“Uncover the Fiery Origins of the Molotov Cocktail: A Name That Speaks Volumes of War and Rebellion!”
The Soviets expected a walkover. Their invasion force of 760,000 soldiers, 6,500 tanks, and 3,800 aircraft faced a vastly inferior Finnish army of only 340,000 soldiers with hardly any tanks or airforce. But the Soviets had two major weaknesses. The first was Stalin’s great purge of 1938, which had decimated the Red Army’s officer corps. The second was the Finns’ superior knowledge of the land and their mastery of winter warfare. Though hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, through the use of highly mobile ski troops, ambushes, and hit-and-run tactics the Finns managed to inflict heavily casualties on the Soviets. Having few anti-tank weapons, Finnish troops relied on near-suicidal tactics like prying off a tank’s tracks using crowbars and the extensive use of petrol bombs. While early in the war these were improvised by the troops themselves, later examples were mass-produced by the government alcohol monopoly Alko at the distillery in Rajamäki. These bombs, some 450,000 of which were produced by the war’s end, consisted of a sealed 750ml glass bottle filled with alcohol, kerosene, potassium chlorate, and tar to allow the mixture to stick to the side of a tank. Instead of a fuel-soaked rag, for a fuze the bomb used a pair of wind-proof storm matches strapped to the sides of the bottle.
These weapon’s famous nickname came from an incident early in the conflict. On the opening day of the invasion, Soviet aircraft bombed the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Among the weapons they dropped was the RRAB-3, a 2-metre long cluster munition holding up to 60 smaller incendiary bombs. Fins on the rear of the bomb caused it to spin as it fell, flinging the submunitions out via centrifugal force and scattering them over a wide area. Facing worldwide condemnation over the invasion, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister, claimed that the Soviets were not in fact bombing Finland but rather dropping food aid to starving Finns. In response, the Finns began referring to the RRAB-3 bombs as “Molotov’s Breadbaskets.” In turn, petrol bombs came to be known as Molotovin koktaili or, “Molotov cocktails,” as “ a drink to go with his food parcels.”
