Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic

Karjalais-suomalainen sosialistinen neuvostotasavalta
Карело-Финская Советская Социалистическая Республика

1940–1956


Flag	State Emblem

Motto
Kaikkien maiden proletaarit, liittykää yhteen!
"Proletarians of all countries, unite!"

Anthem
Karjalais-suomalaisen sosialistisen neuvostotasavallan hymni
"Anthem of the Karelo-Finnish SSR"

Location of the Karelo-Finnish SSR within the Soviet Union.

Capital

Petrozavodsk

Languages

Finnish, Russian

Government

Soviet Socialist Republic

First Secetary

•

1921–1922

Vasily Kudzhyev

•

1989–1991

Nikolay Kiryanov

History

•

SSR established

March 31 1940

•

Demoted to ASSR

July 16 1956

Area

•

1959

172,400 km² (66,564 sq mi)

Population

•

1959 est.

651,300

Density

3.8 /km² (9.8 /sq mi)

Currency

Soviet ruble

Preceded by

Succeeded by

Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Leningrad Oblast
Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

Today part of

Russia

Finland (Disputed)

The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (Karelo-Finnish SSR; Finnish: Karjalais-suomalainen sosialistinen neuvostotasavalta ; Russian: Каре́ло-Фи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика, tr. Karelo-Finskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Respublika), also called Soviet Karelia or simply known as Karelia was a republic of the Soviet Union. It existed from 1940 until it was made part of the Russian SFSR in 1956 as the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (which became the Republic of Karelia, a federal subject of Russia, on November 13, 1991).

History

The Karelo-Finnish SSR in 1940, during the Interim Peace.

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 by the Moscow Peace Treaty, namely the Karelian Isthmus and Ladoga Karelia, including the cities of Viipuri and Sortavala).

The entire Karelian population of the ceded areas, about 422,000 people, was evacuated to Finland, and the territories were settled by people from other parts of the Soviet Union.

Creating a new Republic of the Union for an ethnic group that neither was large in absolute terms, nor constituted anything close to a majority in its territory, nor had been a separate independent nation prior to its incorporation into the USSR, was unprecedented in the history of the USSR. Some later historians explained the elevation of Soviet Karelia from an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (within the RSFSR) to an SSR by political reasons, as a "convenient means for facilitating the possible incorporation of additional Finnish territory" (or, possibly, the whole of Finland) into the USSR.^[1]^[2]^[3]

In the ensuing Continuation War, Finland re-annexed the territory that it had lost in 1940 and occupied most of the Karelian lands that had been within the USSR prior to 1940, including the capital Petrozavodsk (Petroskoi).^[3] In 1944, the Soviet Union recaptured the area. Soviet sovereignty was recognized by Finland in the Moscow Armistice and Paris Peace Treaty. The Finnish Karelians were evacuated to Finland again.

In September 1944, the Karelian Isthmus with Vyborg (Viipuri) was transferred from the Karelo-Finnish SSR to the Leningrad Oblast of the RSFSR, 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. This move can perhaps be explained in the context of the general post-war improvement of Finno-Soviet relations,^[1] which also included such steps as the Soviets' return of the Porkkala Naval Base leased territory to full Finnish sovereignty (January 1956), and leasing Maly Vysotsky Island and the Soviet section of the Saimaa Canal (conquered by the USSR in 1940 and 1944) back to Finland (1963).

The abolition of the Karelian SSR in 1956 was the only case in the history of the USSR (1922–1991) of merging a member republic of the USSR into another republic.

In the waning days of the USSR, the Karelian ASSR became the Republic of Karelia, a subdivision of the Russian Federation, on November 13, 1991.

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.

Yuri Andropov served for some years as the first secretary of the republic's Komsomol branch, the Leninist Communist Youth League of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic.

Chairmen of the Supreme Soviet^[4]

Name	Period
Nikolai Sorokin	August 7, 1940 – 1947
Adolf Taimi	April 15, 1947 – 1955
Johannes Sogijainen	1955 – 1956

Chairmen of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet

Name	Period
Mark Vasilyevich Gorbachev	March 31, 1940 – July 11, 1940
Otto Kuusinen	July 11, 1940 – July 16, 1956

Chairmen of the Council of People's Commissars (after 1946: Chairmen of the Council of Ministers)

Kantele players from the KFSSR at the Second World Festival of Youth and Students, 1949.

