Everything about The Shelling Of Mainila totally explained
The
Shelling of Mainila was a military incident on
November 26,
1939, during which the
Soviet Union's
Red Army initiated shooting at the Russian village of
Mainila (situated near
Beloostrov) declaring that the shelling originated from
Finland on the other side of the nearby border and claiming losses in personnel, thus getting a great propaganda boost and a
casus belli that launched the
Winter War four days later.
The incident
The private archives of Soviet
party leader
Andrei Zhdanov contain material, which heavily hints that the entire incident was orchestrated in order to paint Finland as an aggressor and launch an offensive. Some Russian historians express doubts in the document's authenticity. The Finnish side declined responsibility for the attacks and identified Soviet artillery as their source — indeed, the war diaries of nearby Finnish artillery batteries show that Mainila was out of range of all of them, as they'd been withdrawn previously to prevent such incidents.
However, in the days following the Shelling of Mainila, the Soviet propaganda machine generated publicity about other fictitious Finnish aggressions, renounced the non-aggression treaty with Finland, and on
November 30,
1939 launched the first offensives of the Winter War.
The Russian historian Pavel Aptekar analyzed the declassified Soviet military documentation and found out that the daily reports from troops dislocated in the area didn't report any losses in personnel during the time period in question, concluding that the shelling of Soviet troops was staged. However other Russian historians claim that it's impossible to assign responsibility for the shelling using existing data.
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