Editing Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact (section)

===Soviet war with Finland and Katyn massacre===
{{Main|Winter War|Katyn massacre}}
[[File:Lithuania territory 1939-1940.svg|thumb|Lithuania between 1939 and 1941. Germany had requested the territory west of the River Šešupė, the area in pink, in the German-Soviet Boundary and Friendship Treaty but relinquished its claims for a compensation of $7.5 million.]]

After the [[Baltic states]] had been forced to accept treaties,{{Sfn|Engle|Paananen|1985|p=6}} Stalin turned his sights on Finland and was confident that its capitulation could be attained without great effort.{{Sfn|Turtola|1999|pp =35–37}} The Soviets demanded territories on the [[Karelian Isthmus]], the islands of the [[Gulf of Finland]] and a military base near the Finnish capital, [[Helsinki]],{{Sfn|Turtola|1999|pp=32–33}}{{Sfn|Trotter|2002|pp=12–13}} which Finland rejected.{{Sfn|Edwards|2006|p=55}} The Soviets staged the [[shelling of Mainila]] on 26 November and used it as a pretext to withdraw from the [[Soviet–Finnish Non-Aggression Pact]].{{Sfn|Turtola|1999|pp=44–45}} On 30 November, the [[Red Army]] invaded Finland, launching the [[Winter War]] with the aim of annexing Finland into the Soviet Union.<ref>[[#Manninen2008|Manninen (2008)]], pp. 37, 42, 43, 46, 49</ref><ref>[[#Rentola|Rentola (2003)]] pp. 188–217</ref><ref>[[#Ravasz|Ravasz (2003)]] p. 3</ref> The Soviets formed the [[Finnish Democratic Republic]] to govern Finland after Soviet conquest.<ref name=Tannerv>{{cite book |last=Tanner|first=Väinö |title=The Winter War: Finland Against Russia, 1939-1940, Volume 312 |location=Palo Alto |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1956| page= 114 }}</ref><ref name=Trotter>{{cite book |last=Trotter|first=William|title=A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940  |publisher=Algonquin Books |year=2013| page=58,61 }}</ref><ref name=Kokoshin>{{cite book |last=Kokoshin|first=Andrei|title=Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917-91  |publisher=MIT Press |year=1998| page=93 }}</ref><ref name=Killham>{{cite book |last=Killham|first=EdwardL|title=The Nordic Way: A Path to Baltic Equilibrium  |publisher=Howells House |year=1993| page=78 }}</ref> The leader of the Leningrad Military District, [[Andrei Zhdanov]], commissioned a celebratory piece from [[Dmitri Shostakovich]], ''[[Suite on Finnish Themes]]'', to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army would be parading through Helsinki.{{Sfn|Edwards|2006|p=98}} After Finnish defenses surprisingly held out for over three months and inflicted stiff losses on Soviet forces, under the command of [[Semyon Timoshenko]], the Soviets settled for an [[Moscow Peace Treaty|interim peace]]. Finland ceded parts of [[Karelia]], [[Kuusamo]], and [[Salla]] together with [[Hanko, Finland|Hanko]] leased as a [[Hanko Naval Base|naval base]] (9% of Finnish territory),<ref name="ckpipe">{{cite book|last=Kennedy-Pipe|first=Caroline|title=Stalin's Cold War|place=New York|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=1995|isbn=0-7190-4201-1}}.</ref>{{page needed|date=August 2020}} which resulted in approximately 422,000 Finns (12% of Finland's population) losing their homes.{{Sfn|Engle|Paananen|1985|pp=142–3}} Soviet official casualty counts in the war exceeded 200,000{{Sfn|Roberts|2006|p=52}} although Soviet Premier [[Nikita Khrushchev]] later claimed that the casualties may have been one million.<ref>{{cite book|last=Mosier|first=John|title=The Blitzkrieg Myth: How Hitler and the Allies Misread the Strategic Realities of World War II|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2004|isbn=0-06-000977-2|page=88}}.</ref>

Around that time, after several [[Gestapo–NKVD conferences]], Soviet [[NKVD]] officers also conducted lengthy interrogations of 300,000 Polish [[POWs]] in camps<ref name="PWN">{{cite web|url=http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3949396|language=pl|title=Obozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich|trans-title=Prison camps for Polish soldiers|place=[[Poland|PL]]|publisher=[[Internetowa encyklopedia PWN]]|access-date=28 November 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131104032626/http://encyklopedia.pwn.pl/haslo.php?id=3949396|archive-date=4 November 2013|url-status=dead}}.</ref><ref name="Wojsko">{{Cite book|url=http://www.dzp.wojsko.pl/dzial/wydawnictwa/zwarte/pdf/EHW_1_2005.pdf|contribution=Edukacja Humanistyczna w wojsku|year=2005|title=Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego|issn=1734-6584|language=pl|trans-title=Official publication of the Polish Army|place=PL|issue=1|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307151053/http://www.dzp.wojsko.pl/dzial/wydawnictwa/zwarte/pdf/EHW_1_2005.pdf|archive-date=7 March 2008|accessdate=23 January 2009}}.</ref><ref name="Молотов">{{Cite book|title=Молотов на V сессии Верховного Совета 31 октября цифра "примерно 250 тыс."|language=ru}}</ref><ref name="Отчёт">{{Cite book|place=[[Russia|RU]]|title=USA truth|publisher=By|contribution=Отчёт Украинского и Белорусского фронтов Красной Армии Мельтюхов, с. 367.|url=http://www.usatruth.by.ru/c2.files/t05.html|language=ru}}{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> that were a selection process to determine who would be killed.<ref name="Fischer">{{cite journal |publisher=CIA |author-link=Benjamin Fischer (historian) |last=Fischer |first=Benjamin B |url=https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art6.html |title=The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field |place=US |journal=[[Studies in Intelligence]] |date=Winter 1999–2000 |access-date=23 January 2009 |archive-date=9 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070509174522/https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art6.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> On 5 March 1940, in what would later be known as the [[Katyn massacre]],<ref name="Fischer" /><ref name="Sanford">{{cite book|author-link=George Sanford (scholar)|last=Sanford|first=George|title=Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory|isbn=978-0-415-33873-8|volume=20|series=BASEES – Russian and East European studies: British Association for Soviet, Slavonic and East European Studies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PZXvUuvfv-oC&q=Soviet+invasion+of+Poland+1939&pg=PA20|publisher=Routledge|year=2005|format=Google Books|pages=20–24}}.</ref><ref>{{cite web|publisher=CIA|url=https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/pdf/v43i3a06p.pdf|title=Stalin's Killing Field|access-date=19 July 2008|archive-date=9 July 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080709144143/https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/pdf/v43i3a06p.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> 22,000 members of the military as well as intellectuals were executed, labelled "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" or kept at camps and prisons in western Ukraine and [[Belarus]].{{citation needed|date=May 2019}}