1. I don’t know much about Finland, that’s why I asked “Did Finland participate”!

Well thats why I asked;)

2. “A clear alligment with Sweden and by that back bone, Make Stalin think otherwise with his warplans.”

And just why would Sweden abandon their neutrality policy to join in an alliance whose sole reason for existing would be to commit Sweden to fighting the USSR over someone else’s territory?

a. Finland has been part of Sweden for 700 years, so we were still then and before considered as atleast some level of ‘area of intrest’ to Sweden.

b. There actually was plans for this during the mid 30’s, and my memory states them to come from Swedens side and reject by our pride.

I presented it as an idea that would have happen, IF we would had have more healtyer political climate, more akin to Sweden than other newly independent eastern european countries.

3. Ok, now I know a bit more about Finland’s actions in that era… and yes, it sounds like they were a typical early 1900s nation… they did nasty things that we, now, view as unacceptable… but which were the “normal” for most nations at that time.

Judge them by what they had been taught as right and wrong, not by our current standards.

No, Like I said, those actions were condemndet by the people at the time. Our nation was divided to the Reds and Whites after the civil war and almoust half of our citicens lived under fear during the 30’s. Ironically it was the winter war that finaly begun the unification of our nation, but the rigth wing tendensies that flowered in the ruling rigth wing elite was deemed comdendaple by the opposition of that time.

Would I like our society to go back to the way we were before WW 2? NO!

I am not sure there was any nation I would prefer to live in from that time more than I would most of the “Western” nations today. All of us have learned from our past, and most of us are much better places to live because of that. Just ask any “African-American”, “Hispanic”, “Native American”, “Asian-American”, etc if the US is a better place now for his ethnicity than it was in the 1940s.

Yeas, Im not claiming otherwise. This whole thing came up becouse the current generation, in the wave of Soviet collapse has once again forgotten the concept of Geo-strategical realism and again tries to seek confrontation with Russia, all in same manners that it was done before the WWII. And past is a good teacher and never has anything good come from the smallest kid in the sandbox throwing sand into the eyes of the biggest one. And allinging whit the biggest kids opponent would only mean, that when the confrontation comes, it would be fougth atop the face of the smallest kid…

In this case, I would ask you to examine Finland’s actions and alternatives, rather than just its alliance with Nazi Germany. Did Finland participate in the purges and slaughter of economic & racial minorities? If not, then there is little to be degrading yourselves on on that point. As to the choice of allies, at the time, you had only three choices… all of them bad.

Now, you are throwing sticks to fire that you arent even aware what ignited it. As a proud memember of finnist left wing, I have all reason to bash our political climate during the first three decade of our independence. It was wrong, we know it then, we know it now. There isent any remorse, nor revisionist turn-coatism. Our government and expecially our army slaughtered tens of thousand of finnish workers in the summer of 1918, and no one needed to pay a single fine from those crimes. The goverment was then infested with Racist hate-mongering greater-finland advocates (AKS) that twisted the whole sosial life to allowdly anti-russian and anti sosialist tendencies cousing much drift and political witch-hunting. Our own warmongering was the ultimate reason to make Russia suscpicious over our goals and our stance in outcoming world war. It was generally similar in All those nations that the illfamous Molotov-Rittentrop agreement “gave” to Stalin. Wonder no-one never takes that account…

We sended all Jews we could get into Auschwitz (fortuanetly by mere byrocratical slagg, the total number remained, I think 7…), tortured and executed numerous against-war communist and made plans for ethinical purification of the Karelia region of Russia that we occupied.

Whitout the rigth-wing rule, I have no doupt that there wouldn’t have been change to stay neutral, or even better, A clear alligment with Sweden and by that back bone, Make Stalin think otherwise with his warplans. You tend to ignore the fact we were ‘neutral’ aka all alone in the 1939, basicly becouse of our rigth-wings stubbornes to lean towards Sweden (ultimately from same nationalistic mambo-jambo BS that made them rant over Russia). After the winter war, everyone wanted revenge and as the rise of German rose, the AKS minded people saw German as the ultimate ally to accomplish their wet-dreams. The situation in 1941 didn’t by anyway forced us to enter the war, we did it by our own free-will choice, and I dont know about you, but to me thats a pretty good reason to show remorse…

And there was always the change to seek alligment in the Allyes, but no one wanted that, becouse the then thougth ‘racially inferior’ Russians were on their side, and gee, we wanted to kick their ass so bad that it wouldn’t be possiple att all…

The Vozhd is long dead.

Regarding JASSM: What’s the point of having a handful of these? Not enough for serious work. And, btw, I’m not aware that Russia is threatening Finland.

My thougths exactly. I think that the whole deal was made under the rigth presumption that the US would refuse it and that way the NATO lobby would get good election tool to boast their Russian-bear scaring of the voters.

Do you really think that a more submissive Finland would have fared better against Stalin?

Yeas, you would need to know our politics lot better to realise it yourselves. There was no question to any of the Baltic buffer states (Balts, Poland and Us) that there wouldn’t be confrontation in some point agaisnt USSR. We all posessed thread to USSR and we knew it and they knew it. Even back in 1939, I believe that the war would have been avoidaple if we would have given Stalin the few sq land that he demanded….there was too much of concerns in mid-europe that he douptly would have risked war against Us. People buy the mythical david-vs. -Goljat aspect of the winter war and tend to forget that there were strong anti-russian racistic and fasist, Greater-Finland lobby that evetually drove us into Germans pocket. It wasent nessecity but deliberate choice of our government and we payed too big price of it….

….and compared to it, we also managed to slip away from our burden of participating Nazis world conquer plans and holocaust pretty unoticed.

If Finland had conceded to all of Stalins demands without any resistance, it is perfectly likely that Finland would have been entirely absorbed into the Soviet Union, much like the three Baltic states.

Not in my obinion, thougth the option wasent even question at the time, all of our leaders were completely brainwashed by our own super-race BS and anti-russian racist rumblings… But even if they would have tryed to pull same trick to us as they did with the Balts, we would still put on a figth no matter what the situation would have been….But there would have always been change for peace, And thats worth of deeper thougth.

It is a great mystery why Stalin allowed Finland to remain independant, albeit neutral?

Of pure respect. Stalin was humbled by our recistanse. During 1944 only failed allied campaing was Stalins attempt to end the finnish front by massive blow in the same time as the Nordmandian landings. The battles in the Karelian ishtmus were one of the forgotten big battles of WWII(Largest in the Nordic countries and in fact one of the largest of the world by meassure of menpower and tanks.), and it still rank as number one of our military historys miracles. In winter war, we survived mainly due Soviet lack of understanding of modern war and their innability to exploid their superiority. But in 1944 Soviet had learned their leassons from the germans and all credit went to our forces, particularry to Artillery and After it Soviet lose all intress to waste resources to us….

After the Stalin own purges had ruined his change to make revolution in here, Soviet realised the fact that it was even better to them to have one western democracy as allied as well. A Window to the West as they said. And frankly speaking, the Cold war was one of the best period in finno-russian relations. We both benefitted from the somewhat dodgy relationship, too bad it is all now ruined and the nationalistic bombast begun to lure back into our political rethorics.

The music was not so bad!!

Yeas it was:diablo: …many good songs, but ruined with awfull sounds, expecially in the drum section and those keyboard sounds…my god, you could almoust kill incects with it;) :rolleyes: :rolleyes: