Both in my master’s thesis as well as in my licentiate thesis I have examined the image of the enemy, the Soviet Union, created during the Winter War in Finnish newspapers. In master’s thesis, four newspapers published in Oulu city in northern Finland formed my sources. In licentiate thesis, 18 newspapers were included: the Patriotic People’s Movement’s (IKL’s) Ajan Suunta, the National Coalition Party’s Uusi Suomi, Aamulehti, Karjala and Vaasa, politically independent Helsingin Sanomat, the Progressive Party’s Turun Sanomat and Kaleva, politically independent Hufvudstadbladet, the Agrarian Union’s Ilkka, Kainuun Sanomat, Keskisuomalainen, Lapin Kansa, Maakansa and Savon Sanomat, the Social Democrat Party’s Suomen Sosialidemokraatti, Kansan Lehti and Pohjolan Työ. The four Oulu newspapers were the Coalition Party’s Kaiku, the Agrarian Union’s Liitto, the Progressive Party’s Kaiku, the Agrarian Union’s Kaleva and the Social Democrat Party’s Pohjolan Työ.[1]

This article is based on the above-mentioned sources, in which the image that emerged was mainly found in editorials and political causeries. To some extent, I also paid attention to news and headlines. Cartoons that created a visually concrete image were also included.

One problem in studying the enemy image of the Soviet Union created by newspapers in the Winter War is the shortness of this war. When the image is researched over a longer interval, one can include events that reflect in the image and change it in different directions. An image emerging from various material can also be different because it does not include the wartime pressure to form a united front. Therefore, it can depict its creator’s intellectual world more clearly.

When studying images of an enemy emerging during a 105-day-long defensive war that has grown to mythical dimensions, we are dealing with an intensive image of a short period and the nation’s need of defence which both were, in principle, shared by all groups of citizens.

Questions dealing with the enemy and hostilities were naturally a dominant daily topic in newspaper editorials and causeries.[2] The subsequent reputation of the Winter War is dominated by an image of Finns’ complete unanimity. The first familiarisation with the sources strengthens this view because the strong use of words during war at first appeared similar in all newspapers, and every paper appeared to describe the enemy using the same negative arguments.

When the starting point of image research is the image’s creator - who examines the object through his/her own worldview and frame of reference creating an image of himself/herself at the same time - according to image research methods,[3] differences start to appear in the wall of apparent unity. These differences can be derived from each paper’s ideology and also each writer’s view of the object of description.

When we examine from this point of view the image of the problematic relationship between Finland and the neighbouring Russia and the Soviet Union, we can assume that the roles of views and worldviews grew because everyone already had a preconceived mental image of the object. One can assume that different social systems of these countries, which had already managed to raise strong emotions since Finland’s becoming independent in 1917, would have also had similar influences. This was further emphasised by the fact that images of enemies are created during different periods, not just during wars, but also for domestic political reasons because a common enemy, in principle, unites one’s own people.[4] This was done also in Finland after the independence in 1917 and the Civil War between the Whites and the Reds[5] in 1918, when national unity was strengthened by stirring up hatred against Russians and the fear of communism, adopted especially in influential right wing activities, such as Akateeminen Karjala Seura (AKS, ‘Academic Karelia Society’) and the Lapua Movement (lapuanliike).[6] Their ideology had its strongest effect in the right-wing parties and the Agrarian party. In principle, majority of the supporters of the Agrarian Party had at least some interest in nationalistic and/or ultra-Finnish ideas.[7] The negative image of the Soviet Union was, however, distributed within the entire Finnish middle class and partly among the leftists, excluding the extreme left, especially as a result of events in the Soviet Union in the 1930s.[8]

The image and the concepts of enemy images

Images born in the mind are personal views or those shared by a group. Their emergence is influenced, for example, by fears and wishes caused by the images’ object. Their emergence is influenced by geographic distances, as well as by political differences, but also by long-lasting views of the object, for example, the common history of the countries and images created by it. For these reasons, image research is very suitable, for example, in the study of the means through which hostilities between nations are stirred up.[9] In this respect, the shared history of Finland and the Soviet Union is appropriate material for image research.

