Word: finnish
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...Finns were suddenly pictured as dreaming "dreams of aggression." The Finnish Government became "marionettes chained to the hounds and incendiaries of war," a "gang of hired bandits of capitalism," "bestial murderers mad with their savage dreams of a Greater Finland up to the Urals...
More specific if scarcely more credible was the Soviet radio's description of the start of hostilities. Finnish soldiers, the radio reported, "invaded" the Soviet Union three times on the night of Nov. 29-30. After the third attempt the Red Army lost its patience and at 8 a.m. the war was on (see p. 23). It was notable that the war was 16 hours old before any Soviet newspaper or radio got around to giving communiques...
First Pressure was applied on Sunday, when the Red Army reported an incident-on the border which, the Soviet Union claimed, killed or wounded 13 soldiers. Premier-Foreign Commissar Viacheslav Molotov dispatched a note to Finland immediately demanding that Finnish troops be moved from twelve to 15 miles back of the border. On Monday the Finns formally disavowed the incident, replied with a refusal to move their troops unless the Soviet Union did likewise. After that the Finnish-Soviet timetable was crowded with angry notes, inflammatory speeches, useless diplomatic parleys...
Tuesday Comrade Molotov handed to Baron Aano Yrjo-Koskinen, Finnish Minister in Moscow, an emphatic reply to Finland's reply. The Finnish note, he said, reflected the "profound hostility on the part of the Government of Finland toward the Soviet Union and carries to the extreme the crisis in relations between the two countries." The Finnish denial of the border incident, said Mr. Molotov, showed a "desire to deride the victims of the shooting" ; refusal to move troops back "betrays a hostile desire by the Government of Finland to keep Leningrad under threat...
Such hostility, the Premier continued, was "incompatible" with the Finnish-Russian non-aggression pact. Therefore: "The Soviet Government deems itself compelled to state that from this date it considers itself free from the obligations undertaken under the non-aggression pact concluded between the U. S. S. R. and Finland and systematically violated by the Government of Finland. Accept, Mr. Minister, assurances of my perfect respect." Meanwhile, three new border incidents were reported exclusively by the Red Army...