North American Finns in Soviet Karelia, Ed. by Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

Federal Agency of Education State Educational Institution of Higher Education PETROZAVODSK STATE UNIVERSITY
North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s
Proceedings of International Research Seminar Petrozavodsk, 22-23 May 2008
Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk State University Press 2008
Proceedings of International Research Seminar
63.3(2P-6)6 + 63.3(7)6 + 63.3(7)6 94(470.22) + 94(71).06 + 94(73) N 82 Editors: Irina Takala, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Head of the Department of History of Northern Europe, Petrozavodsk State University Ilya Solomeshch, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Head of the Unit for Nordic Studies, Petrozavodsk State University Publication authorized by the Editorial and Publishing Council of Petrozavodsk State University
N82 North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s: Proceedings of International Research Seminar, Petrozavodsk, 22-23 May 2008 / Editors I.R. Takala, I.. Solomeshch. Petrozavodsk: Petrozavodsk State University Press, 2008. 272 p. ISBN 978-5-8021-0890-1 The volume comprises the papers presented at the International Research Seminar North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s and addresses issues related to the history of immigration of the Finns from the United States and Canada to Soviet Karelia in the 1920s 1930s.
63.3(2P-6)6 + 63.3(7)6 + 63.3(7)6

94(470.22) + 94(71).06 + 94(73)
Printed with the financial support of the Russian Foundation of Humanities, project 07-01-42104/. The images published by permission of Dave Watts (front cover) and J. Gracey Stinson (back cover). Irina Takala, Ilya Solomeshch, 2008 Petrozavodsk State University and the authors, 2008
ISBN 978-5-8021-0890-1
Contents
Contents
Editors Foreword...................................................................................6 Russian Foundation for Humanities Project North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s to 1950s by Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev..........................................9 Reaction to Departure: The Finnish American Community Responds to Karelian Fever by Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila...........................................17 Background on Karelian Fever, as Viewed from Communist Party USA Records by William C. Pratt...................................................................39 Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? Orders from Above, Reaction from Below: Conflicting Interests in Kremlin, Karelia and Canada by Evgeny Efremkin..................................................................55 Heaven or Hell on Earth? Soviet Karelias Propaganda War of 19341935 in the Finnish Canadian Press by Varpu Lindstrm..................................................................83
Contents
Controversy over the Piatiletka. The First Five-Year Plan and the International Debates of the Early 1930s by Timo Vihavainen................................................................105 Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment of North American Finns to Karelia: New Questions by Alexis E. Pogorelskin.........................................................139 Memoir Accounts of Finnish North Americans in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s by Brje Vhmki.................................................................152 Piecing Together Immigrant Lives: An Analysis of Personal Letters Written by North American Finns in Soviet Karelia by Samira Saramo..................................................................170 North American Finns as Viewed by the population of Soviet Karelia in the 1930s by Irina Takala........................................................................190 Western Perspectives of the Soviet Union: The Repression of Ingrians and East Karelians in the Eyes of Westerners During the 1930s by Auvo Kostiainen.................................................................213 Soviet Karelia in 1940s and 1950s as Viewed by North American Finns by Stella Sevander..................................................................236
Contents
The documents about the North American Finns in the National Archive of Karelia by Elena Usacheva.................................................................256 Contributors.........................................................................................269
6 Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch
Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch
Editors Foreword
Editors Foreword Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch This volume comprises the extended versions of papers given at the seminar North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s held in Petrozavodsk, May 21-26, 2008. The seminar was organized to summarize the results of two research projects aimed at studying the history of the Finnish immigration to Soviet Karelia from the United States and Canada in 1920s and 1930s. The project Missing in Karelia: Canadian Victims of Stalin's Purges was started in 2006, joining the efforts of an international team of researchers from Canada, Finland and Russia. It aims to collect, store and provide information, including the development of a website, on the fate of those Canadian Finns who moved to Karelia in the early 1930s. The project is headed by Professor Varpu Lindstrm of York University in Toronto, and has coordinators in Finland (Markku Kangaspuro, Head of Research of the Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki) and in Russia (Irina Takala, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of History of Northern Europe of Petrozavodsk State University). The North American Finns in Soviet Karelia during 1920s 1950s is a two year project (2007-2008), headed by Irina Takala and funded by the Russian Foundation of Humanities as a part of its programme Russian North: Past, Present and Future ( 07-01-42104/). The project focuses on the issues related to the history of North American Finns in Soviet Karelia, including their impact on cultural, economic and social
Editors Foreword
development of this part of the USSR, i.e. the issues still lacking comprehensive and up-to-date coverage in historiography. The destinies of hundreds of immigrants, many of whom became victims of political repression and ethnic purges of the late 1930s, still remain unknown. This volume deals with a wide range of academically significant and up till now insufficiently studied problems. Contributions by Professors Peter Kivisto (with Mika Roinila), William Pratt, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin cover various aspects of such specific phenomenon, as so called Karelian Fever in the United States and Canada in the first half of the 1930s. Articles offered by Professors Timo Vihavainen and Auvo Kostiainen provide the thematic area of this volume with further international contextualization through discussing internal developments in the Soviet Union, in indissoluble connection with the controversial models of their perception in the West, both in terms of ideology and propaganda as such, and also in their ethno-national dimension. This collection of articles presents a deeply insightful analysis of historical sources of different types. Many of them have not previously been introduced into academic use, as in the case of unique documents found in the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia by the Russian contributors. Newly introduced sources allow further evaluation of the Finnish factor in the development of Soviet Karelia as a border republic with a multi-ethnic population, including such issues as policies of the central leadership and local authorities and specific features of interethnic communication in Karelia in 1930s 1950s. These matters are addressed in the articles offered by Irina Takala and Elena Usacheva. Professor Brje Vhmki and Lecturer Stella Sevander discuss the role of both published and unpublished memoir literature and other personal sources in reconstruction of the history of American Finns.
Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch
It is particularly notable that these projects and the seminar in Petrozavodsk have joined the efforts of both established researchers and those who are just starting their academic career. Evgeny Efremkin focuses on the complex web of relationships between the VKP(b) leadership in Moscow, the Comintern, the Karelian leaders and the Communist Party of Canada, and also evaluates different motivation patterns of the immigrants. Samira Saramo demonstrates how personal letters can provide valuable insights into the material and cultural circumstances of life in Karelia. She suggests a social understanding of how Finns in Karelia maintained ties to North America, and how the purges and WWII were understood and expressed on a personal level. Our special words of gratitude for their valuable support in organizing the seminar go to Professor Anatoly Voronin, Rector of Petrozavodsk State University, Professor Victor Vasilyev, President of Petrozavodsk State University, and Professor Sergei Verigin, Dean of the Faculty of History of Petrozavodsk State University. We also wish to thank all those who took responsibility for practical matters of preparing the seminar and were extremely cooperative during the seminar days, especially Lyubov Arinina, Nina Saburova and Aleksandra Nikulina, and to our students majoring in History of Northern Europe. In addition, we would like to thank William Lee Hancock, who helped us in proofreading some parts of this volume. Irina Takala, Ilya Solomeshch Petrozavodsk, June 2008
North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s
Russian Foundation for Humanities Project North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s to 1950s
Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev Petrozavodsk State University North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev The two-year research project North American Finns in Soviet Karelia during 1920s 1950s is conducted during 2007 and 2008 and funded by the Russian Foundation of Humanities as a part of its programme Russian North: Past, Present and Future. The project aims to study a specific phenomenon of massive migration movement based on political reasons, on the example of the Finnish immigration from the USA and Canada to Soviet Karelia. The project is carried out by the faculty as well as underand postgraduate students of the Department of History of Northern Europe of Petrozavodsk State University: Senior lecturers Alexei Golubev and Alexandr Osipov, students Anna Markova, Veronika Ishtonkova and Alexandr Batygin. The Chair of the Department of History of Northern Europe, Associate Professor Irina Takala is the supervisor of the project. The research is conducted in close cooperation with the international research project Missing in Karelia, particularly with its supervisor, Professor Varpu Lindstrm of the York University in Toronto, Canada, for the aim and objectives of both projects are in many respects similar and complementary to each other. Academic consultants of the project are Pro-
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Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev
fessor of Russian Studies Timo Vihavainen, University of Helsinki (Finland), and Prof. Alexis Pogorelskin, University of Minnesota Duluth (USA). The emergence of the Soviet Union on the political map of the world led to the rise of ideologically based migration, when tens of thousands of people driven by the idea of a just socialist society set off for the Soviet Union. One of the most significant immigrant groups were Finns, who moved from Finland, USA, Canada and Sweden to Soviet Karelia, that between 1920 and 1935 was headed by the government of Edward Gylling and consisted mostly of Finnish political immigrants. Approximately a half of these immigrants were Finns from Canada and the United States. The arrival of North American Finns to Soviet Karelia coincided with the active state building and rapid economic changes of the 1930s. Study of the history of this ethnic, cultural and social group can reveal the peculiarities of the development of pre-WWII (and partly also post-WII) Soviet society and address a number of research issues of contemporary significance. The participants of the project are mainly interested in such issues as the influence of Finns on the development of Soviet Karelia as an multi-ethnic border republic, on features of social, economical and national policy of the central and regional authorities, on peculiarities of interethnic communication in Karelia, on ethnic repressions of the second half of 1930s, on shaping of the image of the Soviet Union abroad in conditions of intense anti-Soviet propaganda and economic depression. Many research issues related to North American Finns in Soviet Karelia, their influence on cultural, economic, social development of Karelian autonomous and later union (i.e. formally equal in rights to Russian Federation, Ukraine, etc.) republic have been insufficiently addressed in historiography. Russian and foreign research literature still lacks comprehensive works that would analyse multiple sources stored in
North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s
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abundance in archival collections in America, Finland and Russia. Destinies of hundreds of immigrants, many of whom became victims of political repression and ethnic purges of the late 1930s, remain unknown. Therefore one of the main goals of the project is to identify all Karelian sources on the history of North American Finns in Soviet Karelia and to combine information extracted from them in one database. The National Archive of Republic of Karelia (NARK) and Karelian State Archive of the Contemporary History (merged with the former in summer 2007) store large and scarcely studied collections of documents that reflect various aspects of the history of North American immigrants. During 2007, participants of the project concentrated on the Collection of the Resettlement Department (f. 685). The sources studied included questionnaires of immigrants, lists of people, personal information about people, copies of official documents, etc., with the overall amount of digitized information about 300 megabytes. A number of other collections of NARK were also studied in search for other documents about North American Finns, including Collections of the Central Executive Committee of the KASSR (f. 689), Council of People's Commissars of the KASSR (f. 690), People's Commissariat of Labour of the KASSR (f. 841) and some others. The project group has also studied the documents of the former Communist Party Archive (lately Karelian State Archive of the Contemporary History, now merged with the NARK). Its Collections of the Karelian Regional Committee of the Communist Party (f. 3) and Petrozavodsk Committee of the Communist Party (f. 1230) are of the particular interest, as they contain information on political, economic and social situation in Soviet Karelia, on the Soviet nationalities policy in the republic and on the attitude of the local population to North American immigrants. These collections store documents that reveal conditions of work and life of the immigrant workers, give an impression of the propaganda methods of
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Communist Party and of introduction of Soviet cultural norms among them. Research conducted during 2007 was mostly limited to the document collections described above. Probably an even larger complex of archival documents stored in other collections of documents is a priority for the further research work. Both archives store document collection that require a careful analysis (primarily, the document collections of the organizations where North American immigrants worked, e.g. the state trust Karelles (Karelian Timber), the Ski Factory of Petrozavodsk, Kondopoga Pulp and Paper Mill, state farms Sunskii, Ilinskii and No. 2 of Petrozavodsk, the Commune Sde, the Finnish Pedagogical College, Radiocommittee, etc.). Without this analysis, objective historical reconstruction of the phenomenon of North American Finnish immigration to Soviet Karelia would remain incomplete. Additional information on the history of North American Finns in Soviet Karelia can be found in the archive of the Karelian Office of FSB (Federal Security Service). Important documents are also stored in a number of Moscow archives, such as the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation (RF), the State Archive of the RF, the State Archive of the Contemporary History. The document collections stored in these archives (instructions of the state and Communist Party authorities on the organization of immigration; diplomatic correspondence; questionnaires of Finnish immigrants, documents granting privileges to North American Finns) have not been addressed by historians studying the topic of Finnish immigration from North America. Unfortunately, currently we have insufficient resources and funding for such a research. Many of the unique documents discovered during our research have never been introduced into academic use. These documents have been out of scope of academic works on this topic particularly because the researchers who studied the history of North American immigration to So-
13
viet Karelia did not know all three languages that are used in the sources (Russian, English and Finnish). Soviet scholars who had access to the archival collections were generally unable to read the sources in the Finnish language (many documents of the early Finnish organizations, such as transactions, current records, a part of the correspondence with the local authorities, had been written in Finnish until 1937). The project North American Finns in Soviet Karelia during 1920s 1950s addressed this problem by employing researchers who speak all three languages. To make the work with archival documents more efficient, the participants of the project developed an information system. The information system is based on Oracle database provided by Petrozavodsk State University. The most important problem related to the analysis of biographic information is verification of data. This verification is achieved through comparison of two basic database tables: the initial table created from lists of North American Finns from the NARK collection of the Resettlement Department, and the table based on the passenger lists of Svenska Amerika Linien, the steamship company that transported most immigrants from the USA and Canada to the USSR. Since the latter lists provide passport and other exact biographic information, they are very convenient for verification of loose data from other sources. Another requirement set during the development of the information system implied that all data in the database had to be related to its original source (archival document, newspaper article, etc.). This is implemented through yet another database table and allows tracking all specific biographic details to their original sources. The most important advantage of the information system is the time economy: miscellaneous sources on North American immigrants usually contain overlapping information, and it is impossible to identify new in-
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formation without either manual comparison (which costs much time and efforts) or automatic comparison provided by our information system. Currently, the information system stores data about approximately 5,500 American and Canadian Finns (unavailable in open access). Information about Canadian Finns has been translated into the English language and transferred to the Web-site of the project Missing in Karelia (http://missinginkarelia.org). Currently the same work is planned for information about American Finns. The database is regularly updated and this work is to be finished by the end of 2008. The completion of the work on the database will make the search for people much easier and will provide researchers with an access to many scarcely known historical sources. Searching for materials covering the work and life of North American immigrants, we have also screened Karelian and Russian press published between 1930s and 1950s, including magazines Karelo-Murmanskii Krai, Vestnik TSIK KASSR, Ogoniok, newspapers Krasnaia Karelia, Punainen Karjala, Sovetskaia Karelia, local Karelian newspapers such as Kollektivisti, Kolhoznik and Za bolshevistskie kolhozy (Olonets district), Kondopozhskii udarnik and Za tempy (Kondopoga district), Belomorskaia tribuna (Belomorsk district), Krasnaia Priazha (Priazha district). A number of articles have been digitized and can be used to illustrate our future publications and to complete the database. We have continued to collect oral histories of immigrants and their relatives (children and grandchildren). Some of these oral histories were published in our 2007 book (Takala, Golubev), while others can be found on the Web-site of the Oral History Centre of Petrozavodsk State University (Oral History). We also plan to transcribe the interviews granted to the project by the Regional Cinema Association of Northern Karelia (Finland). These interviews were recorded in Petrozavodsk and in nearby vil-
15
lages during 2002 and 2003 and have not been published yet. Their publication (either in print or online) is scheduled for 2009. The analysis of various historical sources will help to create an objective reconstruction of the history of North American Finns in the context of pre- and post WWII development of the USSR in whole and of Soviet Karelia in particular. The analytical part of the project will combine micro- and macro-historical approaches with the methods of statistic and quantitative analyses. This will help to overcome the tendencies of biased evaluation of the analysed phenomenon, which are still present in historical studies. The expertise that can be made by our Finnish and North American colleagues will allow us to combine the results of the research with the modern tendencies in foreign historiography. During 2007 and early 2008, the participants of the project (including under- and postgraduate students) have published a number of papers and abstracts on the topic of the project. The results of the research work were also presented at regional and international conferences held in Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Helsinki and Eskilstuna (Sweden). The results of the projects can now be used in research and education (in universities and schools). They also should be available for the public use, since even now this page of Karelian history remains poorly known by the general public.
