Sorry for the delay. It's been a busy couple of days and I barely had time to put up some posts. Great comments and questions as always, I'm going to try and brief.

Both the Finnish War and the annexation of Poland were shocks to many Soviets. It is hard to discern what info they were being fed to justify these expansions. However, most Soviet films and books with a war theme that pre-dated Poland featured the Germans as their enemy. Many of these were even before Hitler came to power. There was some sort of consensus that the Soviet Unions enemy of the future would be Germany. It is really quite remarkable to see the foresight amongst writers and film makers, which means there is probably something there.

Invading Finland and Poland is not so shocking from an overall historical context of Eastern Europe. Poland was often either a puppet for Russia, an adversary, or a puppet of Prussia or the church. Finland was the same. Therefore, I don't think people much cared or they at least believed that those nations would somehow benefit from the Soviet system. Of course, this doesn't excuse the expansion.

The funding of the Bolsheviks is an odd thing. First, they get outside support and then outside support switches to the "Whites" including an invasion of Russia by the U.S. - most people know nothing about this American Expeditionary Force in the north of Russia. Of course, the revolution had a lot of idealists, but most people were just happy to be rid of the Tsars and thought ANYTHING would be better. They especially hated the impact on the country from the Great War. This was the catalyst that threw support behind the revolution more than a political movement. Hence, another reason that Russians hate wars.

Okay. This was a really long answer. I will explore the topic more in a post sometime soon. All the best.