It is characteristic of an image that it changes only slowly even as a result of new events or information.[10] Regardless of this, especially an enemy image can in principle jump over periods. Therefore, earlier crises are remembered during periods of crisis. A dramatic event can activate an image of an old crisis, especially if it is actively sought, for example, with newspaper writings. For this reason, it is considered important in image research to know events that have influenced the topic being studied at least from about 10–20 years prior to the period being studied.[11] When the enemy image created of Soviet Union is the research object, the Finns’ image has centuries-long roots due to common history that has included conflicts.[12]

Because enemy images utilise the hindmost emotions and beliefs of one’s own people, they can be emotion evoking and abstract and, therefore, difficult to validate with reason.[13] It is also relevant that the image changes according to need, and the object’s history is selectively utilised by seeking from the past characteristics that are at that moment useful for one’s own people.[14] In a conflict situation, it is explained that something fundamentally essential associated with the enemy and the enemy society belongs even to an aggravated image.[15] The image can also be emphasised with the help of so-called atrocity stories associated with the enemy’s previous deeds and to summarise it in an easily remembered slogan or a word the content of which is familiar to one’s own people without explanation.[16]

The idea of archenemy also belongs to concepts of the enemy image. The birth of this concept may date so far back in history that its origin is even unknown. It is, however, commonly known among the people and can be utilised and strengthened or eliminated as necessary. Therefore, in this also the needs of the image’s creator define the enemy image.[17] A newspaper’s own world of ideals and values can influence the image, for example, so that the archenemy-ship and historical roots are emphasised differently.

Although the enemy’s hated traits had to be emphasised in the enemy image, one has to be careful not to create too monstrous an image because one’s own people’s belief in victory has to survive. For this reason, the enemy image is typically a dual image where, on one hand, an enemy’s offensiveness, cruelty and brutality are being described, but, on the other hand, such weaknesses of the enemy due to which it is beatable are also described.[18] In the most extreme case, hostility, the desire to conquer and cruelty are emphasised as part of a nation’s national character. The enemy is a barbarian who belongs to the dregs of humankind, the beating of which is God’s will.[19]

Enemy images emerge especially easily in situations where nationalism is strong and the threat against one’s own people is felt to be real. In Finland, the couple of months preceding the Winter War were on these bases favourable for the emergence of a strong enemy image. It also helps in the enemy image’s emergence that it can be proven in the threat situation that the same enemy has repeatedly in history attacked one’s nation and, thus, one can present this enemy as the archenemy with inborn desire to cause destruction.[20] This condition was also fulfilled in the Winter War.

When we examine an enemy image created during the war, we have to acknowledge the effect of censorship and a conscious direction of opinion. Because detailed censorship and information giving guidelines associated with the Winter War are not strictly within the scope of this article, I only mention that Finland’s own propaganda had, however, a relatively easy task during the Winter War, if we consider propaganda as means used to influence the public opinion so that the greater audience is made to adopt and receive views the government wishes it to adopt and receive.[21] The censorship was not so much a political one as a military one due to the great unanimity among the press and the people.[22] In the Winter War, it was not fully implemented until some days after the war started, without declaration of war, on 30 November 1939.

Tailor-made images of the enemy

The Starting point of non-socialist (bourgeois) newspapers

When examined from the starting points of image research, differences emerge in the seemingly unified descriptions of the enemy. Different ideologies and ideals existing in the country are found in the enemy image created by newspapers because papers naturally wanted to appeal to their own particular group of readers.

The emphasis of the battle of national and patriotic defence appealed to readers with right-wing inclinations, which included in this case also many members of the Agrarian party. Right-wing propaganda and enemy image also appeared in Supreme Commander, Marshal of Finland, C. G. E. Mannerheim’s first order of the day when the war began. It presented the principle of the battle of national defence in which the Soviet Union threatened home, religion and the fatherland. Also brought up was a historical tradition in which the war was considered the continuation and the final act of the Civil War of 1918, or The War of Liberation, as it was also called. In the bourgeois newspapers, this view and history were clearly utilised since the beginning of the war.[23]

These papers described and made use of the historic connection between Russia and Finland. Old conflicts were taken for comparison, mainly the Great Wrath[24]. With the help of these, it was possible to describe the Soviet Union as Russian’s successor and also to demonstrate it to be the archenemy. It was at once “that old tormentor” which throughout history had attacked Finland and forced every generation to defend the country. Peaceful periods were, typically to the nature of enemy images, not discussed in the created image. Instead, the world of ideals that in the 1920s and 1930s were represented by the conservative factions in Finland, most extremely by extreme right movements AKS and the Lapua Movement, was utilised. It is understandable that the image was the strongest in papers of the extreme right, and of the Agrarian Union that described the national point of view. It was readable in these papers already from the first days of the war.[25] Because war in principle unifies the mental images, it is not surprising that this enemy image based on history was later also presented in papers of the political centre and occasionally in papers of the Labour Party.[26]