References Missing in Karelia http://missinginkarelia.org Oral History Centre of Petrozavodsk http://oralhist.karelia.ru
State
University
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Takala Irina, Golubev Alexei, 2007. Ustnaia istoriia v Karelii: sbornik nauchnykh statei i istochnikov. Vyp. II. Severoamerikanskiie finny v Sovetskoi Karelii 1930-kh godov. Petrozavodsk: Izdatel'stvo PetrGU.
- 1920- 1950- .
- 1920- 1950- ., : , , ( 07-01-42104/) ( .. ). , , , , 1930- , . .
Reaction to Departure Reaction to Departure
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Reaction to Departure: The Finnish American Community Responds to Karelian Fever

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila Augustana College Reaction to Departure Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila The migration of 25,000 Finns from Finland and North America to Soviet Karelia during the early 1930s represents a unique case of transnationalism, one that both manifested a distinctive admixture of cultural, economic, and political dimensions (Levitt and Jaworsky 2007; Kivisto 2003) and resulted in human tragedy. Although a growing body of literature on this historical episode has recently emerged, it is clear that we are only beginning to understand how Karelian fever developed, the form it took, and the reasons it ended as badly as it did, with Finns rather quickly being transformed from welcome new arrivals to bourgeois nationalist enemies of the state. A collective group of scholars, themselves operating in a transnational context, are exploring the respective roles of state actors, the Communist Party USA, Karelian Technical Assistance (the organization primarily responsible for recruiting North American migrants to Karelia), and influential leaders in immigrant radical circles. From a collective behavior perspective, scholars are interested in understanding how despite all the risks so many Finns were willing to pack their belongings and make an arduous journey to what was essentially a frontier.
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Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila
This paper seeks to contribute to this body of research by exploring the reactions of various sectors of the internally divided Finnish immigrant community in the United States. While similar developments are evident in Canada, we will not explore the Canadian scene (or, for that matter, the Finnish one). In particular, we will focus on the fissions that emerged within the left throughout the 1920s, fissions resulting in no small part as a consequence of increasingly divergent assessments of the Soviet Union. The most significant rupture occurred between those who saw the Soviet Union as a beacon and model for communist development and those who came to view the system created in the aftermath of the Bolshevik ascension to power as increasingly authoritarian and inevitably undermined by dubious economic policies emanating from the Kremlin. The conflict between advocates of these two positions came to a head in the struggle for control of the cooperative movement, with key leaders in that struggle who ended up on the losing side very quickly becoming the principle spokespersons for the Karelian Technical Assistance organization. Part of the context in which this conflict played out was that a growing segment of the Finnish community had begun to assimilate and as they took root in their new homeland, were less inclined to be influenced either by old nationalist attachments to Finland or the ideology of internationalism. Church Finns, Red Finns, and the Finnish Civil War The historiography of Finnish immigrants in the United States repeatedly refers to the broadest split among fellow ethnics, one that divided along religious and political lines. On the one hand were the religious Finns, primarily Lutheran, who embraced conservative politics and were critical of socialism not only for its economic doctrines but because of its hostility to religion. On the other hand, radical Finns embraced socialism and industrial unionism and expressed both anti-clerical and anti-religious views. One of the unique characteristics of this particular ethnic com-
Reaction to Departure
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munity was that the split between Church Finns and Red Finns led to the creation of a dual system of halls (Hoglund 1960:12; Kivisto 1984: 121-124). While churches and socialist halls operated as separate social worlds, with individuals belonging to either one or the other, but not both, the situation was more complex insofar as other ethnic institutions became sites of competition and contestation. In particular, this was true of temperance societies and consumer cooperatives. The history of the formative period of the ethnic community is rife with examples of conflicts over control of these two institutions, pitting conservatives against radicals. However, by the time of the Russian Revolution, the institutional split had largely been accomplished, and at least at this level the ethnic community functioned largely as if they constituted two separate and discrete spheres of influence. Church Finns sought to both preserve their religious identity, with its distinctly Finnish character, and to be accepted by the host society. From their perspective, leftists contributed to anti-Finnish prejudice and thus served as an impediment to their incorporation into the mainstream. The Russian Revolution only served to reinforce this conviction as the left began a campaign of support for the Soviet experiment, while the Finnish Civil War served to intensify the hostility between the two camps. A war of words, full of invective, could be found in ethnic newspapers during this time. Thus, the editors of the conservative Pivlehti condemned leftists, writing, Shame to them: the Red revolution in Finland is the most shameful deed ever done in Finland (quoted in Kostiainen 1977:221). In return, leftists described Whites in the Civil War as Finno-German Junkers, a butcher bund, and reactionary lickspittles (Hummasti 1977:341). After the White victory, conservative Finns in North America appear to have increasingly lost interest in their leftist coethnics. Such at least appears to be the case in a survey of newspapers and other publications as-
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sociated with Church Finns. During the 1920s, leading up to the emigration to Karelia, very little attention was paid to developments within the Finnish North America left. While considering the Karelian exodus to be a monumental mistake, it did not preoccupy conservative Finns. Of far more significance, based on the space allotted to the topic, was the debate over Americanization. Whether or not to encourage English usage in churches, for example, represented a recurring and hotly debated topic. One might reasonably conclude that the civil war had marked the final decisive split within the community that resulted in the above-noted two distinct ethnic social worlds. The Red Decade The 1920s has been referred to as the Red Decade for Finnish leftists, because this was the period when large numbers of Finns embraced communism. A divide within the left had already become evident two decades earlier as reformist social democrats (associated, in particular, with the newspaper Raivaaja) split from more radical proponents of revolution, including industrial unionists and militant socialists, who were in turn aligned to the editorial stances of newspapers such as Industrialisti, Eteenpin, Toveri, and Tymies. As with Church Finns, by the end of World War I reformist leftists had begun their incorporation into the American mainstream, which meant through involvement in what Lenin would pejoratively refer to as bread-and-butter trade unions and in electoral politics, either by participating in the Democratic Party or supporting third party candidates associated with the Socialist Party. Many of the journalists associated with Raivaaja looked with suspicion on the Bolshevik Revolution, arguing that world revolution was not a current possibility, and thus a single socialist state did not have a realistic prospect of surviving. Furthermore, because Russia had not gone through the capitalist stage of development, it was not considered a genuine can-
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didate for socialist transformation. Taking Marxs idea that the bourgeoisie constituted a revolutionary class that was during his lifetime in the process of creating a remarkably productive industrial economic system that had the potential for laying the basis for a post-scarcity society, they argued that the Soviet Union had yet to experience the full-flowering of capitalism. These social democrats, including Moses Hahl and Frans Syrjl, disagreed with the underlying premise of the Russian Revolution, which was that the capitalist stage of development could be skipped. Moreover, journalistic voices expressed concern that Russias underdevelopment would likely lead to ethno-national fragmentation (Kostiainen 1978: 59-60). Industrial unionists who had embraced the IWW had been victims of the Red Scare in the immediate aftermath of World War I and thus were a weakened element of the militant left by the 1920s. The infamous conviction of 166 leaders of the organization in Chicago in 1919 signaled the dramatic decline of the movement. At the same time, the success of the Russian Revolution led many from this camp to communism. A symbol of this shift was evident when IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, out of prison on bail, fled to the Soviet Union. Other IWW leaders also turned to communism, including William Z. Foster, Elisabeth Gurley Flynn, and Earl Browder. However, there were those coming out of this sector of the left that, like their social democratic counterparts, expressed serious reservations about Bolshevism. When Robert Minor was sent on a factfinding mission to the Soviet Union, he presented a very negative assessment of the highly centralized and bureaucratic system he encountered, concluding that it was a far cry from the worker democracy that industrial unionism sought to achieve. Despite the defection of many leaders, much of the English-speaking rank-and-file persisted in their faith in industrial unionism (Draper 1957).
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A parallel development was initially evident within the Finnish American community. Henry Askeli and Wihlo Boman, two important industrial unionists, criticized communists for obscurantism and adventurism. The same view was articulated in the editorial pages of Industrialisti. The majority of Finns did not opt to join any of the four communist parties that emerged between 1919 and 1921: the Communist Labor Party, United Communist Party, Communist Party of America, and the Communist Party. This was likely due to their aversion to extralegal parties, for when Lenin advocated a united front strategy that encouraged the creation of a legal political party, this aversion ceased with the establishment of the Workers Party of America (WPA) in 1922. Within a year of its founding, Finns constituted 44.7 percent of the partys 15,233 members. Six Finnish-language publications Tymies, Punikki, Eteenpin, Toveri, Toveritar, and Uusi Kotimaa affiliated with the WPA, their combined circulation representing one-third of the Partys total (Kostiainen 1978:144). It is within this context that the Finnish-American radical lefts relationship to the Soviet Union evolved during the 1920s. On the one hand, propaganda efforts were quite successful in reporting on what were viewed as major achievements in economic development. Numerous delegations of communists or those sympathetic to the cause from North America and Western Europe traveled to view the Soviet experience first hand. A typical report, this one published in The Cooperative Pyramid Builder (1928:50), concluded, We have seen in the Soviet Union a land of real achievement, gained because organized workers and peasants have taken over the reins of power. On the other hand, the autocratic style of Soviet leadership was directly felt in the United States and on several occasions Finns resisted their demands. They fought efforts to disband the WPAs language federations, insisting that linguistic barriers still existed and could not in the short term be overcome. They also protested a mem-
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bership tax that they considered to be discriminatory (Kivisto 1984:168). Throughout this decade, the Kremlin sought to influence control over leftist newspapers and ethnic institutions. Nowhere was this more significant than in the struggle to control the cooperatives. Michael Karni (1975) has chronicled the creation, maturation, and fragmentation of the consumer cooperative movement within the Finnish American community and other scholars have recognized the unique significance of the cooperatives as the principle site of contestation within the ranks of the radical left (Pogorelskin 2004; Kivisto 1984). The struggle for control of the cooperatives that came to a head in 1929-1930 was at the same time a defining moment in terms of perspectives on the Soviet Union and on revolution, perspectives that would serve to identify and differentiate those who would be attracted to the lure of a Karelian exodus and those who would define it as folly. This was the culmination of a conflict that first manifested itself openly when two employees of the Cooperative Central Exchange (CCE), who were also party members George Halonen and Eskel Ronn rebuffed the WPA leadership when, strapped for cash, they requested a loan. For this act of defiance, they were denounced in the pages of Tymies. At the same time, they were defended by a sizeable majority of the CCE board. When the Tymies publishing house, under contract to produce The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, destroyed 1,500 copies of the November 1929 issue because they thought it presented an unflattering portrait of the communist position, the hostility intensified. The following month Matti Tenhunen and Henry Puro were summoned to the Kremlin to discuss the controversy. At the time of their departure, Tenhunen supported the CCE majority position, while Puro advocated for the communist minority. However, in circumstances and for reasons which remain unclear, while in Moscow Tenhunen changed his position and sided with Puro.
