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I would be interested in what mistakes those are - I read and enjoyed "Stalin's War" but have very little outside knowledge of Finnish history.
I knew someone would ask so I just went through it to find them again. I will keep to the Winter War chapters since that's where I first spotted them.
p. 126. "The Russian Imperial Navy had once placed its headquarters in the Finnish port of Helsinki (then Helsingborg)." Helsinki was never known as Helsingborg. It's Swedish name is Helsingfors - both this and Helsinki are official names for the city. I think that McMeekin is confusing this with the fortress of Sveaborg/Viapori (now Suomenlinna) which is right next to Helsinki and did indeed serve as a Russian naval base during the Grand Duchy era, though I'm not sure if it can be described as "the headquarters".
p. 127. " Had Mannerheim’s connections with the Germans not been so strong, the British might have lent his Finnish guards more support in the critical days of fall 1919, when Petrograd nearly fell to the Whites." This makes hash of the post-Civil-War era events in the recently independent Finland. Mannerheim, who had been a general in the Czar's army, was actually one of the less pro-German White Finnish figures of the era. Though the English had doubts about the general pro-German tendencies of Finns in general, what really happened was that Mannerheim tried to convince the Finnish establishment to attack Petrograd in aid of the Whites, but the Finnish government (probably wisely) refused, believing that the Russian Whites might very well not recognize Finnish independence and considering that Soviets, if victorious, would never forgive Finns for getting Petrograd ransacked.
p. 130 "The Finnish Army had a few 1914-era water-cooled heavy machine guns, a few light machine guns (the twenty-three-pound Lahti/Saloranta), and handheld submachine guns or koonipistolit (machine pistols, known as the Suomi)." The Finnish word for machine pistols is "konepistoolit", it's like writing it "masheen pistols". "Konepistoolit" literally means machine pistols and "Suomi" (Finnish word for Finland) was the name of the well-known Finnish machine pistol brand, making this something of a dumb sentence anyhow.
p. 137 "The idea was that this new “Democratic Government of Finland,” headed by the fifty-eight-year-old Finnish politician Otto Kuusinen (a Stalin stooge and resident of Moscow since 1920), would invite in the Red Army in order to, as Molotov’s communiqué put it, “establish good relations between our countries and, with united forces, protect the security and inviolability of our nations." Minor points, but Kuusinen's government was called as "People's Government of Finland" (Suomen kansanhallitus), and Kuusinen had been secretly in Finland 1919-1921, so he couldn't have been a resident of Moscow since 1920.
p. 162 "Stalin did gain a bit more than he had demanded before the war. In addition to Petsamo, Hanko, and various Baltic ports, Stalin acquired the entire Karelian Isthmus, where the most bitter fighting had taken place, now styled the “Karelo-Finland SSR.” Soviet gains neutralized the Mannerheim Line and provided strategic depth for Leningrad, though, as one Soviet officer lamented, “we have won just about enough ground to bury our dead.” But Viipuri (Vyborg) and Helsinki were still Finnish, and there would be no Soviet military occupation." Probably the most egregious errors are found here. Finland dind't lose Petsamo (Pechenga) in Winter War but only after 1944. The Karelo-Finnish SSR (note the misspelling) didn't consist only of the Karelian Isthmus but was in fact the previous Karelian ASSR with the (now emptied) newly conquered territories attached. And saying that "Viipuri (Vyborg) was still Finnish" is not just erroneous - Viipuri was ceded after the Winter War - but also nonsensical, since Viipuri is on the Karelian Isthmus.
There were some minor points I considered including (like whether Enso, mentioned by McMeekin as a town bombed by Soviets in the early days of war, was actually a town at the era), but they're debatable. In general, McMeekin presents the thesis of Winter War ending due to Soviet fear of Allied invasion (and also throws in Turkey there since he's McMeekin) rather confidently, considering that it's still a major and not completely resolved debate in Finnish historiography.
Many thanks!
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I read the book but I didn't notice any major mistakes re: history, physics. Was very disappointed by a few technology and arms related idiocies. McMeekin clearly was never into weapons or has not even a layman's interest in nuclear energy etc.
Considered writing him an email, offering to at least proof-read his next book so that he avoids such embarrassment in the future.
Can't say whether the book is true, as I'm not a period historian, but given Stalin's personality as portrayed by respected historians, it all hangs together pretty well.
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