The same ideology also included appealing to the cultural difference of the Finns and the Russians and the Russians’ difference from the western people. Uuno Kaila’s poem was well-known:

like a sentry, I stand guard.”[27]

Finland had strong roots of identifying with the west already since the national awakening in the mid 19^th century, and it had been strengthening the need to create national unity which included stirring up hatred toward Russians in the early years of the independence period.[28] This topic was also dealt with by propaganda directed outside Finland during the war. This propaganda was used to influence the opinion in other countries by emphasising that the Soviet Union’s attack against Finland was not only to conquer Finland but the entire world and the worldwide revolution. Therefore, it was in the best interest of those countries to help Finland.[29] This propaganda, thus, had a clear practical goal and, because we are expressly dealing with the best interests of Finland fighting a defensive war, it is understandable that the domestic newspapers also wrote about the need of help and its arrival. The ideological differences between the papers did not have influence here either.[30] There were, however, differences in the amount of writing, and they may also explain the desire to influence the foreign opinion because liberal Helsingin Sanomat, the largest newspaper of the country, included the most articles on this topic. This paper was owned by Elias Erkko – the former foreign minister – and opinions written in this paper were definitely followed also abroad.[31]

The starting point of images of the labour newspapers

The newspapers of the labour class were at that time expressly newspapers of the Social Democrat Party, which as one of the parties in the government, condemned the Soviet Union’s attack with equally clear words than did other newspapers. The Finnish Communist Party was forbidden in Finland in that time.

When we examine the content of the party’s newspaper dealing with the enemy, the parties worldview is brought up as well as the practical need of the time to encourage the labour class to defend the country because during the war national unity was essential to the military success of the Finns.[32] Due to these motives, the Soviet Union was examined from a somewhat different point of view than that of the bourgeois newspapers.

It was of course impossible to appeal to the working class with the memories of their defeat in the Civil War in 1918. It was central for them to condemn the imperialism of the Soviet Union and Stalin and separate it from the world of ideals of the labour movement, which were assumed to be shared by readers of newspapers. For this reason it was emphasised in the labour newspapers that the Soviet Union had violated the most central principles of the labour movement by attacking its small neighbour. Therefore, the ideals of socialism and working class ideology that emerged during the revolution were no longer honoured in the Soviet Union.[33] This revealed that motives behind writings were clearly different than among the non-socialists. Later the labour newspapers also attempted to affect their readers’ opinion by emphasising the social development that had taken place in Finland during independence. [34] At the background, a need to emphasise that Finland was worth defending also from the point of view of the labour class apparently had also influence. The bases for the success of this line of propaganda were created by development [35] that took place in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and that this development was relatively well known in all groups in Finland.[36] Therefore, it was possible to remind of what also the labour class was going to lose if Finland was going to be defeated.

There was no need for the bourgeois newspapers to emphasise the more democratic and humane nature of the Finnish society in comparison to that of the Soviet Union. It was clear without saying to these papers and their readers. Therefore, it was typical only for the labour newspapers to demonstrate the issue by presenting proof and different statistics and numbers.

The words and deeds of the Soviet Union as bases of the image

From the beginning of the war, news and comments became twined together in newspapers, and newspaper reporters expressed their views of the enemy’s actions and character already in the news pages and headlines. Thus, one may say that the unifying effect of the war was so strong in the Winter War that newspapers spontaneously fired, as Ahto claims, the enemy also with words.[37]

All newspapers received material for the enemy image also from the Soviet Union’s own propaganda and actions. When the war began, Radio Moscow proclaimed on December 1, that the people of Finland had raised a rebellion against the white government. It was said that a new government for Finland had been established at Terijoki[38]. This government, for its part, proclaimed that it would request help from the Red Army to suppress Finland’s white guard government and made a mutual aid-giving agreement with the Soviet Union on December 2.[39] With the help of that puppet government every Finn now knew that the whole national independence was at stake, not only some strategic territories in the eastern border.