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At the same time, the CCE issued a message In Explanation, that made clear that not only had their publisher refused to publish their position statement in the pages of the newspaper, but had violated their contract by refusing to permit the statement to be aired even in the CCEs publishing organ. In the document in question, a lengthy attempt to explain What Its All About, the boards majority posed the issue in terms of who was going to control the cooperative movement: outsiders, be they in the WPA or the Kremlin, or the members themselves. This was, in short, posed as a matter of democratic control. Although WPA members represented a minority of the CCEs overall membership, the authors of the open letter understood that Up to about two years ago, a considerable section of the Finnish workers and farmers in the district were closely sympathetic to the Communist movement (The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, 1931:5). It was in this battle for democratic control that the final fracturing of the Finnish American left occurred, with the losers constituting the constituency most susceptible to Karelian fever. The winners, by contrast, became increasingly critical of the Soviet Union, and insofar as they did, they followed their social democratic counterparts along the path to incorporation into the mainstream of the labour movement and into the left-ofcenter within American politics. In short, they increasingly found a way to remain anti-capitalist while at the same time Americanizing. We turn to an examination of the two positions as they were articulated from the late 1920s into the 1930s. The Radiant Future Two of the principal figures in the struggle on the cooperative front became the chief administrators of Karelian Technical Assistance: Matti Tenhunen and Oscar Corgan. The former was elevated to his position when the organization was created, while the latter moved into the posi-
25
tion shortly later. Losing out in their power play for control of the CCE, they moved seemingly seamlessly into their new positions. In this regard, it is useful to think of the career options available to this duo. Finnish American communists were aware of the fact that they had little influence on the communist movement in the United States. Much of the leadership stratum resided on the East coast and included a significant proportion of the other group that contributed especially large numbers to American radicalism: Jews (Karni 1975:260). Finns understood that, in contrast to Jews, for their ethnic group having a large number of rank-and-file members had not translated into significant leadership roles. Thus, the option of being brought into the American Communist Party apparatus in a leadership role perhaps seemed unlikely. On the other hand, given their prior relationship with leaders of the Finnish Communist Party in exile in Moscow, and their ongoing familiarity with the particulars of the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, this move made sense for ambitious communist functionaries. Tenhunen proved to be the major voice in making the case for emigration to Karelia and in defining the terms of the migration while Tymies, the largest of the radical newspapers, was the most important conduit for informing readers about Karelia. But others raised their voices as well, and did so in other newspapers that had earlier affiliated with the WPA. In providing the ideological rationale that would be used to promote migration to Karelia, two major arguments were advanced. The first was that the Soviet Union, the only communist nation, was a model and its leadership was justified in demanding that communists in capitalist nations obey their dictates. The second message, which emerged soon after the 1929 stock market crash, was that revolution was immanent. Both of these themes were evident in an article that appeared in Tymies in 1930, A Public Declaration to the Finnish Workers in America. It presented a statement that Finnish workers from Karelia, Ingria,
26
and Leningrad had formulated at a June 11 meeting in the Finnish Enlightenment Hall in Petroskoi. It declared that the United States, depicted as an imperialist superpower, was the chief source of the worldwide Depression, an economic crisis that had led to the suffering of millions of members of the working class and peasantry. Class consciousness was emerging out of this crisis, for while the working class had been temporarily blinded by the capitalist system they are now beginning to see what freedom the capitalist system has really provided them. Coming to understand that the working class had become slaves to the [capitalist] masters, they were now embracing the Soviet road to revolution, and were prepared to follow the leadership of the Comintern. The article did not call for workers from the United States to leave, but instead urged them to join in solidarity with the working class in the Soviet Union, preparing for the struggle ahead. The present danger was stark, for the bourgeoisie and social fascists are getting ready for the cruelest, bloody butchering of humanity that has ever been recorded in history. The article ends with a call to fulfill the goals of the five year plan with unwavering determination in language that could be seen as anticipating the Stakhanovite movement a half decade later (Tymies, July 11, 1931:4). The implications of a Soviet five year plan for American radicals are unclear if they remained at home, but not if they joined in the quest to develop Karelia. Recruiting started in earnest shortly thereafter. An open letter sent from Moscow on March 25, 1931 by Finnish communists in the Kremlin (the authors are probably Edvard Gylling and Gustaa Rovio, though the signatures are illegible) made an explicit appeal for workers in the United States and Canada to help to meet the acute labor shortage in Karelia (Khehr, Haynes, and Anderson 1998:235-238). The communist press responded by publishing a series of flattering portraits of life in the Soviet Union during the next few years, some describing in broad brush strokes the achievements of the nation under Stalins
27
rule, and others focusing in particular on Karelia. As an example of the former, reporter L. Mattson sought to contrast large scale farming in the United States and the Soviet Union. He contended that whereas in capitalist system of the former, it has led to the decline of the individual farmer and a high loss of labor due to mechanization, in the Soviet Union the goal was to ensure that everyone receives equal pay and an opportunity to work. Moreover, Mattson argued that the Soviet system would soon prove to be more productive, the author claiming that the manufacturing sector would soon be producing more tractors and related farm equipment than American factories (Punathti, 1930:24-28). Similar articles became regular features, bringing home the message that although the Soviet Union had to confront a legacy that had left it far behind the West in terms of economic development, it would soon surpass the economies of the capitalist nations. In a similar vein, but with a more specific target, an unsigned article in Tymies contended that cooperatives in the Soviet Union had 45 million members and that in the area of cooperatives as a whole the achievements have been gigantic, far surpassing cooperatives found in capitalist countries. The implicit target of the article was clearly the cooperative movement in the United States in general and the CCE in particular (Tymies, August 8, 1930:2). Some articles were intended to respond to reports about social problems facing the Soviet Union. This purpose was clearly on display in a report designed to rebut claims in the bourgeois and social fascist newspapers about hunger and starvation in that country, the objective of which was to create doubt among the working class toward the Soviet Union and to put a break on the revolutionary movement. In order to counter such propaganda, the eye witness accounts of what was described as noncommunist visitors are cited, including the conclusion of the New York Times correspondent Harold Denny that he found no evidence that hunger and starvation were rampant. Another account came from a Mr.
28
Hicks, who was a member of a British delegation of trade unionists. Although he is described as a noncommunist, his glowing report is clearly that of a person greatly enamored of the Soviet experiment. Not only did he not see a single sign of hunger or impoverishment, but Everywhere I saw happy and smiling faces, on the streets, theaters, and race tracks, where thousands of youth participated in all forms of sports. The Soviet youth looks at the future with trust, strength, and without fear (Uusi Kotimaa, November 15, 1934:4). Turning specifically to Karelia, in 1930 the region celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the republic. On the occasion, Tymies sent collective greetings to its leader, Edvard Gylling, and the workers in the region. While pointing favorably to developments in the local economy and in such areas as education and culture, the article also mentions that work is hard and conditions often harsh (Tymies, August 7, 1930, 5). A correspondent writing under the pen name Kela produced a column comparing the developing economy of Soviet Karelia to the degeneration of the Finnish economy, contending that in the latter workers, particularly those in the rural economy, had become victims of legal robbery (Tymies, August 10, 1930:2). Similarly, another article contrasted the organizations of forest workers in the United States and the Soviet Union. Whereas workers in the citadel of capitalism were poorly organized or unorganized altogether, those in Soviet Karelia were well organized, resulting not only in the advancements of workers interests in the workplace, but also in the areas of culture and education (Tymies, August 30, 1930:4). An article appearing in Uusi Kotimaa elaborated on the educational advances in Karelia, claiming that a total of 338 students per 1,000 inhabitants attended school, a figure considerably higher than those found elsewhere in the world. This growth in the number of students reflected the rapid expansion of the educational system since the Soviet Union was
29
founded. The number of schools rose in less than a decade from 346 to 520. In addition to schools, Karelia also boasted 138 active reading centers, 400 red corners, 97 rural libraries, 69 kino theaters, 103 traveling movie theaters, 33 collective economy clubs, and 169 traveling rural libraries. The author reminds the reader that all of this expansion of education and culture was only possible as a result of the October Revolution (Uusi Kotimaa, September 21, 1933:4). This survey of achievements was actually part of an article that was primarily concerned with the question of national minorities. It may have been published in response to reports that were surfacing within the Finnish American community about discriminatory treatment that Finns were experiencing in Karelia. Whether or not this was the case, the rhetorical strategy is to contrast the discrimination in Karelia to that in the United States and then to contrast the situation in Karelia during the period of the czars to the present: America is such an imperialistic country that it discriminates and enslaves entire nationalities just as it discriminates against its own minorities, being typified by the racial discrimination against the Negroes. Freedom for all national minorities will not be realized until the proletarian revolution occurs. The Finnish experiences in the Soviet Union, when compared to past rule under the Czar, is a clear testament to this change. Finns in Finland, Karelia, and Ingria were discriminated against during the era of Czarist rule. Although Finland was freed from this oppression, the Finnish bourgeoisie led the working classes down a path leading to slavery [By contrast], the condition of Finns living in Soviet Karelia and Ingria improves from year to year (Uusi Kotimaa, September 21, 1933:4). This sort of coverage of the Soviet Union served to create the media backdrop to the Karelian migration, shaping images of life in the Labor Republic and contrasting it to the bleak future confronting workers re-
30
maining in the United States. Once the migratory stream had gotten underway, questions were raised about the impact of migration on leftist organizations in the land they were leaving. A correspondent from Ironwood, Michigan raised the following question in Tymies: What has this meant to the working class organizations in our areas? His answer is that, The emigration has definitely weakened the working class movement here. It needs to be noted that among the first to leave have been the leaders of our organizations. He is critical of these leaders for abandoning the immediate tasks at hand, contending that a major way to support Soviet workers is to strengthen the struggle against American imperialism, something that at present is not happening. However, he switched gears when he proceeded to write, Comrades, we must trust the leadership of our organizations. We must trust that they will be able to solve this dilemma and believe that they will handle it with the right tactics (Tymies, November 21, 1931:2). A response to this problem can be found in Matti Wicks efforts to promote the Finnish Workers Organization. He contended that over the span of only a few years, the membership had risen from 6,000 members to 9,231, this in spite of the fact that 3,000 members had immigrated to Karelia (Punathti, 1933:4-6). Thus, while perhaps a temporary setback, the Karelian exodus certainly did not undermine Finnish American organizations, and perhaps served to stimulate their growth by offering models of communist dedication. Matti Tenhunen, who had on occasion penned articles offering glowing portraits of Karelia, sought at the same time to control the composition of the migr population. In an article titled To the People Who Desire Soviet Karelia, he sought to provide concrete advice about who should consider joining the movement and who should not. He also provided detailed information about the conditions of being accepted into the pool of migrants and what was expected of those chosen to participate. He stressed that the emigration to Karelia should not be an emotional move-
31
ment, continuing that the region was in need of rough and ready workers. The place was not a rest home for the tired and weary. It is not a place for gold-diggers, competitors, or people who run away from work and battle. He went on to note that participants must pay their own travel costs and are urged to take household goods and equipment with them (Tymies, May 22, 1931:4). In a subsequent article, he is at pains to remind would-be migrants that Karelian Technical Assistance was only interested in workers with skills in a select number of industries: forestry, agriculture, steel, and publishing. Others were not needed at this time and again he reminded them that, The idea that a strong desire for emigration should be enough of a reason to accept someone as an immigrant is completely incorrect, and no friend who is supportive of Soviet Karelia should have this idea (Tymies, June 27, 1931:2). Political Dictatorship A very different perception of the Soviet Union was evident elsewhere in the radical left, particularly among industrial unionists and the majority of cooperators that remained loyal to the CCE. This audience was not prepared to uncritically accept the pro-Soviet claims about the remarkable economic leap forward that had occurred since the Bolshevik rise to power. On the other hand, unlike Church Finns or social democrats, who had never embraced the Soviet experiment, this particular grouping of leftists at some level wanted to be sympathetic to the communist cause. They did so while simultaneously distancing themselves from Soviet communism. As one writer in Industrialisti put it, there was a real desire to know precisely what was happening to workers in the Labor Republic, particularly given the fact that the Depression had resulted in high levels of unemployment and with it hunger and fear of losing ones home and possessions. He noted that considerable attention had been devoted to the
32
Soviet Union, including Karelia, not only by the Finnish American communist press but by two Finnish language newspapers published in the Soviet Union, Vapaus from Leningrad and Punainen Karjala, published in Petrozavodsk that were widely read in the United States. However, he was disappointed about how little truly useful information was on offer, contending that what one typically found were, Proclamations, speeches by government officials, encouragement for new struggles and goals, sowing, harvesting, dairy, loans, defense, and similar themes [along with] persistent calls for increasing the tempo of work. Workers were encouraged to compete among one anotherin the spirit of socialismin order to meet the goals of economic planners. Unfortunately, hardly a word is written about what the workers have gained for themselves and in the end it is not possible to determine whether workers in the Soviet Union are better off than their counterparts in capitalist countries (Industrialisti, August 17, 1932:2). If this writer was prepared to hold on to some glimmer of hope for the Soviet Union, an obvious skepticism can be detected in the article. For those who ended up in control of the CCE, a more marked break could be seen. Indeed, the rapid shift from sympathy towards Soviet communism to a repudiation of it is evident in the cooperatives publications. The battle over control of the organization proved to be the decisive moment. Prior to that event, numerous positive reports from the Soviet Union appeared, especially about its cooperative movement. Between the mid-1920s through at least 1928, the CCE shared with other cooperative organizations a conviction that the Soviet leadership viewed the movement favorably and encouraged its expansion (Cooperative Pyramid Builder, 1926:70-71; Cooperative Pyramid Builder, 1928:45-50). This stance toward the Soviet Union changed dramatically a year later. By the beginning of the 1930s, it was increasingly portrayed as an economic system at odds with the ideals of the cooperative movement, and
33
linked to that, it was anti-democratic. The Cooperative League Yearbook of 1932 published an address that had been delivered by the national umbrella organizations director, Dr. J.P. Warbasse. He contrasted three ways to run a business: (1) the profit system; (2) state socialism; and (3) cooperation. Whereas in the past the cooperative movement especially insofar as it was seen as contributing to socialism was simply contrasted to capitalism, now it was also distinguished from communism, or state socialism, in Warbasses formulation. He was not only critical of the exploitative character of capitalism, but of the highly bureaucratic, centralized decision-making approach of communism. Cooperation meant both rejecting the profit motive and a centralized command economy. It offered instead the possibility of a system under which the people themselves, independent of the state and politics, supply their own needs (Cooperative League Yearbook, 1932:30). In the same issue, readers are offered an account of the CCEs 1931 annual meeting, at which a small group of members of the Communist Party asked to speak. After an initial move to prevent them from addressing the assembled audience, they were given ten minutes to present their position. The result was that they delivered a vehement tirade of invectives and abuse When Eskel Ronn spoke, the communists heckled him. Far from a sign of their strength, they were so marginalized by that time that this was one of the few tactics available to them. This incident reflected the refusal of a majority of leftists affiliated with the CCE to agree that the Communist Party ought to be the sole voice of radicalism. It was not an indication that these leftists had abandoned their earlier radicalism for a tamer politics associated with the social democrats. Indeed, in this same year Eskel Ronn died of heart disease at the age of 37. Referred to in his Central Co-operative Wholesale obituary as Comrade Ronn, the author makes clear that the movement is firmly committed to ending the rein of capitalism, writing:
34
In a larger sense, our sorrow and tribute to Eskel Ronn flow in two-fold measure for his sterling qualities as comrade and friend, and even more, for his high manhood in the service of our common cause, the liberation of the working class and the speeding of a better social order. The civilization that is called capitalism dooms the members of the exploited class to privation, to a span of life cut short when life should be in its prime, and the finest sons of the working class shall continue to sacrifice their health and life until the struggle for emancipation is completed (The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, 1931:132). Thus, far from making peace with capitalism, the winners in the battle over the cooperatives remained committed to an anti-capitalist worldview, one that they shared with their expelled critics. However, the cooperative movement remained firmly committed to democratic principles. One of the lacunae in the pro-Soviet press was any discussion of democracy, which in some respects is rather surprising. In stark contrast, this was a theme returned to again and again within the cooperative movement. By the early 1930s it was clear that the cooperative movement had begun to define the Soviet Union as antithetical to democracy. By depicting the communist regime as antidemocratic, it wedded this critique to the earlier criticisms which argued that it was too bureaucratic. The effort to specify the particular character of the Soviet system was increasingly seen in terms of four alternative economic systems that were on offer at the time: (1) regulated capitalism; (2) corporatism; (3) communism; and (4) cooperation. They were seen not only in terms of different responses to the worldwide Depression, but as approaches to the economy with different understandings about how to insure productivity, the matter of the ways that goods and services would be distributed, and their attitude toward democracy. The first three were alike insofar as they were each represented by particular nations committed to each respective approach. Thus, the United States was the exemplar of regulated capital-
35
ism, the fascist governments of Germany and Italy were models of corporatism, and the Soviet Union was the sole exponent of communism. Within this typology, the Soviet type represented a political dictatorship, and as such was far removed from democratic rule and ipso facto from the cooperative ideal. The cooperative movement thus severed its earlier historic ties with communism as it became clear to supporters that the only concrete instance of communism posed a threat to democracy (Cooperation, 1934:68-69). Five years later, at the dawn of World War II, Warbasse no longer sought to distinguish Soviet communism from German and Italian corporatism. They all represented manifestations of fascism and thus are inherently hostile to cooperatives: Fascism does not want democracy. The two are antithetical. For this reason whenever autocracy would set itself up, cooperatives do not fit into the situation. The governments of Russia, Italy, and Germany have attempted the elimination of the cooperative consumers societies [in their respective countries] (Cooperative League Yearbook, 1939:9). This unflattering portrait of the Soviet Union was complemented by a growing conviction that revolution in the West was in the short term highly unlikely. Thus, by the end of this tumultuous decade, Finnish American communists loyal to the Soviet Union were increasingly marginalized. From the very beginning their support of the exodus to Karelia was condemned by religious Finns and social democrats (Karni 1975:374). Less than a decade later, in a dramatic change of fortunes, Bolshevisms adherents were also repudiated by their closest political allies on the radical left, who were increasingly inclined to deepen their ties to America. They did not abandon their criticisms of capitalism, but rather sought to find ways to change it short of revolution.
