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The 'Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic' (Karelo-Finnish S.S.R., , or ''Karelo-Finskaya Sovietskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika'') was a republic of the Soviet Union that existed between 1940 and 1956.

Contents

History

Politics

See also

References

History

The attack by the Soviet Union on Finland and the ensuing Winter War ended less successfully than the Soviets expected. Preparations for setting up a communist-controlled administration in Finland also would have been in vain, if not for the separation of the 'Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic' from the Russian SFSR. The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was set up on March 31, 1940 by merging the KASSR with the Finnish Democratic Republic (created in territory ceded by Finland in the Winter War with Moscow Peace Treaty, namely Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia, including the cities of Viipuri and Sortavala). The new republic was a reminder to the Finns that the Soviet Union had not renounced claims on Finland. The entire Karelian population of the ceded areas of about 422 thousand people was voluntarily evacuated to Finland (see Evacuation of Finnish Karelia), and the territories were settled by people from other parts of the Soviet Union. In the ensuing Continuation War, in 1941 Finland occupied and reannexed the territory. In 1944 the Soviet Union recaptured the area, which was recognized by Finland in the Moscow Armistice and Paris Peace Treaty. Karelians evacuated again. Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg (Viipuri) was transferred from Karelo-Finnish SSR to Leningrad Oblast, but Ladoga Karelia remained a part of the republic. On July 16, 1956, the republic was incorporated into the Russian SFSR as the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. It became the Republic of Karelia, a subdivision of the Russian Federation, on November 13, 1991.
Karelians and Finns were always a minority of around 10% in the republic—at the time, the only Soviet Republic whose titular nation was a minority in its own republic. A Soviet joke said there were only two Finns in Karelia - Finkelstein and Fininspektor which, on a closer look, were only one: the Jewish Finance inspector Finkelstein. .^[1]

Politics

The chairman of the Karelo-Finnish Supreme Soviet (1940-1956) was Finnish communist Otto Ville Kuusinen. In the republic there was also a separate Karelo-Finnish Communist Party led in the 1940s by G.N. Kupriyanov.

See also

★ Winter War

★ Finnish Karelia

★ Karelia

★ Republics of the Soviet Union

★ Soviet Union

References

1. Estonian Folklore Archives - Eesti keerdküsimuseed: tüüp Nr 870