Some degree of worry about the influence of the Terijoki government on opinions were apparently felt in the Finnish government at the beginning of the war because it was quite ferociously condemned in many editorials and commentaries, primarily by the labour newspapers.[40] At the background, this may have been influenced by a fear that the Soviet Union’s propaganda manoeuvres would appeal at least to a part of the extreme left. The Terijoki government was judged to be a sub-standard propaganda trick also by the non-socialist press, of course, although it did not need to feel similar worry about its readers’ views.

Entire press considered the Terijoki government as an example of ‘typical’ Soviet crookedness. When it promised to the Finns, for example, an eight-hour workday, which Finland had already had for more than two decades, this poor knowledge of conditions in Finland was utilised in the enemy image of the Finnish press.[41] Also smaller goofs of the Soviet Union were exploited in this image. Descriptive examples of these are provided by radio programs directed by the Soviet Union to Finland in which it was reported that Finns ran toward the Red Army soldiers at the borders to even hug and kiss them. When the Soviet Union’s Finnish-language programs commonly told soldiers of the Red Army had received a “hot” reception at the borders,[42] apparently meaning friendly and warm, causeries of especially non-socialist papers took everything possible out of the double meaning of this Finnish word. For once “ryssä”[43] speaks true: they had received a hot reception – that is, they had came under fire – and they would receive “hot reception” in the future also, they wrote amused.[44]

The air bombing done by the Soviet Union had a stronger effect on the enemy image than even the Terijoki government. There had been attacks against civilians, for example, in the Spanish Civil War, but in the Second World War, which started in September 1939, Germany, England and France had not made bombing attacks against each other’s civilians. For this reason, it was easy for the Finns with the help of these bombings to wake up the old enemy image in which it was proven that the killing of civilians in war was characteristically Russian.

The foreign minister Molotov said at the beginning of the war and still repeated during January that the Soviet Union did not bomb civilian targets in Finland. The Finnish newspapers reported that with anger and told Molotov also said the Russian planes dropped bread instead of bombs to starving Finnish workers. When the bombers circled in the sky they were, especially in causeries, after that referred to as “Molotov’s breadbaskets”and it was told to astonished readers that entire buildings had collapsed due to the weight of bread. Similarly, howling of alarm sirens came to be called “the voice of Molotoff”.[45] It was in this way possible to utilise a person, Molotov, in the image into which it may have been safer to direct people’s feelings of hatred than to Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union.

Whether or not claims presented in the public by the Soviet propaganda were created for their own domestic propaganda was naturally not deliberated during the war. On the other hand, when they were presented in radio broadcasting directed to Finland there might have been desire also to appeal to the Finnish workers in some way. Alternatively, we may be dealing with a Soviet tactic in which a friendly government was utilised as an aid to legalise an offensive war.[46]

An extreme enemy image, in which an enemy’s evil deeds are seen as being due to the national character, first appeared in newspapers of the right wing and the agrarian union. In these parties, the negative image of the Soviet Union had strong roots in the independence and Civil War period atmosphere, coloured by the hatred of Russians and the fear of communism.[47] At Christmas time, when the air bombings recurred, the non-socialistic papers further developed the Great Wrath theme in the emotional atmosphere of the war Christmas. They started to write about ”holy wrath,” in which Finland defended all western and Christian values against the Asian communist barbarians for the sake of all Europe. In case of the extreme right, the image received shades in which the enemy of Finland was also perceived as God’s enemy that should be destroyed so that the Christian values would survive in the world.[48] This tendency was to be found in the right wing’s image of Russia and the Soviet Union already before the war, but also commonly in enemy images.

It was especially starting in January when air bombings most often occurred that this characteristic of the enemy image became common and the enemy’s inhuman cruelty was constantly emphasised also in the news headlines.[49] Editorials emphasised an image which drew a parallel between the new attack to similar experiences of previous generations from the same archenemy.[50]

The labour newspapers’ condemnation of bombings was also ferocious already during the first days of war. The spiritual and ideological borderline with the conservative factions of Finland was, however, manifested in that the Russian national character, neither the Great Wrath nor the archenemy issue were brought up when deliberating the guilt. The influence of one’s own world of ideals, emphasised by the image research, manifested itself in a practice to emphasise the target areas of bombing and Stalinist imperialism. It was reported in labour newspapers that the Soviet Union for some reason bombed especially intensively areas where workers lived. The non-socialistic newspapers wrote about this also, but this view was clearly emphasised in the labour newspapers.[51] From the background, one can look for a desire to influence workers’ feelings at the moment of distress with concrete facts. There apparently couldn’t be an absolutely definite certainty right at the beginning of the war that also the entire working class would defend the country against the Soviet Union, the labour state.[52] Based on this, the needs of the period also influenced the image. A comparison with non-socialistic papers, which did not need to have a similar concern, also emphasises the difference. They were able to concentrate, for example, to prove through history the cowardly nature of the enemy, which may not have appealed to the extreme leftist readers of labour newspapers.

