- that the war in Poland was a military promenade and not a war. It did not understand and did not grasp that in Finland there would be no military promenade but a real war. Time was needed for our army to understand this, to feel it, and to begin adapting to the conditions of war in Finland, to begin reorganizing.

This above all prevented our troops from immediately, on the march, adapting to the basic conditions of war in Finland, from understanding that they were going not on a military promenade, not to take things with a "hurrah," but to a war. This psychology that our army is invincible, this boastfulness, which is terribly widespread among us -- the most ignorant people are, that is, the biggest braggarts -- must be ended. This boasting must be ended once and for all. Our people must be drilled on the principle that invincible armies do not exist. Lenin's words must be drilled into them: that beaten armies, or armies that have suffered defeat, fight very well afterward. Our people must be drilled, from the command staff down to the rank and file, that war is a game with certain unknowns, that there in war there can be defeats as well. And therefore one must learn not only to advance but also to retreat. One must remember the most important thing -- Lenin's philosophy. It has not been surpassed, and it would be good if our Bolsheviks assimilated this philosophy, which is fundamentally at odds with the philistine philosophy that our army is supposedly invincible, has everything, and can conquer everyone. This psychology of "burying them under our caps" must be ended if you want our army to become a truly modern army.

What prevented our army from quickly, on the march, reorganizing and adapting to conditions -- preparing not for a promenade but for a serious war? What prevented our command staff from reorganizing to conduct war not in the old way but in the new way? Bear in mind that throughout the entire existence of Soviet power, we have not yet waged a real modern war. The minor episodes in Manchuria, at Lake Khasan, or in Mongolia -- that is trifling, that is not war. Those are isolated episodes on a tiny patch of ground, strictly limited. Japan was afraid to unleash war, and we did not want it either, and a certain trial of strength on a small patch showed that Japan had failed. They had two or three divisions and we had two or three divisions in Mongolia, the same at Khasan. Our army has not yet waged a real, serious war. The Civil War was not a real war, because it was a war without artillery, without aviation, without tanks, without mortars. Without all this, what kind of serious war is it? It was a special war, not a modern one. We were poorly armed, poorly clothed, poorly fed, yet we still defeated an enemy who was far more heavily armed, far better equipped, because what fundamentally mattered there was spirit.

So then, what prevented our command staff from conducting the war in Finland in the new way from the outset, not on the model of the Civil War but in the new way? What prevented them, in my opinion, was the cult of traditions and the experience of the Civil War. How is our command staff evaluated among us: did you take part in the Civil War? No, I did not. Get out. And did that one take part? He did. Bring him here; he has great experience, and so on.

I must say, of course, the experience of the Civil War is very valuable, the traditions of the Civil War are also valuable, but they are utterly insufficient. It is precisely the cult of the traditions and experience of the Civil War, which must be ended, that prevented our command staff from immediately reorganizing on a new footing, onto the rails of modern war.

We have a certain comrade commander -- no minor figure, a first-rate man; when it comes to the Civil War, his experience is extensive, he is a respected, honest man, yet to this day he cannot reorganize along new, modern lines. He does not understand that one cannot immediately launch an attack without artillery preparation. He sometimes leads regiments with a "hurrah." If war is conducted in this way, it means ruining the cause -- whether or not these are cadre troops, first class, it makes no difference: you ruin the cause. If the enemy is sitting in trenches and has artillery and tanks, he will undoubtedly smash you.

Similar shortcomings were found in the 7th Army -- failure to understand that artillery decides the matter. All these arguments that shells must be conserved, that self-loading rifles are unnecessary because they use too many cartridges, why do we need a submachine gun that takes so many rounds -- all these arguments that one should fire only at targets -- all this is old, all this belongs to the domain and traditions of the Civil War. There is nothing modern in it.

Where did all these arguments come from? These arguments were not only aired out there; they were aired here as well. Civilian people -- I, Molotov -- found a thing or two regarding military questions. Non-military people specifically argued with the heads of military departments, outargued them, and compelled them to recognize that we are waging modern war against Finns who have been trained in modern war by three states: Germany trained them, France is training them, England is training them. To fight a modern war in the presence of fortified zones and at the same time raise the question that one should fire only at targets -- that is preposterous wisdom.

