Cold Victory by Karl Marlantes

Author:Karl Marlantes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic

For Friday night, they’d chosen to stay in the same house on the outskirts of town, knowing it had only one room to rent. They both had a great time feigning reluctance to share the room when they arrived simultaneously “by coincidence.” Arnie used the same cover as the night before and Mikhail played a jolly apparatchik from the Allied Control Commission who was scouting the countryside for more of the vast amounts of matériel that were being shipped to Russia as part of Finland’s reparation payments. The woman letting out the room had made it clear, albeit politely, that she didn’t like Russians. When they were in the room, Mikhail commented on it.

“You’re gutting the place and they’re broke,” Arnie said.

“My dear comrade American,” Mikhail said. He had undressed to his long johns and was carefully laying out the clothes he’d put on in just a few hours. They’d agreed to leave at three thirty in the morning. “The Finns are lucky to remain unoccupied by the Red Army.”

“Because they would fight you to a standstill, like they did in thirty-nine.”

“That, like most mythology, is based on only a partial truth. They sued for peace because we were about to crush them.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“I think because Stalin didn’t want to pay the enormous cost in lives”—he gave a knowing nod to Arnie—“notwithstanding the prevalent, and very mistaken, American myth of butchering our own soldiers. We could have crushed the Finns in 1944, but we probably would have lost thousands doing it. It is much better to have left Finland unoccupied but with very clear instructions to keep clear of the West, which means no American forces on Finnish soil. You see, we’re not afraid of the Finns. There are less than four million of them. What we’re afraid of is Finland allying with some country that has a lot of people and therefore could launch an army from Finland and be in Leningrad in hours. We’re OK with Finland being nonaligned, as long as there’s no foreign army in Finland threatening us as you do with your army in Germany. Norway is very unlikely to allow American troops there, despite them being firmly in the capitalist camp. And Sweden,” he grimaced, “they claimed neutrality but basically collaborated with the Nazis, primarily selling them high-quality steel. You’ll get little comfort from them. So, we keep you out of Finland and Scandinavia by virtue of your own ideals about never violating a country’s neutrality. Sort of ironic, don’t you think?” He chuckled. “There is also another irony, which I don’t think many of you Americans are in on.”

Arnie gave him a questioning look.

“Business, my friend. American capitalists will not loan money to any country under Soviet control. But they will loan money to Finland. So, the loans come in from America. Those loans, in hard currency dollars, help Finland make the reparation payments we forced on them in the 1944 treaty. Thus, American capital helps rebuild the Soviet economy. How’s that for a joke?” He laughed.

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