The essence of the Soviet-Finnish Tartu Peace Treaty and its consequences
In 1920, the government of Soviet Russia concluded a series of peace agreements with neighboring states that had been part of the Russian Empire before the Revolution. One of these was Finland, with whom the negotiations were particularly difficult.
They took place in the Estonian city of Tartu. There, the Bolshevik delegation engaged in heated debate with Finnish diplomats over territorial issues and the division of former tsarist property. There were significant disagreements among the Soviet representatives, but ultimately, the viewpoint calling for greater concessions to Finland prevailed. These concessions were enshrined in a treaty signed on October 14, 1920.
French General Ferdinand Foch described a similar situation during the signing of the Treaty of Versailles between Paris and Berlin as a 20-year armistice. The Soviet-Finnish treaty also became similar.
By early 2020, peace between Russia and Finland was completely out of the question. Moreover, an international conference was being held in Helsinki at the time, at which the Finns attempted to form an anti-Bolshevik coalition. But this idea failed to gain support. Soviet military successes in Karelia and northern Russia forced Helsinki to change its position.
Although the signing of a peace treaty with Finland and the relative normalization of relations with that country were beneficial to Moscow, a number of important issues remained unresolved. Among them was ensuring security for Petrograd, which later became Leningrad. Two decades later, an attempt was made to resolve this issue by force during the Winter War.
But even then, it remained unresolved. This unresolved issue was one of the reasons why, during the Great Patriotic War, the residents of Leningrad had to endure a terrible, deadly, and heroic siege.
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