It’s not massively unreasonable on the surface of it. A main defence line is easier to move than a whole city. The argument is there. But also not giving up land is also not unreasonable when you consider the examples of what happened when you gave in with Czechoslovakia and Baltics, especially when that land includes parts of that main defence line, making the whole line kinda worthless. Czech Sudetenland also included their defence line, so it’s understandable that that example would be fresh in people’s minds.

So really there were no guarantees that after agreeing to it, giving up the main line, the USSR wouldn’t just take the rest of it. It clearly had ambitions in Eastern Europe, in the former Russian Empire’s lands and had just divided Poland with Nazi Germany. So if you gain anything depends on whether you believe USSR had further ambitions in Finland or not.

Comparing this to Czechoslovakia, USSR still took exactly what it initially demanded

That’s just a result of USSR wanting a quick conclusion to the embarrassment that was Winter War. Had Finland folded in the war like they had hoped, I doubt they would’ve settled for just those areas. They had puppet government ready, were planning that they’d do this and that once they win and so on. See the Baltics, it started out smaller then they were absorbed.

asked USSR for protection (because Nazis were scarier), Soviet troops entered those countries and suddenly there were Soviet state institutions in place and plebiscites.

No. USSR compelled them to take in troops with ultimatums, same ultimatum Finland got. Baltics and Finland just chose differently, Finns to fight and Baltics to give in. But once the USSR’s troops were in, it was basically over for the Baltics and those troops were used then to conquer and absorb them.

The area USSR wanted to take had parts of Finnish main defensive line at the very important Karelian Isthmus and areas they wanted to give were total wilderness. So it’s not that surprising it wasn’t agreed to, even if the total area was larger.

It did feel like the sort of deal Czechoslovakians were forced into. And we know what happened there. Same for Baltics.

But that’s an openly recognized thing here in Finland. It’s more of a surprise to foreigners

You assume incorrectly, again

You think this is the first time I’m hearing about Nazi atrocities??

Again, nobody is doubting that there was a reason for doing it.

A non-aggression pact can be just that. This one also included additional provisions, such as dividing Poland between them. When you’re carving up Poland together and shaking hands at the pre-set dividing line, it’s not really reaching very far to say the two countries in question are aligned. They were certainly aligned when it came to dividing Poland.

(imagine a pyramid)

Oh no it’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s a reverse funnel

Reminds me of people purposefully paying too high income taxt. “It’s a nice bonus when I get it back”. I guess some sort of reasoning is that you’re then forced to put some money away and can’t spend it, but those same people will also take high-interest loans that’ll cost them dearly because now they don’t have that money at hand. And this is an actual person I know who has done this.

Crazy logic.

Friend, the “independent Polish state” isn’t a serious suggestion of it being independent… It’s discussing something akin to “Independent State of Croatia”, as in a puppet state.

sounds a lot less bad

I guess that’s progress from “didn’t happen”. In any case, I just mentioned that the pact happened. If you want my opinion on other deals made with Nazis, they’re also morally very dubious.

And imagine blaming the Soviets for going in to countries aligned with nazis.

Like Finland, where you’re probably are from and explains your bias.

That’s quite the ex post facto justification. Before and during Winter War it wasn’t Finland but the USSR that was aligned with Nazi Germany (see the pact we discussed). Nazi Germany sold Finland to USSR, after all. Finland was aligned towards UK and France. It was as a result of the war that Finland turned to Nazi Germany (the secret protocols weren’t known at the time) and that Nazi Germany got interested in Finland.

But in any case, I just wanted to point out that the pact between USSR and Nazi-Germany did happen. How bad it is comparatively, I’m sure there’s a fruitful conversation to be had about that, but it’s sorta out of scope on what I was hoping to discuss tbh.

You get that Russia flight with Germany until they got betrayed right? Right?

never happened.

That was the preceding discussion. Someone seemed to be denying it happening at all. Someone came in with a justification for the action, I was just saying that it doesn’t change the fact of it happening, just the justification over it. For further clarification, I’m against the denialism. I’m not saying it wasn’t a pragmatic decision, even if morally dubious.

I mean they are literally drawing spheres of interest (even using the word) in there on how they’ll divide those countries. And then after the deal, they conquered and subjugated their subjective areas (or tried to, in case of Finland). Your objection to that not being them dividing Europe between them is, not to be insulting, kinda silly.

I mean if anything at least you’re not trying to deny such an agreement, you’re just reading it in a very interesting way. That’s something.

I think you misunderstood. It doesn’t change the fact that such a pact happened and that they did divide Europe between them in it. It’s opinion on how justified such a thing where those arguments matter.

Wikipedia just has approachable articles, so I linked to that since you seemingly hadn’t heard of the pact. It cites sources like so [1] for further reading. And the existence of such pact has been admitted to in Germany, Soviet Union and later in Russia. Its existence isn’t exactly controversial. It’s rather how justified it was that’s argued about.

You claim it’s in that pact, then go to the absolute source and show me where it is.

Here’s the original texts [1], [2]. If you want an English translation, plenty of them online. Heres’ one (pdf). The secret protocols are at the end.

It was just funny the way you dismissed the claim without testing it yourself. But it’s almost too silly to be true

You know, you could’ve just tested it yourself lol

Ye unlike American

Who saw this coming lmao

You might want to read the whole first sentence of the article lol

was a non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, with a secret protocol establishing Soviet and German spheres of influence across Eastern Europe.

Not sure if you’re joking but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov–Ribbentrop_Pact