36 References
Cooperation, Vol. XX, No. 5, 1934: Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. The Cooperative League Yearbook, 1932-1939: Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, Vol. I, No. 2, 1926: Cooperation in the Soviet Union, pp. 70-71. Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, Vol. III, No. 3, 1928: American Labor Delegation to Russia, p. 50. Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, Vol. VI, No. 1, 1931: What Its All About, pp. 2-16. Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Centre, University of Minnesota. The Cooperative Pyramid Builder, Vol. VI, No. 5, 1932: Eskel Ronn is Dead, pp. 131-132. Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. Draper, Theodore, 1957: The Roots of American Communism. New York: Viking Press. Hoglund, A. William, 1960: Finnish Immigrants in America, 1880-1920. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hummasti, P. George, 1977: World War I and the Finns of Astoria, Oregon: The Effects of War on an Immigrant Community. International Migration Review, 11(3): 334-349. Karni, Michael, 1975: YhteishyvaOr, For the Common Good: Finnish Radicalism in the Western Great Lakes Region, 1900-1940. PhD dissertation, University of Minnesota.
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Kivisto, Peter, 1984: Immigrant Socialists in the United States: The Case of Finns and the Left. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Kivisto, Peter, 2003: Social Spaces, Transnational Immigrant Communities, and the Politics of Incorporation. Ethnicities, 3(1): 5-28. Klehr, Harvey, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson. 1998. The Soviet World of American Communism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kostiainen, Auvo, 1977: The Tragic Crisis: Finnish-American Workers and the Civil War in Finland. Pp. 217-235 in For the Common Good, edited by Michael Karni and Douglas Ollila. Superior, WI: Tymies Society. Kostiainen, Auvo, 1978: The Forging of Finnish-American Communism, 1917-1924. Turku, Finland: Migration Institute. Levitt, Peggy and B. Nadya Jaworsky, 2007: Transnational Migration Studies: Past Developments and Future Trends. Annual Review of Sociology, 33: 129-156. Pogorelskin, Alexis E., 2004: Communism and Co-ops: Recruiting and Financing the Finnish-American Migration to Karelia. Journal of Finnish Studies, 8(1): 28-47. Punathti, 1930-1933: Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. Tymies, 1925-1935: Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. Uusi Kotimaa, 1929-1934: Minneapolis: Finnish Collection, Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota.
38
. , 1920- . . , , , , , - . . , , . . , , .
Background on Karelia Fever Background on Karelia Fever
39
Background on Karelia Fever, as Viewed from Communist Party USA Records

William C. Pratt University of Nebraska at Omaha Background on Karelia Fever William C. Pratt The opening of former Soviet archives has been a godsend to historians. Access to these materials has provided new information and insight on one topic after another, and those who study Karelia fever have been among the beneficiaries of this development. Karelian archives have proven very valuable here and undoubtedly will continue to be so. But today I want to discuss materials from another Russian archive, that also have the potential to add to our understanding of this topic. They are found in the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) records, which are housed in the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI) in Moscow. Sent to the Soviet Union at various times, these files are most complete from the early 1920s through 1935 (Klehr 1995).1 What I have found in regard to the Karelian immigration focuses largely on the Partys reaction to the exodus, particularly in regard to its impact at the national and regional levels, and efforts to control or at least moderate its effect. I pay particular attention to what this episode meant
1
The CPUSA files have been microfilmed and now are available at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., and some other research libraries.
40
William C. Pratt
to the Partys District 9, a region that consisted of Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and was the source of much of the Karelian immigration. This district had a sizeable Finnish population, and well into the 1930s was considered to be largely a Finnish district. I want to emphasize that I discovered almost nothing in these records about conditions in Karelia or the activities of American Finns after they arrived there. In this study, I focus on how the CPUSA dealt with Karelia fever rather than the actual recruitment of immigrants. Karelia fever was a problem for the CPUSA from the time the immigration request was made by the Karelian government in 1930. The minutes of the Politburo in late December of 1930 sum up this problem for the American Party: Immigration to Karelia: Comrade Puro stated that a decision had been made to secure 800 immigrants to Karelia among the Finns in America, out of which there should be a maximum of 30 Party members. He stated that the Finnish Bureau was opposed to such large scale immigration to Karelia, on the grounds that the Party found it impossible to control the immigration and that if it were carried out on the scale proposed, it would leave the Finnish organizations in the U.S. in the control of the Halonenites and the right wingers.2 Motion: That a cable be sent stating that such a mass immigration of the Finns who are close to the Party will seriously cripple our mass work among the Finnish population in the United States, and in our opinion the comrades in Karelia should recruit a smaller number, which we propose as a maxim-
I have corrected the spelling and punctuation in the quotations in the text.
Background on Karelia Fever um 200, pointing out that such large scale immigration will jeopardize our leadership among the Finns in the United States.
41
This discussion and the motion stressed the Partys concern that would be expressed time and again by functionaries: The serious threat such a migration would present to Communist influence in Finnish organizations such as the Finnish Workers Federation and the co-operatives. But the second part of the motion also acknowledged that the Partys leadership would do as it was told: It must also be stated that we realize that the decision will have to take Into consideration other things besides our own interests, and the question should be taken up in Moscow with the participation of our comrades there, with the understanding that whatever decision is made will be carried out unquestionably (Politburo minutes 22.12. 1930). The Karelian government wanted a larger number of men than had been initially requested, and in the Spring of 1931 sought Comintern assistance to bring 2,000 more men[,] primarily lumber workers from the United States and Canada. It was well aware of the American Partys reluctance to cooperate in this endeavour and argued that the men were needed more in Karelia than in the U.S. (Klehr 1998:236). It was understood from the outset of the recruitment campaign that the bulk of the immigrants were not to be Party members, but were to be drawn from the ranks of the Finnish Workers Federation, a fraternal group within the Communist orbit and led by Communists, but not technically a Party organization. In 1930-31, there were close to 6000 members of the Workers Clubs affiliated with the Federation, while the number of Finns in the Party was much smaller. (Hummasti 1979:274). The CPUSA exer-
42
William C. Pratt
cised its control or influence in mass organizations such as the Finnish Workers Federation through what were called fractions, which consisted of key Communists in these groups (Glazer 1961:50-51). Finnish fractions in the Federation, as well as in co ops and other groups, were under the direction of the Finnish Buro, a recognized Party institution. In the 1930-33 era, the secretary of this body was A. Morton, a Party name for Aino Kuusinen, the wife of Otto Kuusinen, a key Comintern official. She had been sent to the U.S. to work with the American Party on Finnish matters. Her mandate was obscure, but she played a major role in all questions involving Finns while on assignment in the U.S. (Klehr 1998:176-79). Nothing that I have seen in the CPUSA records indicates that she had enthusiasm for Karelia fever. Technically, if a Party member sought to go to Karelia, he had to have the approval of his unit, section and district, before his application for permission to leave would be forwarded to the Partys organization department and the Finnish Buro. According to this procedure, he also was to have a job lined up in Karelia before his application went to the national office. The Partys Organization Department reminded District 9 of this requirement a number of times: We may advise you that the comrades across have again asked us to be very firm with applicants for transfer. We cannot issue transfers to any except those who can prove to us that they have job waiting for them there. In the same letter, the department denied permission for fifteen applicants due to the fact that they have no jobs waiting for them (Org. Dept. to District 9, 25.5.1932). Non Party members on the other hand, had fewer hurdles, as they were only required to have the endorsement of a local Workers Club and apparently many would be immigrants joined the Finnish Workers Federation for the sole purpose of getting the recommendation required for emigration to Karelia (Ahola 1981:230). In this study, I am primarily interested in Party members that sought to go to Karelia, though they made up a minority of
Background on Karelia Fever
43
the immigrants. There is, incidentally, relatively little information in the Moscow records about non Party members in regard to this episode. District 9 proved to be a fertile ground for Karelia recruiters. Its records in 1931-32 report a sizeably number of its members seeking permission to leave for Karelia. By late 1931, it had close to 1000 members; by May of 1932, it reported almost 1500 members (Schneiderman letter to Weiner, 4.12.1931; District Plenum Information, 7-8.5.1932). The following excerpts from District 9 records demonstrate both the appeal and threat of Karelia fever in this predominantly Finnish district. KARELIA: The situation is becoming more serious, as over 50 Party members have left within the last 6 months to our knowledge, and a large number are planning to leave in the spring... (District Secretariat Minutes, 30.11.1931). Lost 75 to 100 members gone to Karelia... (District Buro minutes, 30.12.1931). We again want to call to your attention that something drastic must be done about the Karelia migration. ... as far as this district is concerned, there are more than 50 Party members preparing to leave in the spring, with or without transfers. From one small community alone, 15 comrades are planning to go. This is not counting the many non Party sympathizers in the Workers Clubs who are also going (Schneiderman letter to Morton, 28.1.1932). We were informed that 22 left from Brantwood (NB to Org. Dept., 9.2.1932).
44
William C. Pratt The Karelia migration from this district threatens to develop to serious proportions, liquidating our mass organizations and withdrawing financial support from the co operatives: the district and center must act on this quickly (District Buro minutes, 10.2.1932).
District 9 officials expressed their alarm over this state of affairs in letters to the Organization Committee and the Finnish Buro, and both of those bodies shared this concern. The Finnish Buro was particularly provoked by the manner in which Karelia Technical Aid handled recruiting outside what it thought had been the agreed upon procedures. It prepared a very critical report (apparently in late 1931) of Kelle Aronens recruiting practices and his refusal to cooperate with either Finnish Buro or district officials. Matti Tenhunen, who had appointed Aronen to his position, was also criticized. At one point, the report claimed: [I]n several districts there are cities in which the entire party activitynot to speak of Finnish club activity, has been liquidated. ... Many have fallen out of the party in order to get to Karelia only through Aronens recommendations (Short Report, undated). In early 1932, the Organization Department pressed the Partys secretariat to do something about the migration to Karelia, while the Finnish Buro claimed it had complained many times to both the government of Karelia and the C.I., or the Comintern (Org. Dept. to Weinstone, 10.2.1932; Finnish Buro to Org. Dept., undated). It is unclear from the records that I have examined what type of contact the Partys national leadership may have had with the Comintern on this matter, but a Comintern decision was reached in early 1932, and it was forwarded in writing. A Finnish Buro representative, probably Comrade Morton, wrote: On the basis of this decision we have hopes of getting strong Party control over the migration-- but in no case can we prevent it (Finnish Buro to Org.
