The cornerstone of unity

89 THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL

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In autumn 1939, a couple of weeks before the Winter War began, the Ministry of Defence ordered a load of 
empty bottles from the Finnish state alcohol monopoly Alko (innovation no. 81), and these requests became 
more frequent after the war started. When Matti Inkinen, a graduate engineer who was at that time the director of 
Alko’s central supply, inquired from Major-general Oiva Olenius, the head of the Ministry of Defence, where the 
bottles were going, the reply was that the army used them to make petrol bombs for the front line as they were 
basically the only means of anti-tank defence the Finns had at their disposal. They had proven themselves 
effective, although soldiers found filling the bottles slow and complicated. 
The bottling lines in Alko’s factories were standing practically idle at the time as Alko shops were closed 
because of the war and its employees were away fighting at the front, so Inkinen realised that Alko could help 
the army; Alko factories in Rajamäki soon started producing petrol bombs, a mixture of alcohol, gasoline, petrol 
and tar, which were nicknamed Molotov cocktails after the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. The army 
delivered the petrol, and the Bengal fire sticks needed to light the contents were supplied by five different match 
factories, mainly the Match Factory in Pori. 
The petrol bombs, satchel charges and box mines manufactured by pioneers compensated for the shortage 
of anti-tank artillery, especially in early battles; Juho Niukkanen, the Minister of Defence at the time, states in his 
memoirs that more than half of the enemy tanks that were destroyed were hit by these crude instruments, the 
use of which required a great deal of bravery. The consequences of a Molotov cocktail strike were devastating 
– 
once the bottle broke, the burning sticks lit the fuel and the tank burst into flames and was destroyed, even if it 
hadn’t been directly hit. 
The fuel mixture was later developed to make the liquid stick better to the tank’s surface, and the lighting 
mechanism was also improved. 
During the Winter War a total of 542,192 petrol bombs were bottled in the Rajamäki factory by the 87 women 
and 5 men who worked there. As a result of their work, however, the factory became a target and was later 
bombed. And no wonder really 
– the first bottles had been closed with tops that gave the exact address: Alko – 
Rajamäki. 
Heikki Koski 
– managing director of Alko 1982–1994,
Minister of the Interior 1975