Name	Period
I. P. Babkin (acting)	1940
Pavel Prokkonen	1940 – February 1947
Voldemar Virolainen	February 1947 – February 24, 1950
Pavel Prokkonen	1950 – July 16, 1956

References

1 2 Helin, Ronald Arthur (1961). Economic-geographic Reorientation in Western Finnish Karelia: A Result of the Finno-Soviet Boundary Demarcations of 1940 and 1944. National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council. p. 101.
↑ "Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev". Edited by Sergeĭ Khrushchev. Published by Penn State Press, 2007. ISBN 0-271-02332-5. Page 871 (biographic note on O. Kuusinen). On Google Books
1 2 Taagepera, Rein (1999). The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers. p. 109. ISBN 1-85065-293-7.
↑ http://knowbysight/1_KAREL/03476.asp

Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)

Principal	Armenia Azerbaijan Byelorussia Estonia¹ Georgia Kazakhstan Kirghizia Latvia¹ Lithuania¹ Moldavia Russian SFSR Tajikistan Turkmenistan Ukraine Uzbekistan

Short-lived	Karelo-Finnish SSR (1940–1956) Transcaucasian SFSR (1922–1936)

Not union republics	SSR Abkhazia (1921–1931) Bukharan SSR (1920–1925) Khorezm SSR (1920–1925) Nakhichevan ASSR (1920-1923) Pridnestrovian Moldavian SSR (1990–1991) South Ossetian SR (1990-1991)

¹The annexation of the Baltic republics in 1940 was considered as an illegal occupation and was not recognized by the majority of the international community such as the United States, United Kingdom and the European Community. The Soviet Union officially recognized their independence on September 6, 1991, prior to its final dissolution three months later.

Eastern Bloc

Soviet Union Communism

Formation	Secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact protocol Soviet invasion of Poland Soviet occupations Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina Baltic states Hungary Romania Yalta Conference

Annexed as, or into, SSRs	Eastern Finland Estonia Latvia Lithuania Memel East Prussia West Belarus Western Ukraine Moldavia

Satellite states	Hungarian People's Republic Polish People's Republic Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Romanian People's Republic/Socialist Republic of Romania German Democratic Republic People's Republic of Albania (to 1961) People's Republic of Bulgaria Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (to 1948)

Annexing SSRs	Russian SFSR Ukrainian SSR Byelorussian SSR

Organizations	Cominform COMECON Warsaw Pact World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY)

Revolts and opposition	Welles Declaration Goryani Movement Forest Brothers Ukrainian Insurgent Army Operation Jungle Baltic state continuity Baltic Legations (1940–1991) Cursed soldiers Rebellion of Cazin 1950 1953 uprising in Plzeň 1953 East German uprising 1956 Georgian demonstrations 1956 Poznań protests 1956 Hungarian Revolution Novocherkassk massacre 1965 Yerevan demonstrations Prague Spring / Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia Brezhnev Doctrine 1968 Red Square demonstration 1968 student demonstrations in Belgrade 1968 protests in Kosovo 1970 Polish protests Croatian Spring 1972 unrest in Lithuania SSR June 1976 protests Solidarity / Soviet reaction / Martial law 1981 protests in Kosovo Reagan Doctrine Jeltoqsan Karabakh movement April 9 tragedy Romanian Revolution Black January

Cold War events	Marshall Plan Berlin Blockade Tito–Stalin split 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état 1961 Berlin Wall crisis

Conditions	Emigration and defection (list of defectors) Sovietization of the Baltic states Information dissemination Politics Economies Telephone tapping

Decline	Revolutions of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Romanian Revolution Fall of communism in Albania Singing Revolution Collapse of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia January 1991 events in Lithuania January 1991 events in Latvia

Post-Cold War topics	Baltic Assembly CSTO Commonwealth of Independent States Craiova Group European Union (expansion to Eastern Europe) Eurasian Economic Union NATO (expansion to Eastern Europe) Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Visegrad Group European migrant crisis

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