Arguments about why the production of Degtyarev submachine guns was discontinued. It had only 25 rounds. Foolish, but they discontinued it all the same. Why? I cannot say.

Why are there no mortars? This is not something new. In the era of the imperialist war, the Germans saved themselves from Western and Eastern troops -- ours and the French -- chiefly with mines: few men, many mines. Twenty-four years have passed; why do you still have no mortars? Neither answer nor response.

And what explains all this? Because in everyone's heads the traditions of the Civil War reigned: we got along without mines, without submachine guns; our artillery, our men are magnificent, heroes, and all the rest; we will press on and carry the day. These speeches remind me of the Red Indians in America, who went against rifles with clubs and wanted to defeat the Americans with clubs -- to beat a rifle with a club -- and they were all killed.

This cult of the traditions and experience of the Civil War was deeply ingrained in people and robbed them of the psychological capacity to reorganize more quickly to the new methods of modern warfare. It must be said that, all the same, after two, three, or four weeks they began to reorganize: first the 13th Army; Shtern also managed to reorganize, also not without friction. Comrade Frolov conducted himself well, the 14th Army. Worst of all things went for Comrade Kovalev. Since he is a good fighter, since he is a good hero of the Civil War and won glory in the era of the Civil War, it was very hard for him to free himself from the experience of the Civil War, which is utterly insufficient. The traditions and experience of the Civil War are utterly insufficient, and whoever considers them sufficient is certain to perish. A commander who considers that he can fight and win relying solely on the experience of the Civil War will perish as a commander. He must supplement this experience and the value of the Civil War without fail... supplement it with the experience of modern war.

And what is modern war -- an interesting question -- what does it require? It requires massed artillery. In modern war, artillery is God, judging by the artillery. Whoever wants to reorganize along new, modern lines must understand: artillery decides the fate of war -- massed artillery. And therefore the arguments that one should fire only at targets and not at areas, that shells must be conserved -- this is preposterous stupidity, which can ruin the cause. If in a day 400-500 shells are needed to smash the enemy's rear, to smash the enemy's forward edge so that he has no peace, so that he cannot sleep, then shells and cartridges must not be spared. As Finnish soldiers write, they could not get a night's sleep for four months and only slept on the day of the armistice. That is what artillery means. Artillery is the first priority.

Second -- aviation, mass aviation, not hundreds but thousands of aircraft. And so, whoever wants to wage war in the modern way and win a modern war cannot say that bombs must be economized. Nonsense, comrades. More bombs must be given to the enemy in order to stun him, turn his cities upside down -- then we will achieve victory. More shells, more cartridges -- fewer men will be lost. If you spare cartridges and shells, there will be more losses. One must choose: give more shells and cartridges, or spare your army, preserve its strength, give the minimum of killed -- or not spare bombs and shells.

Further -- tanks, third, also decisive: mass tanks are needed, not hundreds but thousands. Tanks protected by armor -- that is everything. If the tanks are thick-skinned, they will work wonders alongside our artillery, alongside our infantry. One must give more shells and cartridges for the enemy, spare one's own men, preserve the army's strength.

Mortars -- fourth. There is no modern war without mortars, mass mortars. All corps, all companies, battalions, regiments must have mortars -- six-inch ones without fail, eight-inch ones. This is terribly important for modern war. These are highly effective mortars and very cheap artillery. A magnificent thing, the mortar. Do not spare mines -- that is the slogan; spare your men. If you spare bombs and shells and do not spare men, fewer men there will be. If you want our war to be fought with little bloodshed, do not spare mines.

Further -- the automation of small arms. To this day arguments continue: do we need self-loading rifles with a ten-round magazine? People who live by the traditions of the Civil War are fools -- although they may be good people -- when they say: why do we need a self-loading rifle? Take our old five-round rifle and the self-loading rifle with ten rounds. We know that you aim, work the bolt, fire; a target appears -- aim again, work the bolt, fire again. But take a soldier who has a ten-round rifle: he will fire three times more rounds than a man with our rifle. A soldier with a self-loading rifle equals three soldiers. How can one fail to switch to the self-loading rifle after this? It is, in effect, a semi-automatic. This is terribly necessary; the war demonstrated this in the army's forces. For our reconnaissance, for night fighting, for attacking the rear, raising a commotion -- such terror is created in the rear at night and such panic -- my compliments. Our soldiers are not such great cowards, but they ran from submachine guns. How can this weapon not be put to use?

So: infantry, small arms with the semi-automatic rifle, and the automatic pistol -- these are obligatory.

Further. The creation of a cultured, qualified, and educated command staff. Such a command staff we do not have, or we have only isolated individuals.

We speak of the combined-arms commander. He must give assignments -- that is, direct aviation, artillery, tanks, a tank brigade, mortar crews. But if he does not have at least a general idea of this type of weapon, what directives can he give? The present-day combined-arms commander is not the commander of the old Civil War era, where there was the rifle and the three-inch machine gun. Today a commander, if he wants to be authoritative for all branches of the armed forces, must know aviation, tanks, artillery with its various calibers, mortars -- then he can give assignments. This means we need a command staff that is qualified, cultured, and educated.

Further. Well-organized and skillfully functioning staffs are required. Until recently the saying went: such-and-such a commander has failed, he is a bungler -- send him to staff work. Or, for example, a man with a flair for it happened to end up on staff: he can command -- they say his place is not on the staff, he should be given a command post.

If you continue to look at staffs this way, we will have no staff. And what does the absence of a staff mean? It means the absence of an organ that both carries out orders and prepares orders. This is a very serious matter. We must establish cultured, skillfully functioning staffs. Modern war demands this, just as it demands massed artillery and massed aviation. Furthermore, modern war requires well-trained, disciplined soldiers with initiative. Our soldier lacks initiative. He is poorly developed as an individual. He is poorly trained, and when a man does not know his business, where is he to find initiative? And therefore he is poorly disciplined. Such soldiers -- new ones -- must be created, not the same softies who went into the Civil War. We need a new soldier. He needs to be, and can be, created: with initiative, individually developed, disciplined.

For modern war we need politically steadfast political workers who know military affairs. It is not enough for a political worker to repeat by rote, "the party of Lenin and Stalin" -- it is like chanting hallelujah, hallelujah. That is not enough; that is now insufficient. He must be politically steadfast, politically educated and cultured; he must know military affairs. Without this we will not have good soldiers, well-organized supply, or well-organized reinforcements for the army.

Those are all the conditions required in order to wage modern war -- for us, Soviet people -- and to win in this war.

What do you think: did we have such an army when we entered the war with Finland? No, we did not. In part we did, but as regards these conditions, it lacked a very great deal. Why? Because our army, however much you may praise it -- and I love it no less than you do -- is still a young army, untried in battle. It has a great deal of equipment, it has a great deal of faith in its own strength -- even more than needed. It tries to boast, considering itself invincible -- but it is still a young army.

In the first place, our modern Red Army was tested under fire on the fields of Finland -- there was its first baptism of fire. What was revealed? That our men are new men. Despite all their shortcomings, very quickly, in a matter of some month and a half, they were transformed, became different, and our army emerged from this war as virtually a fully modern army -- though it still lacks a thing or two. Vestiges of the old remain. Our army planted both feet firmly on the rails of a new, genuine, Soviet modern army. That is the chief gain of the experience that we absorbed on the fields of Finland, having given our army a good testing under fire so as to take account of this experience. It is good that our army had the opportunity to gain this experience not against German aviation but in Finland, with God's help. But that our army is no longer the same army it was in November of last year, and that the command staff is different, and the soldiers are different -- of this there can be no doubt. The very appearance of your assault groups is a sure sign that our army is becoming a fully modern army.

It is interesting, after this, to ask oneself: what does the Finnish army represent? Many of you have seen its mobility, its discipline, have seen how it employs all manner of tricks, and a certain envy of the Finnish army showed through. The question is: can it be called a fully modern army? In my opinion, it cannot. From the standpoint of defending fortified lines, it -- the Finnish army -- is more or less satisfactory, but it is still not modern, because it is very passive in defense and it looks upon a fortified zone's defensive line the way Muslims look upon Allah. The fools sit in their pillboxes and do not come out; they believe the pillboxes cannot be overcome; they sit there and sip tea. That is not the attitude toward a line of defense that a modern army needs. A modern army cannot relate to a line of defense, however strong it may be, passively.