When the concern of maintaining national unity turned out to be groundless as the war went on, also the image of the Soviet Union’s war against civilians became more uniform. Most closely, this change affected the labour newspapers, which also occasionally wrote about the Russians’ being Asians and barbarians as well as Russia being Finland’s archenemy.[53] These characteristics did not, however, rise to an equally dominant position during the war than they did in the non-socialistic newspapers. The condemnation of the system created by Stalin and its differentiation from the real labour ideology survived in the core of the image created by labour newspapers.[54]

As was stated at the beginning, appropriate slogans and terms that summarise an enemy’s bad sides to a concept that is easy to adopt are commonly part of the enemy image everywhere. In Finland, the enemy who bombed settlement areas became “ryssä” in the right wing and agrarian union newspapers, even in their editorials right at the beginning of the war. The spirit of defence was intensified by stating that “one Finn equals ten ‘ryssä’”.[55] The opinion-uniting influence of the war was especially manifested starting in January when there were writings about “ryssä” in all newspapers. At that time, the front lines were quiet and a separate part informing about bombings was attached into the war situation reports of the headquarters. At that time, even Pohjolan Työ, a labour newspaper representing the extreme leftist newspapers, headlined its news of bombings emotionally: “Nearly 7000 kg of bread dropped last week by “ryssä’s” flying devils on top of civilians.”[56] At the same time, descriptions according to which the Soviet Union often bombed hospitals, churches and transportations of wounded became more common. The slogan ”A red cross equals a bombing target in the enemy’s mind”[57] was written in all newspapers. In a parallel way, the enemy was made to appear extremely cruel on both sides of the front even during World War I.[58]

“The Land of kolkhoz slaves and forced labourers”[59]

After December, newspapers often analysed communism, the Russian people, leaders of the Soviet Union and the Soviet society. In non-socialistic newspapers, in which forbidding private property, kolkhozes, forbidding religion and the communistic doctrine had already been represented before the war as the greatest potential evil, it was possible to do this in an I-told-you-so-tone. The Soviet system was exactly as rotten and violent as had always been said, although a lot was told about new specific details of oppression, dictatorship and misery. One may have imagined that a discussion of these things in newspapers intensified the already strong will of defence. In principle, one can summarise the image of the Soviet society in non-socialistic newspapers with a statement that, for these newspapers, the Soviet Union was the land of kolkhoz slaves and forced labourers led by Stalin, a bloody dictator.[60]

There were some differences in the image. For example, newspapers of the Agrarian Union wrote of the needs of their readers about the misery in kolkhozes and shortage of food more than other newspapers. Religious persecution was also naturally part of the Agrarian Union and right-wing newspapers’ enemy image, or that of the entire non-socialistic press.[61] The negative characteristics of the Russian commoners were written mostly in the right wing’s and the Agrarian Union’s newspapers, where the Russians were described to be, for example, “an uneducated horde”, “a horde of slaves without their own will”, and “eastern barbarians”.[62] Differences of emphasis were found mainly when thinking about reasons for the people’s badness. For the extreme right, they were Russian people’s inherent characteristics. When we move toward the centre, they resulted more from the lack of education and due to centuries of oppression.[63] At first, the descriptions of liberal newspapers also included pity for the oppressed people of Russia. This pity disappeared as the war continued. For example, newspapers of the Agrarian Union begun to write that the Russian people were themselves responsible for their own misery because they were unable to establish a better system.[64] In this view, one can also see the effect of the nationalistic Finnish ideology common in the Agrarian Union. On the other hand, it is typical of the enemy images to see the enemy miserable in all possible ways and, thus, easy to hate.