45
Dept., undated). In reaffirming its support of the immigration program over the protest of at least some elements of the CPUSA leadership, the Comintern emphasized its position by making Earl Browder, the Partys general secretary, chairman of the committee that oversaw the Karelia immigration. From this point on (though it is difficult to date it precisely, as the two documents that refer to the decision are undated, but presumably date to early 1932), there apparently was no more protest over Karelia fever at the national level. The Comintern decision had included a directive to stop bickering over how the immigration was handled: The accusations and insinuations expressed on both sides are not such as to be discussed in the Control Commission or in any other Party organ; by this decision they must be considered finally settled, and a repetition of them made impossible (Finnish Buro to Org. Dept., undated; document, undated). As a practical matter, the immigration continued to be controlled by Karelia Technical Aid, and it now enjoyed fuller cooperation from the Party. I have seen one page of minutes of a Karelian Commission, which apparently is the committee referred to above. The brief contents of this particular document confirm that the purpose of the committee was to facilitate the migration process rather than control it. Proposals made at the meeting included send[ing] a new letter to the Districts explaining the Karelian emigration is an exception to the general emigration rules, and [s]peed[ing] up the action of the districts. ... (Karelian Commission minutes, 28.4.1932 [?]). As already indicated, many Party members in District 9 sought permission to leave for Karelia and transfer their membership to the Soviet Party. It is clear from District records that its officials had previously sought to discourage members from leaving the country. If a person had a leadership position in a co-op or the local Party unit, he often was turned down. At one point, the Finnish Buro told the District: No comrade is to be permitted to go, if in the opinion of the leading Party committees his
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activity is such that he is needed for work in the Party or mass organizations. This applies especially to miners and comrades who hold important posts in the Party or the mass organizations (Schneiderman letter, 19.9.1931). On several occasions, the District rejected applications from co-op managers or delayed their departure. Sometimes individuals were required to meet a goal such as recruiting new members before obtaining permission to leave and a recommend of transfer of Party membership. Such requirements were duly reported to the Organization Department. Finally, the District was admonished from placing such restrictions and explicitly told that they were out of line: [W]e note a tendency on the part of the district to make a deal with comrades as follows: The comrade shall bring in three (or six or another number) [of] new comrades into the Party; secure a certain number of subscriptions to the Daily Worker; train a new functionary (to replace the comrade, if a functionary) and then you grant permission. This system of rewards cannot be permitted to continue (Org. Dept. [?] letter to District 9 Secretariat, 13.6.1932). Particularly in 1931 and early 1932, District 9 rejected a number of applicants because they had not stated an adequate reason for wanting to go to Karelia. On the other hand, Party members who were unemployed or had fallen upon hard times often were granted permission to leave. For example, The District recommended the approval of the application of Matt and Selma Mki of Soo, Michigan: They have done good work in the movement recently but have no basis of making a living. Have agreed to loan to the Tymies one thousand dollars when they sell their house. Recommend transfer (NB to Secretariat CC, 8.8.1932). The most detailed account of the rationale for granting permission to leave for Karelia
47
is found in a letter making such recommendations from District 11, which then was comprised of the Dakotas and eastern Montana. It involved four individuals from Van Hook, a small rural community in northwest North Dakota. In this case, I also located their application forms for Party members who sought to leave the U.S. Two of the applicants were mother and grown son, who sought to join another son and his family who already had gone to Karelia. Of the two remaining individuals, one was a bachelor and the other sought to take his wife and son. None of them, according to their applications, spoke English. The woman was 75 years old and had only recently joined the Party. Two of the three men were Party members since the mid 1920s, and all three of them were members of the United Farmers League, which was the Communist-led farm organization that was very active in this part of the state. The recommendation letter stated that two of the men were experienced lumber worker[s], though western North Dakota is a semi-arid region with relatively few trees. In one case, it was pointed out that the individual was also an experienced tractor operator, but has no job here and no chance to get one, does not speak English and is not of much value to the Party here. Otto Matiskainen, who sought to take his wife and child with him, is a farmer who lost everything he had on the farm, including the farm, [and] he will be forced off the farm in the spring and have no place to go (Omholt to CC, 7.3.1932; applications). In this case, all of them were approved, and they went to Karelia. District 9 frequently granted permission for individuals to leave, but did not recommend a transfer of Party membership, often because the person had not been in the Party for a year. Not all Karelian applicants who were approved by the District went with sterling recommendations. For example, one individual was granted permission to leave, but was denied a transfer of his membership, and it was noted that a letter of ex-
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William C. Pratt
planation of his habits of drinking would accompany his application (District 9 Secretariat minutes, 22-26.4.1932). Karelia fever began to fade in 1933. District 9 records report fewer applications from Party members and that apparently was the case in other parts of the country as well. Perhaps most of the likely candidates for this adventure had already departed, and it is also possible that others changed their minds after hearing critical comments from disillusioned returnees. The Party and its allies did what they could to stifle such voices, but local newspapers and other sources reported negative accounts about the Karelia experience. District 9 minutes tell of a recommended expulsion due to [a Party member] carrying on anti Soviet propaganda since returning from Karelia, and the news of such disciplinary action probably did little to reassure possible immigrants that Karelia would be a good place for them (District Secretariat minutes, 27.12.1932). While Party records that I have seen contain virtually nothing about what was going on there, the abbreviated transcript of a 1932 Finnish Buro meeting offers an intriguing comment. The participants at this meeting were very critical of Henry Puro, a member of the Politburo and a key figure within the Finnish section of the Party. He had visited the Soviet Union, including Karelia, earlier that year. The document reports that one of Puros critics related: [Puro] had come to the home of the speaker and complained of the poor food in the Soviet Union, and had added the following in regard to Karelia: It is time to speak the truth about it (Finish Buro discussion, 19.11.1932). The transcript was intended to discredit Puro in a factional fight, but the remark about Karelia, vague as it was, has a ring of truth about it. But as I have said, this is the closest to a negative comment about the Karelia experience that I have found in CP USA records. The factional struggle ostensibly was for control of the Finnish Bureau and Finnish organizations close to the Party. Comrade Morton (Aino Kuusinen) was a leading figure in this controversy, as she
49
and her backers sought to control Finnish affairs in American Communist circles. The episode surprised the Politburo, as it had no inkling of the trouble earlier. In a letter to the Anglo American Secretariat in Moscow, Browder expressed his bewilderment over the situation. Could there be some connection, he wondered, between this factionalism and developments in Finnish Communist circles or Karelia? Inasmuch the Finnish movement in America is intimately bound up with and influenced by the Finnish Party and Karelia, we feel it necessary to request the most through detailed attention of the ECCI to this question. It is possible that the sudden outbreak of this faction fight may have some relation to international questions. We are not familiar with the problems before the Finnish Party and Karelia, nor are we informed of any connection between these problems and the Finnish movement in America. The absence of any objective basis for such a fight in America would indicate that it may have some other connection (Browder letter to Anglo American Secretariat, 29.11.1932). I have not seen anything in the CP USA files that confirms Browders initial speculation that either the Finnish Party or Karelia explains Finnish factionalism in the U.S. Throughout the history of the Finnish American left there were repeated outbreaks of factionalism and in this particular case, Comrade Mortons own ambitions may have played a considerable role. Aside from the alleged comment made by Puro and the above Browder quotation, I have not seen any reference to either the Finnish Party or Karelia in regard to this factionalism in the Moscow files. Ultimately, in mid-1933, the Comintern called for the removal of Comrade Morton and Comrade Puro from all participation in the Finnish work of
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the CPUSA and the F.W.O. [Finnish Workers Federation], and Morton was recalled to Moscow (Klehr 1998: 179; Decision on Finnish Question, 22.5 [?]. 1933). Most of the American Finns who went to Karelia were not Party members, but if they were not, they were supposed to be affiliated with the Finnish Workers Federation. Materials in the CPUSA records suggest that close to 3000 Federation members had gone to Karelia by late 1932. But more research needs to be done to determine how many American Finns actually made the trip. What seem likely to me, based upon the District 9 experience, is that a higher percentage of Party members made up immigrant ranks than has been previously thought. Perhaps as much as 20 percent of the Party membership in this largely Finnish district left for Karelia. The Party and the Finnish Buro had attempted to limit the exodus to no more than 10 percent of the total, and if the exodus of Party members was as large as I suggest, then earlier fears of the danger of Karelia fever to Party interests was clearly justified. While Finnish loyalty to the CPUSA was severely tested, both before and after Karelia fever set in, this particular episode contributed significantly to weakening the Partys influence in Finnish circles in the U.S. (Kero 1975:21). The timing of the exodus was crucial, as it weakened the Finnish left at the very time new opportunities to organize presented themselves in District 9 and elsewhere. I think that it would be worthwhile to study the response to Karelia fever in other CPUSA districts that contained a significant Finnish population, including those that covered Massachusetts, Illinois, the rest of the state of Michigan, Washington and Oregon, and California. And, accompanying such explorations, it might be useful to compile a list of applicants from such districts (and District 9), who sought to go to Karelia with Party approval. Once compiled, such a listing could be matched up with the names collected by Mayme Sevander and others to determine how
51
many Party members took part in the Karelian immigration, whether or not they were approved to do so (Sevander 1996). But regardless of this last suggestion, further research in CPUSA records on Karelia fever seems warranted.
References Manuscript Sources Applications. Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI), Moscow, Russian Federation, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2719. 209-12. Browder to Anglo American Secretariat 29.11.1932. RGASI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2704, 184. Decision on the Finnish Question in the CPUSA 22.5 [?] 1933. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 3071, 4. District 9 Buro minutes 30.12.1931. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2476, 107. District 9 Buro minutes 10.2.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2885, 6. District 9 Secretariat minutes 30.11.1931. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2479, 8. District 9 Secretariat minutes 23-26.4.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2888, 33. District 9 Secretariat minutes 27.12.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2888, 86. Draft Resolution on the Finnish Question in the CPUSA. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 3071, 11. Finnish Buro discussion 19.11.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2763, 3. Finnish Buro to Org. Dept. undated. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2336, 212. Information for District Committee Plenum 7-8.5.1932, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2891, 131.
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Karelian Commission minutes 28.4.1932 [?]. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2763, 12. NB to CC Org. Dept. 9.2.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, 2891, 35. NB to Secretariat CC 8.8.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op.1, d. 2892, 50. Omholt to CC CPUSA 7.3.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2719, 208. Org. Dept. to District 9 25.5.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2891, 181. Org. Dept. [?] to District 9 Secretariat 13.6.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2891, 181. Org. Dept. to Weinstone 10.2. 932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2720, 23. Politburo minutes, 22.12.1930. RGASPI, f.515, op.1. d. 1934, 159. Schneiderman to All sections and Fractions 19.9.1931. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2481, 26. Schneiderman to Morton 28.1.1932. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2891, 21. Schneiderman to Weiner 4.12.1931. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2315, 172. Short Report on the Latest Phase of the Finns Emigration to Karelia undated. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2333, 32. Undated document. RGASPI, f. 515, op. 1, d. 2764, 64.
Published Sources Ahola, David, 1981: Finnish Americans and International Communism. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America. Glazer, Nathan, 1961: The Social Basis of American Communism. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Hummasti, Paul, 1979: Finnish Radicals in Austoria, Oregon, 1904-1940. New York: Arno Press. Kero, Reino, 1975: Emigration of Finns from North America to Soviet Karelia in the Early 1930s. In Michael Karni, Matti Kaups and Douglas
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Ollila, eds. The Finnish Experience in the Western Great Lakes Region. Vammala: Institute for Migration, Turku, Finland. Klehr, Harvey, John Haynes and Fridrikh Firsov, 1995: The Secret World of American Communism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Klehr, Harvey, John Haynes and Kyrill Anderson, 1998: The Soviet World of American Communism. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kuusinen, Aino, 1974: The Rings of Destiny. New York: Morrow. Sevander, Mayme, 1996: Of Soviet Bondage. Duluth, Minn.: OSCAT.
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, - () , . , , . , , . , , . , . .
Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?
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Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? Orders from Above, Reaction from Below: Conflicting Interests in Kremlin, Karelia and Canada
Evgeny Efremkin York University Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? Evgeny Efremkin The overriding aim of this project is to determine the causes for the largest collective exodus in Canadian modern history. To establish the grounds for the Karelian Exodus, I attempt a thorough investigation of the space and time of the mass departure, a study of those who planned and executed the Karelian Project, as well as of the masses of Canadians that made the Karelian phenomenon a Fever. My concern with the Karelian Exodus is two-fold. First, I am preoccupied with the roles that Soviet, Karelian and Communist Party of Canada (CPC) leaders played in the Karelian Exodus. The issue of international communism has not received its due attention. This paper demonstrates that orders for the Karelian recruitment as well as all its technical and financial aspects were dictated from above, by the top echelons of the AllUnion Communist party (bolsheviks) (VKP(b)), the Communist International (Comintern) and, in some cases, by the CPC. The focus of this paper is on the complex web of relationships between the VKP(b), the
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Comintern, the leaders in Karelia, the CPC and the recruiting officers in Canada. Second, I examine the demographics of migration. Statistical analysis of those who left conveys that the Karelian Fever was a movement of people who were in the first place preoccupied with securing employment and a general sense of socio-economic stability. In most cases, politics and ideology were of secondary importance to those young families who left the land of opportunity in search of better material conditions. A careful investigation suggests that a large portion of migrs went to Karelia not in response to the ideological preaching by Soviet leaders. Nor did they stay in Canada to satisfy the revolutionary interests of the CPC, which tried to keep the exodus of its party members to a minimum. Most went in search of employment and social securities, rather than out of ideological, cultural or national considerations. The present work is an attempt at an objective synthesis of the causes of the exodus. It is a combination of history from above a study of the actions undertaken by the masterminds of the Karelian Project -, and history from below tracing the histories of the individuals and families that generated the Karelian Fever in their search for a more secure financial and social life. The central objective is to determine to what extent was the Karelian Exodus initiated from above by communist leaders in Kremlin, Karelia and Canada, and how much of it was a spontaneous desire on behalf of Canadian Finns to migrate to USSR. In other words, was the migration an outcome of a Karelian Project or a Karelian Fever? I argue that the Karelian Exodus was ordered and supervised from above, by the top echelons of the VKP(b). Orders disseminated through the international communist hierarchy, from the VKP(b) to the Comintern, to Karelian authorities, to the CPC and the Finnish organization of Canada (FOC). The main design of the Karelian recruitment was executed to its desired conclusions. The Karelian Exodus was a Karelian
Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?
