Caravan Magazine

A journal of politics and culture

Soviet Military Adaptation

War

Breaking the Mannerheim Line: The Soviet Adaptation in the Finnish-Soviet Winter War

The 60th birthday of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on December 21, 1939, marked a low point for the Red Army’s invasion of Finland. Just weeks earlier, Andrei Zhdanov, the party head of Leningrad, had optimistically promised to deliver Finland’s surrender…