An extravagant and defamatory image was presented also especially in causeries of the leaders of the Soviet Union, so strongly that in February censorship forbid the making of defamatory comments about Stalin as a person. At the background of this prohibition were causeries where it was said that Molotov commonly “molottaa” (says stupid things). Stalin was described, for example, as “a despot and tyrant”, “a bloody dictator”, “Josef the Terrible”, “Russians’ new God” or “old bank robber”, who in his lust for power had his people killed in abundance.[65]

Writing of labour newspapers about the Soviet Union was in principle more analytical than that of the non-socialistic papers. The Russian people were also described clearly less frequently than in the non-socialistic newspapers.[66] This may have been because of the situation of Finland’s leftists after the Russian Revolution and the Civil War fought in Finland in 1918. Still in the early 1930s, extreme leftist workers had idealised views of the Soviet Union. Although this image started to crumble as a result of events occurring in the Soviet Union, images are generally long lived and one may assume that it had not entirely disappeared in the late 1930s.

As the war went on, it became clear that workers defended their country on the front, and that the Soviet propaganda did not appear to have effect on them. Regardless of this, or partly due to this, there was desire in the labour newspapers to criticise conditions in the Soviet Union. It was easier to influence those who possessed a right-wing way of thinking and shared an enemy image of the Soviet Union even during peacetime by appealing directly to their emotions as to characteristics of the enemy images. Workers, for their part, were not generally receptive to evidence of archenemy, or to historical viewpoints. Therefore, a latent enemy image was not distributed before the war at least with the same intensity as among the right wing. As a result, facts were emphasised in the created enemy image.

In January, February and March 1940, labour newspapers’ often long editorials presented information of the enemy country’s condition based on accurate numbers. The labour newspapers told about the Soviet Union’s shortage of housing, food and consumer goods, how much a Soviet worker was able to buy with his salary and how much he paid in taxes. And, above all, it was reminded that citizenship rights – such as the right to go on strike – were missing, conditions were generally miserable, and there was a lack of personal freedom in factories and kolkhozes.[67]

These newspapers were also constantly during the war seeking reasons why the revolution had developed in entirely the wrong direction. Stalin was most commonly presented as guilty for this. He was said to have developed the system created by Lenin into a violent dictatorship, which subsequently destroyed among others also Lenin’s co-workers.[68] This viewpoint was understandable because it left in honour the Finnish labour movement’s roots dating to the period of the Russian Revolution and, thus, it did not include elements that violated traditions. As the war continued, criticism was also focussed on Lenin, who was now thought of as a founder of an extremist Soviet Union.[69] Apparently the Workers were no longer offended by this and it was possible for the ideologies between the socialists and non-socialists to get closer.

”David and Goliath: the Image of the Red Army”

The enemy’s military skill in the front was commonly described in a similar tone in newspapers except during the war’s first days. When thinking of it afterwards, the Finns were guilty of self-deception. The emphasising of one’s own victories and through that the underestimation of the enemy’s military skill in the front appeared in newspapers of especially the Agrarian Union and the right wing, already after the first week of war, when the Soviet offensive was stopped by the Finnish army.[70] Already before mid-December after a defensive victory at Tolvajärvi and especially after the battles of Suomussalmi and Raate in early January, the image of the enemy’s military skill was commonly considered to be sub-standard. At the same time, the war came to be compared in Finland and abroad to the fight between David and Goliath.[71]

Although there were attempts to prevent newspapers from underestimating the enemy and overestimating one’s own victories,[72] at first particularly the right wing and the Agrarian Union’s newspapers and somewhat later all non-socialistic newspapers were guilty of both. Many newspapers started to write that as a result of the war, the Soviet Union was more likely to collapse than Finland.[73]

When the situation of the time is taken into account, the description of the enemy’s poor military skill should be discussed to some extent as something other than an attempt to maintain the people’s will to fight, which may have been the real reason. After all, Finland could not have been certain in the beginning of the war that she was able to defend herself against a great power. The Soviet Union itself was prepared at most for a two-week war, which was a realistic assumption because nations such as Czechoslovakia, Austria and Poland had either surrendered without a fight to Germany or they had collapsed instantly.

Furthermore, there was no certainty in Finland when the war started whether Finland’s own ranks would remain intact. In January, the situation was already different when Finland had not just stopped a great power, but also given it severe casualties the entire world admired and wondered at. Instead of becoming divided, the cohesiveness of the Finns became stronger.

Some kind of overreaction was the result of the above at the same time when defensive war propaganda of early war received more offensive tones.[74] Newspapers, including major newspapers, finally presented claims of the enemy’s military skill according to which the Soviet military leaders left the troops without supplies, did not take care of the wounded, had men killed left and right and, ultimately, sent them to attack at gun point. Therefore, it was possible to present at least covertly that ranks of the Red Army were collapsing instead of those of Finland.[75]

In principle, it was stated particularly in non-socialistic newspapers that the enemy that went to war literally playing music was going to lose the war and face societal collapse. This image was apparently created not only to match one’s own wishes, but also from the same common ingredients of the enemy image which were already used in World War I.[76]

Newspapers of the Agrarian Union and the right wing were the guiltiest of underestimating the Soviet Union. Newspapers of the labour class, in which the Red Army’s good equipment and training were occasionally described, were the least guilty of this underestimation.[77]

There was occasionally worry about underestimation in Social Democratic newspapers, which feared that the underestimation would eventually prove costly by making foreign countries believe that Finland did not need any help. Therefore, it was reminded now and then that it did not matter how wretched a Russian soldier may be and how badly he was led. Finland was dealing with a great power that had at its use, as opposed to Finland, unlimited reserves. The motive of writing was, however, to justify the need of help, not to describe the Soviet Union’s military strength.[78]

The creation of the enemy image succeeded even too well

As a whole, influencing the opinion and maintaining the nation’s will to fight succeeded well during the war because everybody felt that there was no alternative to fighting. Therefore, the readiness to adopt all claims and lines of thought in all object groups of newspapers already existed.

When we examine the image created of the Soviet Union, the nucleus of both non-socialistic and labour newspapers’ image of the Soviet Union was that Finland was dealing with a barbaric enemy. If won, the enemy would not only conquer the country militarily, but would also destroy the entire Finnish society, culture, religion and eventually the nation.

Each group of newspapers emphasised issues central to its own worldview. Therefore, details of the enemy image varied according to which issues were considered the most important in its own ideology. In principle, however, the image became more uniform as a result of the war. Those features that originally belonged to the right wing image were adopted also in other newspapers toward the end of the war.

The image of military skill clearly shows how difficult it was to erase the self-admiration and, in reversal, the underestimation of the enemy that emerged in January 1940. It was perceived, as typical to enemy images, that the nation’s will to fight needed an image of an inferior enemy soldier. Therefore, this image was created also in newspapers without caution. When the war ended Finland had kind of succeeded too well in her enemy image. Newspapers, and through them, their readers were themselves prisoners of an image of a weak enemy created for domestic use. Therefore, the terms for peace became upsetting news for the whole nation.

When we return to common content of the enemy image as described at the beginning, in which the enemy is not only dangerous, bad and easy to hate, but also morally so inferior that it must be and can be beaten, we see that the enemy image of the Finnish newspapers followed these common formulae. Because this was done too successfully, in principle, we must assume that the latent enemy image revived at once when the Soviet Union had behaved in a way warned about in conservative Finland during the entire independence period. By attacking Finland in the Winter War, the Soviet Union confirmed this enemy image at least temporarily also among the Finnish labour class.

For three months the Finnish newspapers described the enemy as militaristically extremely incompetent, its leaders as tormentors of their own people, its society to be at the brink of collapse, and its people as a mere mob afraid of the dictator. So the Finns were not psychologically prepared for a defeat and severe peace terms.

Later, during the so called Interim Peace, many newspapers criticised censorship and information given especially at the end of the war. Because the severity of the situation in the Karelian Isthmus was kept secret at the end of the war, the censorship was in these papers’ opinion partly to blame for the Moscow peace treaty becoming the shocking surprise that it became.[79]

At first the image of the Soviet Union, as an enemy, seemed uniform. However due to the nature of research methodology, (“image research” emphasises both the importance of ideological thinking and the understanding and explanations of word opinions) it became apparent that there were significant differences in the way in which the news was reported. The differences were specially noticed according to the political allegiances or social ideologies held by a given paper. Although the image became more uniform as the war went on, its roots were visible during the war. The common battle and struggle did not erase ideological differences, it only postponed them to a more peaceful time.

In principle, while describing the enemy, newspapers also created an image of themselves and their own ideology and also an image of their own readers, while selecting material which was believed to affect them. This is the means through which the differences in the enemy image emerged. In my opinion, the manifestation of these differences even in exceptional situations such as the Winter War demonstrates how well image research works in bringing up tensions and differences in opinion within a nation.

Translated by Markku Niskanen and Karen Niskanen