A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940

I have read both William R. Trotter's "A Frozen Hell" and Engle & Paananen's "The Winter War: The Soviet Attack on Finland 1939-1940". In addition to these books I am in the process of reading 2 books by Max Jakobson, one of which is specifically on the Winter War, as well as a number of academic journal articles on Finland between 1937-1945.

Trotter has done a great job of recounting the Winter War from both the Finnish and Russian political and military perspecives, using available documents. I am an American-Finn who is very proud of my Finnish heritage, yet I was not insulted by Trotter's treatment of the Russian perspective at all - it was very enlightning. I prefer to understand ALL the "why?"s surrounding an event as momentous as the Winter War. It is nice to have some idea what the Russian reasoning and motives were, even if I don't agree with them. Life is rarely black and white as we would like it to be.

The short biography of Marshall Mannerheim in the beginning was especially useful. Understanding the man sheds light on his actions and opinions. It also explains a bit of the history of Russian-Finnish relations as well.

Improvements: More maps would be very helpful. Also, as a Finnish speaking American I can appreciate Trotter's attempt to make understanding easier for non-finnish speakers, however the occasional reference to places in Finn-glish was a slight annoyance. An example would be "... east of Lake Kuokjärvi" where the word "Lake" is redundant because the name of the place says it is a lake. This is a very picky detail and does not detract from the content.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed reading "A Frozen Hell". The more balanced and objective view taken by Trotter does not take away from the heroics and Sisu of the Finns. I also appreciated inclusion of a more detailed explanation on the surrounding political climate/situations.

I have been called many things during my 35-year writing career, but not, until now, a "Marxist". I have also learned the overall futility of taking up cudgels in a public forum with a hostile critic, but the reader from Colorado's screed is so bizarrely off the mark that I cannot refrain.

Look, pal, ALL wars have "two sides" to them. Stalin did not simply wake up one morning and announce to the Politburo: "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to invade Finland next week?" Soviet foreign policy was certainly naive, bullying, and disasterously uninformed about outside realities. But from the viewpoint of a Soviet strategist in 1939, Finland was suspect. Fact: there WAS a powerful pro-fascist clique in the country that had welcomed German aid before (in 1917) and would do so again (in 1941). Fact: The Red uprising in 1917 WAS put down with ruthless savagery. Fact: Stalin apparently really DID believe Finland would acede to his demands. For me not to have mentioned these things, would have been utterly irresponsible.

As for my comments about Finland "opting for a thoroughly bourgeoise form of government" -- the TONE here is decidedly IRONIC, not ideological. Irony, evidently, sails right past this reader's head.

Be that as it may, his whole hysterical tirade collapses in the face of what I wrote on page 17: "ultimately, of course,it came back down to an irreducible case of right versus wrong. Finland was a sovereign nation, and it had every legal and moral right to refuse any Russian demands for territory. And the Soviet Union, for its part, had no legal or moral right to pursue its policies by means of armed aggression."

I don't know how I could possibly make this point more clearly.

If this reader had bothered even to finish my book, I think he would have seen how fiercely my admiration for the Finns -- indeed, my deepy passionate love for that nation -- burns through the book. Certainly, none of the Finnish reviewers who praised the book saw anything "Marxist" about it, and several lauded its historical even-handedness.

Finally, if my book were indeed the sort of bilious "Daily Worker" tract this reader thinks it is, I hardly think it would have been awarded the Finlandia Foundation's Arts and Letters Prize.

I invite curious readers to judge the book on its own merits and on my skills as a story-teller; I did not write it with any agenda in mind other than that of accuracy, completeness, and narrative vitality. Ninety-nine percent of those who have read it seem to agree that I did at least a passable job shedding light on an otherwise obscure and almost-forgotten, but stirringly heroic, episode.

William R. Trotter

When I received this book, my excitement turned quickly to disappointment as the author explained in chapter 1 why he thought the war happened. Trotter actually paints Stalin as a victim in the situation, forced by the Finns to invade their country! He explains the conflict from a Marxist point of view and we are told that Finland "...had opted for a thoroughly bourgeois system of government, [and] had violently suppressed it's own workers...". The author continues: "Subsequent events made Stalin look so much the villain in this unfolding scenario of intimidation that it is hard to shift one's point of view to his side of the issue... [Stalin's] demands on Finland were both moderate and made in transparent good faith.... his dismay at the Finn's hardheaded rejection was probably sincere."

In essence, had the Finn's only been "reasonable", all would have been well for them! This not only disregards everything we know about Stalin, it also ignores the fact that Stalin and Hitler had between the two of them very recently made similar demands of six other states, and without exception every state that tried to be "reasonable" had immediately been liquidated. The author's assertion that the Finns, in not accepting the fate of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria were being "hardheaded" can only be explained by an astonishing ignorance of the historical situation, or by a blind ideological devotion to Stalin.

Unfortunately, the author continues in the same tone throughout the book. Items which would paint Stalin in an unfavorable light are conspicuously absent, while the Finns are at times ridiculed or portrayed as barbarians. The intense focus of ideology over actual history is probably what accounts for the book itself being such dry reading. "Political Correctness" seldom makes for compelling story telling, and this book is no exception.

Instead of this book, I would recommend the outstanding book on the same subject by Engle & Paananen titled "The Winter War". Engle & Paananen save their sympathy for the Finnish and Russian soldiers forced to bear the brutality of this horrific war, instead of for the infamous tyrant who started it.

I sent "A Frozen Hell" back for a refund. There is no more room in my library for a sympathetic account of Stalin's aggression towards Finland than there is for a Nazi version of Hitler's attack on Poland and Czechoslovakia, or of the Warsaw Uprising. Returning books is a hassle, and I have come to rely on the comments by previous readers to avoid buying books such as this one. This is the first time I have been let down!

This is one of the few books that I've read straight thru (OK, OK, at least in one day...).

As a militaria buff I found this book interesting and absorbing. The above reviews are on the money, however, in that the absence of maps and/or more detailed maps relating to the text is an aggravation as is the somewhat dry delivery. Nevertheless, I found the information contained in this book fascinating and informative. It really filled in gaps in my knowledge of military and political events prior to or immediately preceeding WWII. One interesting factoid that caught my attention: Hitler's decision to attack the USSR in '41 may have been partly predicated on his observation of the terrible performance of Soviet troops and commanders in the Russo-Finnish War.

I now have a great appreciation and admiration for the Finns thanks to this book.

This was a fun read. I didn't know much about this conflict apart from Souomussalmi, and precious little about that either. Trotter does an excellent job portraying the Finns struggle against overwhelming odds, and is careful not to over-romanticize characters such as Mannerheim.

Only a few nitpicks keep this from being a five-star recommendation. It would have been nice if there were more maps--I found myself often looking to the maps for where Trotter was talking about, only to find the places weren't on the maps at all. A map of Finland after the war (and during the Continuation War) would have also been helpful. Also, I felt the Soviet perspective often was neglected in favor of the Finnish one--more accounts of the decisions made by Red Army officers and politicians would have been helpful in understanding some of the battles better. Moreover, I felt that more first-hand accounts would also have helped.

Otherwise, however, this is a fantastic book, and I recommend it to anyone interested in one of the more fascinating campaigns of early-WW2.