Potemkin wrote: I was speculating as to what might have happened if Stalin had not started the Winter War against Finland. My conclusion was that things would probably have proceeded as they did in actual history, with the important difference that the Finnish border would have been much closer to Leningrad during WWII.
My contention was a little bit more complicated than "don't invade Finland". For example the rising tensions between the Soviets and Finns can be linked to the threat to the Baltic states, another move in the Tsarist mold.
Potemkin wrote:Most nations are not at war with each other for most of their mutual history, but they are often mutually hostile. This hostility meant that Finland could not be trusted by the Soviet Union (and vice versa, of course).
Your stated reasons for mutual hostility could be applied to many neighbouring countries around the world, I'm yet to be convinced of the dire straits that Finland and the Soviet Union were supposed to be in that made the Winter War inevitable that don't trace back to Soviet foreign policy. Your reasons for Soviet hostilities could be applied to a number of neighbours they didn't invade.
Even the history of Finland crushing communist rebellion isn't particularly compelling, the government equally opposed the rightist Mantsala rebellion.
Potemkin wrote:Actually, it wasn't. Hitler invaded Norway because of its strategic significance; either he or Stalin might have been tempted to do the same to Finland.
Norway was invaded because of its position relative to Sweden and thus Germany's iron ore supplies. Norway keeps the British out of the Baltic, so job done for Nazi Germany. The Soviet Navy doesn't even come close to being a threat relative to the Kriegsmarine, even with the inclusion of Finland, so they don't have a particularly good reason on that basis either.
Finland appeals to Nazi Germany as a route for invasion, but the Finns don't actually want to invade the Soviet Union (more so prior to the Winter War), and Finland is a less attractive staging point if it is not a willing ally. Similarly the Soviets fear the Finns will let the Germans stage from Finland, but I've yet to see any reason they should believe this beyond Stalinist paranoia, or why such a state of affairs could occur without a direct Soviet threat to Finland.
Potemkin wrote:Finland was not pushed into the arms of the Axis Powers by Stalin's invasion during the Winter War
So why didn't they align with Nazi Germany sooner? This 'inevitable' process seems to have been accelerated by Soviet action, rather than wholely a shift in Finnish policy.
Potemkin wrote:the logic of their position would have forced them into the arms of the Axis Powers anyway.
This has yet to be demonstrated. Finnish armed neutrality had worked up to that point, you haven't adequetely explained why the Finns needed to ally with the Nazis beyond security concerns which were of course magnified by Soviet invasion.