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Project. However, instructions from Kremlin were often altered at local decision making levels to satisfy the needs of different interest groups in Karelia and Canada. In the same fashion, the masses of Canadian Finns who were recruited for work in Karelia used the Karelian Project in their own interests. Although some Finns were persuaded by the communist propaganda to help the Soviet Union build socialism, the majority treated the Karelian Project as an opportunity to escape depression stricken North American continent and seek employment and social security in workers paradise. Canadian Finns in transition were opportunist in that respect. The Karelian Exodus was sanctioned and executed from above, while masses recruited had their own calculations for immigrating to Karelia, generating a complex phenomenon that we today know as the Karelian Fever. Push and Pull Factors Much has already been said and written about the Karelian Exodus. Scholars such as Varpu Lindstrm, Alexis Pogorelskin, Irina Takala, Oiva Saarinen, Mayme Sevander, Michael Karni, Peter Kivisto and Markku Kangaspuro have accounted for the main economic, cultural and sociopolitical forces that pushed North American Finns to leave for Soviet Karelia. Their joint contribution to the subject matter provides a detailed analysis into the complex nature of emigration, where a set of overlapping and interdependent causes rationalize the collective exodus. For instance, Varpu Lindstrm, a leading expert in the field explains the out migration mainly in economic terms. She stresses that the Great Depression had severe economic and socio-political repercussions on the immigrant communities. As a result of increased unemployment, poverty, nativist intolerance, state persecution and a general sense of vulnerability and despair, many Canadian Finns considered a move to Karelia an attractive change of scenery (Lindstrm 2004:17). Meanwhile, other writers
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have emphasized political forces as the stimulus for the out migration. Mayme Sevander, who immigrated to Karelia with her parents at a young age, and whose father was one of the leading recruiters of American Finns to Karelia, has consistently stressed in her books that the ideology of utopian communism and North American Finnish roots in communist and socialist organizations were the primary factors that propelled the Karelian Exodus. In her book Skitaltsi she attributes the Karelian Fever to what she terms ideological fanaticism (Sevander 2006:46-47). Scholars in the field also tend to stress the centrality of culturalist and nationalist aspects of the Karelian Exodus. Susan Harris, in FinnishAmerican Migration to the Soviet Union in the 1930s, points out that many Finns thought that the American dream evaded them (Harris 2000:246). Finns felt rejected by America. At the same time, ethnic pride and national identity lay at the heart of invitation to Karelia. Irina Takala writes that for North American Finns Karelia was almost Finland, almost home. Thus, she suggests, continuing the search for the lost paradise was utterly natural for those who had previously tried to find it but failed (Ibid: 254). Further, Alexis Pogorelskin argues that three important parties were highly interested in recruiting North American Finns to work and settle in Karelia. First, there were Kremlin leaders who, following the launch of Stalins first Five-Year Plan in 1928, sought to exploit Karelias lumber resources by bringing skilled workers into the republic. Second, there were the leaders of Karelia, Edward Gylling and Kustaa Rovio, who since the October Revolution tried to preserve Karelia chiefly Finnish in social and cultural forms (Pogorelskin 2004). Third, Matti Tenhunen and Jussi Latva treated the recruitment process as a business, where both made a living from the commissions they received for each recruited worker. Moreover, they allegedly misused workers collective Machine Fund, collected by emigrants for the industrialization of Karelia. Similarly, Peter
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Kivisto highlights the central role of Soviet leaders to Karelia project. He argues Canadian Finnish emigration was carefully orchestrated by Soviet officials (Harris 2000:252). While Markku Kangaspuro points out the Karelian Project would not have materialized without the approval from Kremlin. In search of the causes of the Karelian Exodus, one must look to the economic and political developments in the Soviet Union, the VKP(b), the Karelian government and international communism in general. Soviet Politics and Economy in late 1920s Accompanying Stalins rise to power, Soviet foreign policy line shifted from world revolution towards securing the survival of the Soviet regime by protecting its frontiers and fortifying socialism from within. By the late 1920s, the Comintern became the chief source of international propaganda in service of the Soviet Unions foreign and domestic interests. These Soviet-based developments and the extensive propaganda campaign initiated by the Comintern, and unleashed in Canada by the CPC and its branch organizations, heavily influenced Canadian Finns decision to come to Karelia. Karelias lumber industry assumed a central role in the Soviet economy in the late 1920s, and Karelian leaders received instructions from Moscow to increase the republics lumber production by 50 percent. With high industrial quotas set by the Five-Year Plan, Gylling saw an opportunity to bring more Finns into the republic. By recruiting Finnish workers from North America and Finland Gylling could preserve much of the culture of the region. Moreover, Finnish North Americans were also skilled workers. Their presence would help Karelia fulfill its industrial quotas set by Kremlin bosses (Weidenhamer 2005). Gyllings Finnish politics eventually received the much needed support in Moscow and a VKP(b) summit approved the policy of Karelizatsia an increased parti-
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cipation of Finns in the republics economy, politics and social life. In essence Karelizatsia meant Finnisization of Karelia. Gylling and Rovios requests to bring skilled North American Finns into the republic were also approved. Meanwhile, adoption of the Third Period strategy in the Soviet Union signaled a change in course for the Comintern and all its sections, including the CPC. On the substance of the Third Period Matthew Worley writes: What this meant, when looked at through Bolshevik spectacles, was a capitalist world poised to enter an era of crisis. In such circumstances, the contradictions of world capitalism were seen to have paved the way for sharpening class divisions, imperialist war, colonial unrest, and growing antagonism on the part of the capitalist states towards the USSR (Worley 2004:1). In other words, Bukharins formulation was that capitalist states were about to enter an economic crisis which would lead to an imperialist war, which, in turn would inevitably lead to a war of intervention against the Soviet Union. Policy changes in the Soviet Union also meant metamorphosis in the itinerary of international communism and a subsequent modification of the goals of the CPC. The new task of all communist parties, declared the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), was first and foremost the defense of the Soviet Union. In 1929 the Tenth ECCI Plenum assessed the international situation and the impending tasks of the Cominterns sections as follows: In the struggle against the threatening war danger, against the capitalist offensive, and against the campaign of slander of the
Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? reformists, all communist parties must carry on a broad enlightenment campaign to explain the gigantic achievements of socialist construction in the Soviet Union (the Five Year Plan) (Degras 1971:51).
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Further, in April 1931, the Eleventh ECCI Plenum declared that the immediate task of the Comintern sections was to protect the interests of the Soviet Union: it imposes on all Comintern sections the duty of conducting the most active struggle in defence of the Soviet Union (Ibid:164). Comintern propaganda in Canada Cominterns pressure on the CPC to adopt the Third Period policy in its agenda had severe repercussions on the fate of many socialist Finnish Canadians. Promises of a bountiful future in the workers paradise could not have come at a more opportune moment. The North American continent was in economic, social and political disarray. In April 1929, the Comintern bluntly intervened in CPC affairs; first by delaying its convention, and then, utilizing the available time, entrenched the Buck-Smith faction in power. Tim Buck promised Canadian communists unconditional conformity to Stalinists in Moscow; he would remain the leader of Canadian communists well into the 1960s. It can be argued that from 1930 on, CPCs policies and programs were determined not by the needs of the Canadian working class but by narrowly perceived diplomatic concerns of the Soviet bureaucracy (Angus 1981:1). For instance, Lenin School, established by the Comintern in Moscow, became a medium through which changes in the VKP(b) doctrine were conveyed from Kremlin to Canada (Ibid.). Stewart Smith, Bucks right hand in the CPC was the schools most prominent Canadian student in the late 1920s. He was also liable for a great deal of Soviet propaganda that appeared in the Worker, CPCs official press organ. At the sixth convention of the CPC in 1929,
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Smiths speech on the international situation, writes Angus, was as close to contemporary Comintern orthodoxy as might be expectedeverything was predicated on the view that the entire world had now entered the third period of capitalist development (Ibid.:237). Comintern propaganda in Canada was spread by the CPC, its branch organizations and the radical press. Dated May 19th, 1931 a letter from CPCs Central Agitprop Department to the Cultural Department of the Profintern reads: In connection with the cultural work of our organization here, we request that you try to furnish us with a number of suitable plays in the Russian, Ukrainian or Bulgarian languageswe have a shortage of suitable revolutionary dramawe also request that you send us a popular text-book or guide for our dramatic circles in the Russian language (Letter from the Central Agitprop Department of the CPC to the Cultural Dept. at the Profintern in Moscow). Moreover, in the early part of 1931, the Comintern issued a 20 page, 46 section paper entitled Resolution on the Tasks of the CP of Canada. The document was printed in English, French and Russian. The file carries an entire overview of the actions to be undertaken by Canadian communists in relation to the Third Period policy in Canada. Furthermore, in July of the same year, a report on the meeting of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) explicitly stated the aims of the propaganda campaign in Canada: In our propaganda, we must see that we link up concretely the problems confronting all sections of the working class with the war danger. If possible, use local and sectorial grievances of
Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? the workers and farmers and link them up with the war danger and the danger of attack against USSR (Report on the meeting of the CEC 14.7.1931).
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Similarly, the first item on the agenda of the Central Agitprop department meeting in summer 1931 was to propagandise the centrality of the Soviet Union and of the VKP(b) to the Canadian proletarian cause: When speaking of USSR and its successes, we must state that without the existence of the party there would not have been and cannot be any Soviet Union. The success of socialist construction is entirely due to the existence and principles of the party of Lenin. This must be made clear (Ibid.). CPC's most advertised slogan in 1931 was Help the Soviet Union to complete its Five-Year Plan without outside intervention. (Comintern fonds). Dedication to the proletarian cause in the Soviet Union was also encouraged by Matti Tenhunen in Vapaus (Finnish-Canadian newspaper) columns. A major figure in the recruitment of North American Finns to Karelia, Tenhunen called on Finns to help the Soviet Union to implement successfully its Five-Year Plan (Vapaus 2.5.1931). Tenhunen published a series of statistical data on industrial growth in USSR and suggested that Soviet Karelia would fail without the assistance of foreign workers: help is needed in lumber camps, river runs, saw mills, paper factories, fishing, agriculture and construction (Ibid.). Thus, the combined efforts of the Comintern, the CPC and the recruiters created a certain image of work and life in the Soviet Union, which became attractive to Canadian Finns who were disillusioned by the depression in North America. Economic, cultural and socio-political turmoil
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of the early 1930s made the life of Finnish immigrant workers in Canada intolerable. At the same time, economic and political developments in the Soviet Union generated a need to recruit workers to Karelia. Recruitment was to be organized and executed in a top down matter through the structure and channels of international communism. The Karelian Project: Action from Above Soviet/Karelian Instructions: Tenhunen-Buck Correspondence The evidence for the top-down character of the Karelian Project can be found in the correspondence between Tenhunen, Karelias recruiter and agitator in North America, and Tim Buck, head of the CPC, dated May 1931. Tenhunen was very explicit with Buck, communicating to him that authorities in the Soviet Union issued instructions to recruit Canadian workers to Karelia, and that these orders must be followed to their logical conclusions. I have very close instructions from otherside (my italics E.E.), writes Tenhunen, from both political and state offices and we went on very nicely working out program for this [Karelian] work on basis of instructions and general line set from otherside. (Letter from Matti Tenhunen to Tim Buck 17.5.1931). Tenhunen then informed Buck that Canadian recruiting offices would be similar to those already established in the United States: office of KTA was established similar way we organized in States and the way instructions called (Ibid.). This organization structure of our Karelian working methods, continues Tenhunen, is just duplication of methods applied in US, approved by secretariat here, a delegate in Moscow and approved by all of SU offices, including CI (Ibid.). He also reminded Buck of the Five-Year Plan in the Soviet Union and the centrality of the Karelian Project to its success. This project is crucial for the Five-Year Plan, writes Tenhunen:
Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? The Karelian question should not be understood as loose economical move by some Karelian industrial expertsIt is not question of bringing over some industrial workers to Karelia and try to solve the problem of lack of workers. It is a step by Polcom over there to solve several basic problems of Soviet Karelia (Ibid.).
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When Buck replied that the CEC disapproved of the Karelian venture, Tenhunen showed his ugly side. He bluntly threatened Buck, flexing the muscle of authority vested in him by Karelian bosses: I think it is error from part of [CPC] comrades if they think that this matter of bringing over about 3000 workers from US and Canada before end of this year is for discussion. (Letter from Matti Tenhunen to Tim Buck 22.5.1931). Tenhunen insisted that the recruitment process was not negotiable. The orders were given and they must be executed: this matter is not nature of party discussion and it has not been practice in the past to submit decision of Soviet Union for discussion (Ibid.). It follows that decisions for the recruitment were dictated all the way above from Kremlin and were not open to deliberation. Tenhunen was explicit that the CPC could only deal with political matters, such as inspecting the socialist background of the recruited workers. All financial and technical questions were to be handled by Tenhunen, Jussi Latva and the Karelian bosses. Tenhunen also assured Buck that any questions about his authority in matters pertaining to recruitment could be quickly settled by contacting Kremlin: questions of my right to come and organize staff to work and ask you to give political guidance is very easily settled by wiring to other side (Ibid.). Tenhunen pointed out that neither the FOC could interfere with the recruitment process, or take the lead in it, if it aspired to do so. Tenhunen writes The Finnish Bureau had very same opinion that this work must be done in name of Finnish Bureau Committee and under full control of
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Finnish Bureau or Party (Ibid.). However, continues Tenhunen, when the statement was brought up before the leaders in Karelia, they decided to favor of present form of organization we have in USand declared its independency on technical and financial questions (Ibid.). As a result, instructions from otherside were the guiding principles of the Karelian Project. Neither the CPC, nor the FOC were allowed to have a major say in the recruitment. Kremlin and Karelian bosses called all the shots, while Tenhunen and Latva carried out orders. CPC against the Karelian Project Although Buck and the CPC eventually cooperated with Tenhunen and Latva, they did so reluctantly. Where possible they attempted to slow the out flow of red Finns to Karelia. For instance, the report on the meeting of the CEC in May 1931 stated that although questionnaires for transfers to Karelia would be sent to the districts, they must not be sent out to the units, since many comrades would consider it as an invitation. (Report on the meeting of CEC 7.4.1931). Although Canadian communist leaders followed instruction from otherside, they wanted the Karelian Project advertised as little as possible. On several occasions the CEC issued statements reminding that all party members desiring a transfer must get partys approval first: again we warn that the question of the run to the USSR of groups of Party members and individual comrades, without permission, must stopwe need every fighter here (Report on the meeting of CEC 9.6.1931). The CPC just as its counterpart in the United States was worried that the exodus of socialist Finns, who were the backbone of North American communist parties, would be detrimental to the communist cause in North America. A letter from the CEC to G. Sundquist, the man in charge of Karelian transfer applications, indicates that there was a stringent limit set on the number of party members allowed to leave. Dear comrade, reads the
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letter, there are dozens of applications coming in steadily from Finnish comrades for transfers to the USSR. You remember that the political Bureau decided that not more than 15 or 20% are to be Party members (Letter from the central committee to G. Sundquist 25.3.1931). Restriction quotas on party members leaving to Karelia were discussed by CEC as early as in 1929. In a letter to Alf Hautimki in Port Arthur, dated November 2, 1929, the Polcom gave the following instructions on the matter of the Karelian Lumber Commune: ...also that in selecting the Commune you will not draw too heavy on those workers who are valuable to the Party. (Letter from the central committee to Alf Hautamki 15.11.1929). The Party reminded comrades that: his or her duty to our class and the USSR is to carry on the struggle here and not attempt to solve the personal difficulties by immigrating to the country of Proletarian Dictatorship. (CPCs resolution on transfers to Karelia). On several occasions party members disobeyed the centre: However it appears that some Party comrades do not take decision of the centre seriously and leave on their own. Often these comrades misuse their party membership. The Political bureau dealt severely with the 8 party comrades of Montreal who have organized a commune to the USSR behind the back of the Party (Ibid). Canadian communist leadership was also convinced that a number of comrades joined the party only in order to facilitate a transfer to USSR. A report of the CEC meeting on Oct 15, 1931 reads: In connection with the emigration to the USSR we receive reports that in some localities leading comrades carry around
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Evgeny Efremkin bundles of party materials and addresses saying that if they are arrested it will help to get themselves deported to the USSR. This is no less than treachery to the Party and strict disciplinary measures are to be adopted in such cases (Report on the meeting of CEC 15.10.1931).
