Quote:
Originally Posted by Adm.Lee
Relating to that, were the pro-Soviet Reds who created the puppet government-in-exile during the Winter War allowed into Finland after the war?
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The Terijoki Government, for those who don't know what it was, was a Soviet created puppet regime headed by Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen, formed on November 30th, 1939. Kuusinen had fled Finland himself after the defeat in Civil War, during which he had created the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic.
The whole Terijoki Government scheme was built on the hypothesis by Stalin and other Soviet leaders, the Finnish working class would welcome the Soviets as liberators from capitalist oppression, but the scheme failed as the working class Finns stood very much united behind the legal government. The name, Terijoki Government comes from the first Finnish town the Soviets captured during the war.
As to reply to the question, the men behind the Terijoki Government exiled themselves in to Soviet Union rather than returning to Finland, where they would have been put to trial on the charges of treason. While the Finnish law does not allow death penalty, it can be argued, having taken place during war time, the military law might have been used, which in turn allowed people, at the time, to be shot.
As for the Terijoki Government, it never recieved much support among even the most hardliner leftists. Soviets did create The Army of Terijoki, which was supposed to include only Finnish speaking and Finnish looking troops, but since they were in short supply and generally unwilling, the Soviets added troops from even as far as Ukraine in to the Army. The Army of Terijoki had very little success in achieving anything.