Stalin, being a materialist to the core, didn’t have much trust in the power of human spirit, but fell under the spell of big numbers. A giant army from a giant country, mercilessly subjugated by repressions, was suddenly stalled at the borders of a state, the population of which was no bigger than the size of the opposing army. That happened not only on the 100-km stretch of the Mannerheim Line on the Karelia isthmus, but also on the whole Soviet-Finnish border up to the Arctic. A peaceful nation, whose characters even in legend and myth prevailed against enemies largely with spells rather than swords, suddenly rose to fight united as one.
A few hand machineguns “Lahti-Saloranta” and "Suomi", along with the Russian-made Mosin rifles that were left from the time of the Russian Empire which Finland had been a part of, dropped in the snow line after line of Soviet infantry while bottles filled with petrol, that subsequently received the nick-name "Molotov cocktail" (after Vyacheslav Molotov – then foreign minister of the USSR, who formally announced war on Finland), offsetting the severe shortage of anti-tank artillery, burned hundreds of Soviet tanks. Mobile groups of 2 or 3 sniper skiers ("Cuckoo") on the narrow forest roads were able to lay on the deadly-cold snow entire Red battalions. Finnish reservists, disparately equipped in double-breasted overcoats, paramilitary jackets and sometimes in civilian clothes, with German WWI helmets and hunting boots, were fighting Stalin’s heavily armed divisions. Over frozen swamps and lakes, woods and fields dotted with skeletons of burned armored vehicles, swept the playful war song of the Finnish soldiers "Niet Molotoff" ...