This statement raises doubts of whether some red Finns were at all dissatisfied when deported by the Canadian authorities. It appears that several comrades were anxious to get deported, because it was the only way they could get around CPCs approval and sail off to the promised land. Karelian Project: Conflicting Interests Several conclusions can be extracted from the extent of the Soviet involvement in the Karelian Exodus. The leaders of the VKP(b), Karelian governors, Comintern representatives and heads of the CPC were all responsible for planning, structuring and executing the Karelian Project. For instance, the Anglo-American secretariat of the Comintern was involved in the Karelian Project as early as 1929. Kremlin and Karelian bosses continuously contemplated bringing North American Finns to work in Karelia. However, although orders disseminated in a hierarchical manner, often enough, there were also frictions among the factions involved. Every party involved in the Karelian Project reacted differently to the orders, often acting in self-interest or in the interests of the localities they represented. Aside from the uneasiness between Tenhunen and Buck mentioned above, there was also a conflict between Gylling and Soviet political organs. Several state agencies in the Soviet Union were not necessarily thrilled with having a large number of North Americans on the Soviet soil. For instance, the OGPU (State Political Directorate), USSRs secret police, and NKID (Peoples Commissariat for Foreign Af-
69
fairs) were both sceptical of the Karelian Project. By the late 1920s, at the initial stages of the Karelian Project Soviet secret police held that North American workers were an undesirable element in Karelia. They were the obstacles on Gyllings path to realize his dream of a Finnish enclave in the republic. Many Canadian Finns could not arrive because OGPU and NKID denied them entry visas. Takala writes that Gylling had to work hard in order to get the Karelian project off the ground and bypass political departments cynicism of North American Finns (Takala 2004). Gylling continued to insist that inviting North American skilled workers was the best way to meet the Five-Year Plan in Karelia. Takala mentions that Gylling discussed the Karelian matter with Stalin himself and received his approval (Ibid.). In 1931-1932 the issue was officially endorsed by the resolutions of the SNK of the USSR, RSFSR and Karelia (Ibid.). It is very important to outline some of the ways in which personal and local interests were satisfied in the name of the Karelian Project. As mentioned, there was a concern among Canadian communist leadership as to the harm emigration of red Finns might cause to the proletarian movement in Canada. The CPC and Karelian recruiters however also had non ideological and less altruistic concerns. For instance, Tenhunen abused the vast powers vested in him by Soviet leaders for financial gains. Tenhunen and Latva received commissions for each adult and child they transferred to Karelia writes Pogorelskin (Pogorelskin 2004:38). Moreover, they received commissions from the Intourist (a bureau that oversaw foreign travel to the USSR) as well. Financial aspect of the Karelian Exodus was also of importance to Buck and the CPC. In the early 1930s the party and its newspaper Worker were in fiscal disarray. In 1931 Buck introduced a 2 dollar tax on all applications for a transfer to Karelia. Buck needed funds urgently and was persistent that this money was to be wired to the CEC rather than to dis-
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trict branches (Report on the meeting of CEC 15.10.1931). It might be also argued that Buck was more interested in securing CPCs share in the commission profits made by Latva and Tenhunen from the Swedish shipping lines, than in stopping the exodus. However, as we have seen, Tenhunen was not as enthusiastic as Buck in sharing the profits made form the Karelian Project. The Karelian Project was ordered from above, by authorities in Kremlin and Karelia. The project intended to benefit the Soviet economy and fulfill Gyllings grandiose schemes of a Finnish Soviet republic. All instructions disseminated in a hierarchical fashion from Kremlin to Karelia to Canada. However, different parties responded in a different manner to orders from above, often satisfying individual and local needs. For communist leaders in the Soviet Union the Karelian migration was a Project, not a Fever, the way it would become for the masses of migrating Canadian Finns. The next section looks at the way those masses responded to the Karelian Project and made it a Karelian Fever. The Karelian Fever: A Reaction from Below A careful investigation of the archives and letters suggests that Canadian Finns were driven to leave for a variety of reasons, which often suited their own immediate needs and fears rather than reflected the desires of communist leaders in the Soviet Union or in Canada. A large portion of the migrs went to Karelia in search of employment and social security rather than out of ideological, cultural or other non-material consideration. Many Finns who left Canada to Karelia were opportunist in that way. In the Karelian Project they saw an opportunity to improve their and their families lots. They did everything possible to leave the land of opportunity behind and head to workers paradise.
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Demographics of Migration Between 1930 and 1933 nearly 2000 Canadians departed to Soviet Karelia. From those who left, only thirty Canadian Finns, or 2 percent, arrived in Karelia in 1930. It was in 1931, when the recruitment adopted an official character with the opening of the Karelian Technical Aid (KTA) offices in New York and Toronto that the pace of emigration increased dramatically. In 1931 and 1932 more than 1500 Canadian Finns, or 85 percent of the total departed between 1930 and 1933, left for Karelia (Spiski pribyvshikh). In 1933 another 250 emigrants sailed off to the Soviet Union (Ibid.). Although several Canadian Finns opted to go even before 1931 first migrs arrived in the Soviet Union in 1925 the exodus would not have materialized without the official recruitment process. Nearly seventy-five percent of the migrs were employed in Karelias lumber industry; working as lumberjacks, carpenters, sawyers and drivers (Ibid.). Another ten percent worked in construction (Ibid.). In addition, there were farm workers, blacksmiths, miners, tractor drivers, plumbers, mechanics, electricians, roofers, shoemakers, tailors, welders and painters. There were also four accountants, two barbers and a journalist (Ibid.). What is important to highlight is that the Karelian Fever was largely family oriented. It consisted mostly of young men and women in their 20s and 30s. Sixty percent of Finns from Canada migrating into Karelia arrived with their immediate families; the remaining forty percent were mostly single males. However, many of these single men and women were brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins and extended family members who followed their relatives to Karelia. For instance, in September 1932, Yrj Kuzmin, aged 71 accompanied to Karelia his daughter, Tyyne Kuzmin and her children, Yrj and Hellen (Ibid). It was also common for single men to accompany their brothers families. For instance, Walter Lahti followed his brother, Vin Lahti and his brothers wife, Ellen and children, Elmer and Ellen (Ibid.). Therefore, although more than 700
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emigrants were registered as single upon arrival, the majority of them were components of a wider pattern of kin chain migration. From the figures available, there were 380 married couples with 200 of them with at least one child in the family (Ibid.). Fifty seven families had two children, eighteen couples had three children, and there were families with up to seven children (Ibid.). On November 17 1931, Robert and Aino Holmberg went to workers paradise with seven: Ruut, Vilbred, Russel, Marta, Dorothy, Vernhard, and a two year old Allan (Ibid.). Another crucial characteristic of the Karelian Fever it was predominantly young. These were men and women in their 20s and 30s, in their prime and full of energy. In essence, they were the cream of the Canadian Finnish working force, an invaluable source of labour. Sixty two percent, or two thirds of those who arrived in Karelia between 1930 and 1933, were between 21 and 39 years of age (Ibid.). If we add to this figure all children under twelve, most of whom, we can assume, were offspring of the 21 39 age cohort, then we account for 76 percent of the total Canadian-Karelian exodus. Only 42 emigrants, or 3 percent, were over fifty (Ibid.). Thus, the Karelian Exodus was a family oriented movement; an overwhelming majority of emigrants were young men and women with children. The presence of such a large number of families with children raises doubts about Sevanders premise that ideological fanaticism played a decisive role in generating the Karelian Fever. It is difficult to grasp that young couples with newly born children looked for much more than economic and social security. This does not discount the importance of the communist and socialist ideology in emigrants choices to come to Karelia. However, one has to wonder how much of radicalism did men and women have in them when the first priority was to secure food, shelter and stability for their spouses and children. It is easier to see single men and women driven to migrate on principles of ideological fanat-
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icism. However, as has been demonstrated, many of the singles merely followed their extended families in a wider pattern of family chain migration. Overall, given the familial character of the Canadian-Karelian Exodus and the presence of numerous children where every sixth emigrant was under age 12, with as young as four moth old, as in the case of Leo Sievnen, son of Aarne and Impi Sievnen it is possible to deduce that emigrants were mainly in search of socio-economic security rather than driven by ideological fanaticism. Offset by the economic depression in Canada young Finns were attracted to Karelia by prospects of employment, free education for their children, free healthcare provisions and state pension plans. In other words, the Karelian Fever was not prompted by ideological and political considerations, or any sort of fanaticism, as much as it was a quest for a better material life. The Karelian Project opened a window of opportunity, which many red Finns did not hesitate to use to escape the poverty and persecution in Canada in order to try their lot in the promised land workers paradise. Letters from Karelia A collection of letters written by North American immigrants in Karelia back to the continent between 1931 and 1933 further substantiate the argument for emigrants priority for economic and social security in the Soviet Union to those in Canada and the United Sates. For instance, in 1933, a sixteen year old native of Ottertail, Minnesota, residing with his family in Petrozavodsk wrote: you dont have to worry about how youre going to live like you do over there nowadays. My father always has a job here and no fear of losing it (Smith 1933:210). Another teenager, in a letter to her cousin dated March, 28 1932, remarked: mother and father dont really like it out here but mother and father know if they would go back to the states and if Pa couldnt get a job down there it would be like hell.
