Word: union
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...decided: "The time has come to end the criminal game of the Finns." An interesting aberration came from the Kirov plant workers: "The ruling clique of Finland has reached the limits of madness and has, at the orders of its imperialist masters, declared war on our Soviet Union...
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...
...clear, Comrade Molotov said, where the "attitude of the present Finnish Government lies." The Government of Finland "doesn't wish to maintain normal relations with the Soviet Union. It continues in its hostile attitude. . . . From such a Government and from its thoughtless military clique we can expect only fresh insolent provocations." For this reason, the U.S.S.R. had given order to the Army "to be ready for any surprise and immediately check possible fresh sallies...