This passivity in defense and this passive attitude toward defensive lines characterize the Finnish army as not a fully modern army for defense, when it sits behind stones. The Finnish army showed itself to be not fully modern also because it has an excessively reverential attitude toward the impregnability of its fortified zones. And as for the Finnish offensive -- it is not worth a broken penny. Over three months of fighting, can you recall a single case of a serious, mass offensive by the Finnish army? There was none. They did not even dare to counter-attack, though they were sitting in zones where they had pillboxes, where the entire expanse was measured out as on a firing range, where they could close their eyes and shoot because the entire expanse was measured and plotted -- and still they very rarely went on the counter-attack, and I do not know a single case in which their counter-attacks did not fail. As for some serious offensive to break through our front, to capture some line -- you will not find a single such fact. The Finnish army is incapable of major offensive operations. The chief deficiency of this army is that it is incapable of major offensive operations; in defense it is passive and very stingy with counter-attacks, and its counter-attacks are organized extremely clumsily, and it always came away from counter-attacks with losses.

That is the chief deficiency of the Finnish army. It was created and trained not for offense but for defense, and moreover a defense that is not active but passive.

Defense with a deep, fetishized belief -- a belief in an invulnerable zone. I cannot call such an army modern.

What is it capable of, and what did certain comrades envy? Minor sorties, encirclement with flanking movements to the rear, roadblocks -- they know their own conditions, and that is all. All these roadblocks can be reduced to tricks. A trick is a fine thing: cunning, resourcefulness, and so forth. But one cannot survive on tricks alone. You deceived once -- got behind the lines; deceived a second time; but the third time you will not deceive. An army cannot get by on tricks alone; it must be a real army. If it does not have that, it is not fully capable. There is your assessment of the Finnish army. I am taking the tactical aspects, not touching on the fact that it is weak, that it has little artillery. Not because it is poor -- nothing of the sort. But it is only now beginning to understand that without artillery a war must be lost. I will not speak of another deficiency: they have little aviation. Not because they did not have money for aviation. They have quite a lot of capital; they have developed cellulose factories that produce gunpowder, and gunpowder costs dearly. They have more cellulose factories than we do, twice as many: we produce 500,000 tons a year of cellulose; from them we have now obtained factories that will produce 100,000 tons a year, and twice as many remain with them. It is a rich country. If they do not have aviation, it is because they did not understand the force and significance of aviation. There is another deficiency for you.

An army that has been brought up not for offense but for passive defense; an army that has no serious artillery; an army that has no serious aviation, though it has every opportunity for it; an army that conducts good partisan offensives -- flanking to the rear, making roadblocks, and all the rest -- I cannot call such an army an army.

General conclusion. What did our victory amount to? Whom, in fact, did we defeat? Here we fought for three months and twelve days, then the Finns got down on their knees, we made concessions, and the war ended. The question is: whom did we defeat? They say the Finns. Well, of course, we defeated the Finns. But that is not the most important thing about this war. Defeating the Finns is no great feat. Of course, we had to defeat the Finns. We defeated not only the Finns; we also defeated their European teachers. We defeated German defensive technology, defeated English defensive technology, defeated French defensive technology. We defeated not only the Finns but also the technology of the advanced states of Europe. Not only the technology of the advanced states of Europe: we defeated their tactics, their strategy. The entire defense of Finland and the war was conducted on the instructions, at the instigation, on the advice of England and France, and earlier still the Germans helped them a great deal, and half the defensive line in Finland was built on their advice. The result speaks for itself.

We smashed not only the Finns -- that task is not so great. The main thing about our victory is that we smashed the technology, tactics, and strategy of the advanced states of Europe, whose representatives were the teachers of the Finns. That is the essential thing about our victory.

Zavtra [Tomorrow]. 1996. No. 51.