Editing Winter War (section)

=== Justification ===
[[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Soviet General Secretary]] [[Joseph Stalin]] regarded it a disappointment that the Soviet Union could not halt the Finnish Revolution.<ref>[[#Edwards2006|Edwards (2006)]], pp. 43–46</ref> He thought that the pro-Finland movement in Karelia posed a direct threat to [[Leningrad]] and that the area and defences of Finland could be used to invade the Soviet Union or restrict fleet movements.<ref>[[#VanDyke1997|Van Dyke (1997)]], p. 13</ref> Soviet propaganda then painted Finland's leadership as a "vicious and reactionary [[fascist]] clique". Field Marshal Mannerheim and [[Väinö Tanner]], the leader of the [[Finnish Social Democratic Party]], were targeted for particular scorn.<ref name="Edwards_32-33">[[#Edwards2006|Edwards (2006)]], pp. 32–33</ref> When Stalin gained absolute power through the [[Great Purge]] of 1938, the Soviets changed their foreign policy toward Finland and began to pursue the reconquest of the provinces of Tsarist Russia that had been lost during the chaos of the [[October Revolution|October Revolution of 1917]] and the Russian Civil War almost two decades earlier.<ref name="Murphy 2021 p. 7">[[#murphy2021|Murphy (2021)]], p. 7</ref> Soviet leaders believed that the old empire's extended borders provided territorial security and wanted Leningrad, only {{convert|32|km|mi|lk=off|sigfig=2|abbr=on}} from the Finnish border, to enjoy a similar level of security against the rising power of [[Nazi Germany]].<ref name="Lightbody_52">[[#Lightbody2004|Lightbody (2004)]], p. 52</ref><ref>[[#Trotter2002|Trotter (2002)]], p. 15</ref>