4 ideas
Antti Rokka, a Karelian smallholder and Winter War veteran, ignores saluting, drill and military formality but is by far the company's most effective fighter; he kills Soviet troops in large numbers and trains younger men in practical survival. The conflict sets formal authority against demonstrated competence in combat.
Soldiers obey officers who take the same risks they do. Lieutenant Koskela is quiet, rarely gives speeches and leads from the front, so the men follow him willingly. Lammio relies on rank and correct procedure, gets only grudging compliance and is mocked, which shows that at the front, legitimacy comes from exposure to danger rather than from the chain of command.
The novel sets patriotic rhetoric about liberating a Greater Finland beside the privates' crude jokes, grumbling and indifference to that rhetoric. Viewed from the ranks, large ideological aims shrink to food, sleep, lice and staying alive. The soldiers' irreverent humor works both as a defense against fear and as an unspoken verdict on the ideals they are told they are dying for.
As the war moves from offensive to stalemate to retreat, the men's commitment to the nation and its cause fades, while their bond to their own squad grows stronger. They keep fighting mainly so as not to abandon each other, even when they openly doubt the war's purpose. The soldiers' political and class divisions, such as Lahtinen's socialism, persist, but they are set aside inside the group.