Editing Winter War (section)

===Soviet military plan===
Before the war, Soviet leadership had expected total victory within a few weeks. The Red Army had just completed the invasion of eastern Poland at a cost of fewer than 4,000 casualties after Germany attacked Poland from the west. Stalin's expectations of a quick Soviet triumph were backed up by politician [[Andrei Zhdanov]] and military strategist [[Kliment Voroshilov]], but other generals were more reserved. Red Army Chief of Staff [[Boris Shaposhnikov]] advocated a narrow-front assault right on the Karelian isthmus.<ref name ="Kotkin_981_994">[[#Kotkin2017|Kotkin (2017)]], pp. 981, 994</ref> Additionally, Shaposhnikov argued for a fuller build-up, extensive [[fire support]] and logistical preparations, a rational [[order of battle]] and the deployment of the army's best units. Zhdanov's military commander, [[Kirill Meretskov]], reported, "The terrain of coming operations is split by lakes, rivers, swamps, and is almost entirely covered by forests.... The proper use of our forces will be difficult". These doubts were not reflected in Meretskov's troop deployments, and he publicly announced that the Finnish campaign would take two weeks at most. Soviet soldiers had even been warned not to cross the border mistakenly into Sweden.<ref name="Trotter_34">[[#Trotter2002|Trotter (2002)]], p. 34</ref>

Stalin's purges in the 1930s had devastated the officer corps of the Red Army; those purged included three of its five marshals, 220 of its 264 division or higher-level commanders and 36,761 officers of all ranks. Fewer than half of all the officers remained.<ref name="RConquest">[[#Conquest2007|Conquest (2007)]], p. 450</ref><ref>[[#Bullock1993|Bullock (1993)]], p. 489</ref> They were commonly replaced by soldiers who were less competent but more loyal to their superiors. Unit commanders were overseen by [[political commissars]], whose approval was needed to approve and ratify military decisions, which they evaluated based on their political merits. The dual system further complicated the Soviet chain of command<ref>[[#Glanz1998|Glanz (1998)]], p. 58</ref><ref name="Ries1988_56">[[#Ries1988|Ries (1988)]], p. 56</ref> and annulled the independence of commanding officers.<ref name="Edwards_189">[[#Edwards2006|Edwards (2006)]], p. 189</ref>

After the Soviet success at the [[Battles of Khalkhin Gol]] against Japan, on the USSR's eastern border, Soviet High Command had divided into two factions. One side was represented by the [[Spanish Civil War]] veterans General [[Pavel Rychagov]] from the [[Soviet Air Forces]]; the tank expert General [[Dmitry Pavlov (general)|Dmitry Pavlov]] and Stalin's favourite general, Marshal [[Grigory Kulik]], the chief of artillery.<ref>[[#Coox1985|Coox (1985)]], p. 996</ref> The other faction was led by Khalkhin Gol veterans General [[Georgy Zhukov]] of the Red Army and General [[Grigory Kravchenko]] of the Soviet Air Forces.<ref>[[#Coox1985|Coox (1985)]], pp. 994–995</ref> Under this divided command structure, the lessons of the Soviet Union's "first real war on a massive scale using tanks, artillery, and aircraft" at Khalkin Gol went unheeded.<ref name=autogenerated1>[[#Coox1985|Coox (1985)]], p. 997</ref> As a result, Russian [[BT tank]]s were less successful during the Winter War, and it took the Soviet Union three months and over a million men to accomplish what Zhukov had managed at Khalkhin Gol in ten days (albeit in completely different circumstances).<ref name=autogenerated1 /><ref>[[#Goldman2012|Goldman (2012)]], p. 167</ref>