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(Ibid.:205). There are scores of letters that in one way or another underline the value of having secured a job in Karelia. It must be also stressed that many Canadian Finns in Karelia had a hard time adjusting to Karelias living conditions and the Russo-Soviet culture and that for many it was difficult or near to impossible to leave Karelia. Nonetheless, several families attested that they enjoyed the social security and employment in the Soviet Union, which they lacked in North America. In their letters, North American Finns often praised the Soviet state supported socio-economic and cultural provisions. I was to the dentist the other day, wrote one emigrant, had my teeth filled and it didnt cost a centFree doctors and dentists here for the workers (Ibid.: 210) In addition to free health care, North American emigrants came to value Soviet pension plans. As one letter exclaimed: here in the land of workers we get proper care during illness and old age (Ibid.:214). Furthermore, some letters attest that schools in the republic were not only free, but also promoted Finnish culture and language, which made adaptation to the new environment less painful. Prospects of employment, free healthcare, free education and old age security, these were the incentives that attracted Canadian Finns to settle in Karelia. Having arrived with immediate and, in some cases, extended families, Canadian Finns came to earn a living, raise children and build new homes in what they thought to be a socially and economically secure environment. Collectively, they did not seek adventure and very few of them had anything radically revolutionary in them. It is not to say that they did not sympathize with communism, because they did and often passionately. However, it is important to understand that they came to build and settle, rather than to incite a revolution. This paper presented a statistical analysis of those 2000 Finns who left Canada. It suggests that the exodus was a part of kin chain migration. I have argued that the primary motivator for the transatlantic movement was economic. It would thus be interesting to analyse the data of those
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who returned from Karelia, once the information is available, and determine whether those who returned were families disappointed with the material conditions in Karelia, or singles who were disillusioned by the slow progress and ineffectiveness of socialism in the Soviet Union. Several accounts and letters available suggest that it were the singles that wrote somewhat positively about their experiences in Karelia as oppose to heads of households who did not find Soviet Union as exciting. Also important to highlight is that aside from the OGPU and NKVD which indicated in their reports that North American Finns were an undesirable element in the Soviet Union, there were no parties that were increasingly concerned with Canadian Finns ideological allegiances. As far as architects of the Five-Year plan were concerned, they needed good workers, rather then good communists. Gylling and Rovio wanted to make sure that immigrants would be Finns, so to bolster the Finnishspeaking population of KASSR. As for Tenhunen and Latva, they on several occasion indicated that they needed young and able workers, and left the CPC to sort out the ideological allegiances of the applicants to Karelia. As has been shown, neither the CPC was keen of letting dedicated socialist Finns go to Karelia and attempted to halt their exodus as much as it could. Thus, the structure looked for young Finnish-spiking workers. These were the constituencies targeted by the recruiters and these were the majority of those who went. The promise of a bountiful future in Karelia was economically and ideologically based as in contrast to the deem employment opportunities in depression stricken Canada. Other Causes The way that Canadian Finns responded to the Karelian Project varied from one individual case to another. Some were infected by ideological fanaticism. Others travelled out of mere curiosity and adventure. Most of them left because of the unemployment factor in Canada and employment
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prospects in the Soviet Union. Many also left out of national and cultural considerations. Some scholars stress that culture and nationality were the prime factors that generated the Karelian Fever. However, and it is important to stress, migration to the Soviet Union was not solely Finnish in character. The Worker, for instance, was bombarded with workers queries regarding the transfers to the Soviet Union and Karelia. Requests came from all across Canada and often enough not from Finnish comrades. On April 11, 1931 a certain Steve Frank from Kitchener, Ontario wrote to the Worker: could you give me some information about emigration to Karelia. Several workmen want to know if they could emigrate. They are of wood working and mechanic trades and skilled laborers. Please, write me how they could get there (Letter to the Worker 11.4.1931). Another letter came from Noranda, Quebec: I have been informed that the government of Russia has had agents in this country employing skilled men to go to Russia I am a journeyman Machinist with 16 years experience at the trade... (Letter to the Worker 17.12.1930). On February 23, 1931 a letter from Prince George, B.C. reached the headquarters of the CPC in Toronto: I understand there is a demand for telegram operators and train dispatchers in Russiawould appreciate full information as to wages, length of service requirestransportation, passports, etc (Letter to the Worker 23.12.1930). These examples demonstrate that in the early 1930s not only Canadian Finns had an interest in moving to the Soviet Union. Although migration to Karelia was predominantly Finnish in character and, thus, bears a Finnish national spirit, nonetheless, it is also evident that the movement from below was predominantly caused by the unemployment factor in North America. In other words, the Karelian Exodus was a result of the great depression and increased poverty and persecution, rather than of national and cultural considerations. Therefore, if not for the Great Depres-
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sion, the Karelian Fever most likely would not have materialized, regardless of Gylling and Rovios attempts to attract workers to the republic. Perhaps Finns would still go to Karelia, but not in such proportion and definitely not with such fervour. Conclusion The Karelian Exodus was a unique phenomenon in Canadian history. It intertwines histories of different cultures, nationalities, states and political ideologies. The subject of the Karelian Exodus cannot be approached without detailed reference to the histories of Canada, the United States, the Soviet Union, Finland, as well as that of the Finnish culture and international communism. Although stricken by depression, the 1930s was an exiting decade in the western hemisphere. It was a period of radical change and conservative backlashes, of despair, on the one hand and grandiose aspirations for the future, on the other. It was an epoch of principles and strong political morals. It was a time of economic turmoil, social uncertainty, heightened nationalism and political radicalism. It is in this atmosphere of anguish, downfalls, aspirations, victories and betrayals that the Karelian Exodus was conceived. I have analysed the out migration from two major perspectives. First, from above, through the histories of communist leaders in Kremlin, Karelia and Canada who orchestrated the Karelian Project. History from above in Harvey J. Kayes words is the examination of the socio-political structures and historical processes by which the ruling elite has exploited the poor. In other words the history of who rides whom and how (Kaye 1992:84). I have demonstrated that orders for the Karelian recruitment, as well as all its technical and financial aspects were dictated from above, by the top echelons of the VKP(b), the Comintern and, in some cases, by the CPC. Political developments in the Soviet Union had a decisive impact on radical workers in Canada. An extensive propaganda campaign prais-
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ing the industrial and cultural successes in the Soviet Union, unleashed in Canada by the Comintern, the CPC and the radical press, attracted to Karelia thousands of workers in search of employment and a more equitable political system. Cominterns web of international communism ensured the obedience of Canadian communist leaders to the objectives of the Karelian Project, although the latter strongly disapproved of it. Political authority vested by Kremlin and Karelian bosses in men such as Tenhunen and Latva ensured cooperation of the CPC and local organizations in the recruitment scheme. However, instructions from otherside did not disseminate downwards in a straightforward fashion. Local leaders and masses responded in ambiguous ways to the orders. Each party had its own interests at stake. Gylling and Rovio had nationalistic ambitions, the CPC was concerned with the proletarian cause in North America, Tenhunen and Latva were attracted by the ideology as well as by individual gains, while the masses saw in the Project an opportunity to escape from their social, cultural and financial miseries. Causes of the Canadian Karelian Fever the reasons that prompted 2000 Canadians to leave for Karelia were as diverse as they could be. Many emigrated out of a sincere desire to make the Soviet republic a workers paradise. Many more left in search of employment and other socio-economic securities. Several migrs were attracted by Karelias Finnish heritage and geographical proximity to the country of origin. As has been shown, numerous individuals left only to follow families and friends to Karelia in a pattern of chain migration. Yet others traveled out of mere curiosity and in search of adventure. Most emigrants felt that North America failed their dreams, whether cultural, social, economic or political. Each group of emigrants had their own set of overlapping motives to go to Karelia. These reasons generated a collective action from below that we know as the Karelian Fever.
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History cannot be viewed as a black and white picture. Nothing in the historical process is definite and precise there is no true history. To a certain extent, history resembles a multicolour photograph, whose images are as multitude as the number of angles from which it can be viewed. The colours are in constant motion blending, synchronizing and creating harmony. So it is in history; there are dazzling facts that stand out as main forces of the historical process. It is only the blending of these facts, their dynamism and spatial interdependency that generate historical harmony and rationalize the historical process. The existing explanations of the Karelian Exodus cannot be approached apart from each other. It is indispensable to demonstrate, as this paper has attempted to do, the way in which push and pull factors have played themselves out over time and space in the context of socio-political and historical conditionalities. For Soviet communists it was a project, for Canadian Finns it became a fever, while in Canada it is remembered as an exodus.
References CPCs resolution on transfers to Karelia. NAC, Group 28 IV, 4, reel M-7377, 2 A 1261. Letter #17 report on the meeting of CEC 9.6.1931. The Comintern Fonds. NAC MG 10 K 280. Letter #21 report on the meeting of the CEC 14.7.1931, The Comintern Fonds NAC MG 10 K 282. Letter #7 report on the meeting of CEC 7.4.1931. The Comintern Fonds. NAC MG 10 K 280. Letter from Matti Tenhunen to Tim Buck 17.5.1931. NAC MG 10 K 282. The Comintern Fonds file 182
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Letter from Matti Tenhunen to Tim Buck, 22.4.1931. NAC MG 10 K 282. The Comintern Fonds file 182. Letter from the Central Agitprop Department of the CPC to the Cultural Dept. at the Profintern in Moscow, USSR, National Archives of Canada (NAC), Group 28 IV, 4, reel M-7376, 4 A 2723. Letter from the central committee to Alf Hautimki, 15.11.1929. NAC, Group 28 IV, 4, reel M-7376, 1 A 0126. Letter from the central committee to G. Sundquist 25.3.1931. NAC, Group 28 IV, 4, reel M-7377, 2 A 1130. Spiski pribyvshikh iz Amerki i Canady inostrannykh rabochikh-finnov v Kareliyu (obtained from Varpu Lindstrm and Eila Lahti Argutina) The Comintern Fonds. NAC MG 10 K 269. The Communist International, 1919-1943 Documents, Volume III 1929-1943, selected and edited by Jane Degras, 1971. Frank & CO. LTD.: Oxford University Press.
Angus, Ian, 1981. Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada. Montreal: Vanguard Press. Harris, Susan, 2000. Nilos Journey: Finnish American Migration to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. M.A. Thesis, Norwich University. Kaye, Harvey J, 1992. The Education of Desire: Marxists and the Writing of History. New York: Routledge. Lindstrm, Varpu, 1990. Defiant Sisters: A Social History of the Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada, 1890-1930. York University. Lindstrm, Varpu, 2000. From Heroes to Enemies: Finns in Canada, 1937-1947. Beaverton, Ontario: Aspasia Books. Lindstrm, Varpu, 2004. The Finnish Canadian Communities During the Decade of the Depression in Karelian Exodus: Finnish Communities in North America and Soviet Karelia during the Depression Era, edited
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by Ronald Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin, Toronto: Aspasia Books. Pogorelskin, Alexis, 2004. Communism and the Co-ops: Recruiting and Financing the Finnish-American Migration to Karelia in Karelian Exodus: Finnish Communities in North America and Soviet Karelia during the Depression Era, edited by Ronald Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin, Toronto: Aspasia Books. Roberts, Barbara, 1988. Whence They Came: Deportation form Canada 1900-1935. University of Ottawa. Sevander, Mayme, 1993 Red Exodus: Finnish-American Emigration to Russia. Duluth: OSCAT. Sevander, Mayme, 2006. Skitaltsi. Petrozavodsk: PetrGU. Smith, Ralph Henry, 1933. A Sociological Survey of the Finnish Settlement of New York Mills, Minnesota and its Adjacent Territory. A collection of letters compiled by Darrel Nicholson. Takala Irina, 2004. From the Frying Pan into the Fire: North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in Journal of Finnish Studies, Vol 8 No. 1 Tenhunen, Matti, 1931. Soviet Karelia in Vapaus 2 May, 1931. Weidenhamer, Emily, 2005. Disillusionment on the Grandest of Scales: Finnish American in the Soviet Union, 1917-1939 in Vestnik: The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies, issue 3, winter 2005, Finnish Americans in the Soviet Union. Worley, Matthew, 2004. Courting Disaster? The Communist International in the Third Period in In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period, edited by Matthew Worley. New York: St Martin Press.
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" " " "? , : , )
, . , , , (), . , , , - , . , , , , , .
Heaven or Hell on Earth? Heaven or Hell on Earth?
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Heaven or Hell on Earth? Soviet Karelias Propaganda War of 1934-1935 in the Finnish Canadian Press
Varpu Lindstrm York University in Toronto Heaven or Hell on Earth? Varpu Lindstrm Introduction The mass movement of Finnish Canadians to the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (KASSR) organized by the Soviet Karelian Technical Aid (KTA) reached its peak in 19311932. By 19331934 hundreds of disappointed immigrants were returning back to Canada. Irina Takala has estimated the total number of North American returnees to be around 1500 by the Fall of 1935. (Takala 2004:120) While many who had made the return trip to Soviet Karelia remained silent about their experiences some were more vocal in voicing their disappointments. Rumors and negative stories about the conditions in Karelia as well as accusations of fraud and misinformation began to circulate in the Finnish community. Two Finnish Canadian newspapers, Canadan Uutiset and Vapaa Sana published first hand accounts by returnees. (Kero 1983:181186; Canadan Uutiset 1934) The most influential document, however, was one written by a respected socialist, V. Suomela, Kuusi kuukautta Karjalassa: Mit siirtolainen nki ja koki Neuvosto-Karjalassa [Six months in Karelia: What an immigrant saw and experienced in Soviet Karelia] published
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by Vapaa Sana in Sudbury in 1934. At the same time the capitalist press was discounting Soviet achievements, accusing the Soviet Union of using slave labour in its large construction projects, of summary arrests, and of starving its own citizens. To counter attack these rumors and accusations, the Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC), on the invitation of Edward Gylling, the Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars, decided to send a delegation to Soviet Karelia to investigate and report on the true nature of the conditions there. Simultaneously, North American comrades in Soviet Karelia drafted their own response to the returnees accusations in a document entitled 1483 Neuvosto-Karjalaan siirtyneen tylisen lausunto siit, mit tapahtuu Neuvosto-Karjalassa [Statement by 1483 workers who moved to Soviet Karelia about what is happening in Soviet Karelia]. The report of the FOC delegation and the statement by 1483 Karelian workers were published together by Vapaus Press in Sudbury in late October 1935 as a book entitled Sosialismin voittokulku Karjalassa [The triumph of socialism in Karelia]. This paper will first examine the reasons for the dissatisfaction as outlined in V. Suomelas book. It will then analyse the response by the Karelian workers and the results of the fact finding expedition of 1935. The major challenge of this paper is to reconcile how committed socialists could come to such opposite views about the economic, social, and political conditions in Soviet Karelia. These three contemporary attempts to give accurate information about Soviet Karelian conditions also afford us an opportunity to analyse the power of contradictory investigative reporting. Six Months in Karelia V. Suomela and his family moved from Canada to Soviet Karelia in 1932 and returned six months later in 1933. In his own words, Suomela was a
Heaven or Hell on Earth?
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committed socialist filled with the spirit of communism who firmly believed in the socialist possibilities of Soviet Karelia. It took him almost two years after his return to Canada to summon up the courage to write about his experiences however bitter he felt. He explained: For a long time I was uncertain of what to do but then decided to tell the truth. (Suomela 1935: 4) Suomelas truth was a scathing attack of the Karelian movement and of the economic and political conditions in Karelia. His 64 page publication was widely distributed by its publisher, Vapaa Sana Press, that was strongly opposed to the movement to Karelia. Vapaa Sana was a new newspaper in Canada, established in 1931 in Sudbury, Ontario by former editors of the more radical Finnish Canadian newspaper Vapaus. In 1935, Vapaa Sana was a Social Democratic newspaper in contrast to the much larger socialist Vapaus that was the official organ of the FOC. The first question to ask is why would Suomela take the trouble to write such a long expos about Karelia, setting himself up for ridicule by his former comrades in North America and Karelia? Suomelas stated motive was to save others from making his mistake. Suomela does not take personal responsibility for his choices. He sees himself as being duped by the recruiters, the propaganda sent from Karelia, and the business men in the FOC and KTA. He was certain that money was being made at the expense of the immigrants by the leadership who collected commissions and fees. ...we allow ourselves to be fooled by the smooth talking, money grabbing men, who steal our hard-earned small savings in the name of the revolution. And we believe the lies that are spread by the clique of men in the name of this workers mass movement. (Suomela 1935:45)
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Suomela suggests that due to strict censorship and fear of repercussions the news that reaches North America from Soviet Karelia is strictly controlled propaganda. Relatives dare not write anything negative and the official news of achievements are repeated verbatum while in private the nick name of Karjala became Kurjala (place of misery). According to Suomela, visitors who toured Soviet Karelia were given the wrong impression as they were escorted to certain designated schools, stores, or places of work that gave the best possible picture of Soviet Karelia. This false image of Soviet Karelia was then perpetuated in their many travel reports. Those immigrants who returned to Canada were divided on how to deal with their trip. Suomela recalls that heated discussions on the topic were held already on the ship back to Canada. Some chose to stay quiet, others thought that they should continue to praise the Soviet system in the interest of the larger workers movement, and some decided that they ought to tell the truth as they had experienced it. The stated motivation behind Suomelas booklet is to set the record straight. In his opening paragraph he promises to answer the question: Was it heaven on earth or was it hell? (Suomela 1935:2) There seemed to be no room for compromise. The focus of his criticism was centered on two main questions: What was the standard of living like in Soviet Karelia and how free were the workers in a socialist state? Suomela answers the standard of living question in detail. He referred to the amount of statistical and embellished news coming from the Soviet Union. He wished to go beyond the official propaganda and examine how quickly and how much the standard of living and the educational and cultural achievements had risen since the Bolsheviks took control of Karelia. Are the highly praised social services (free education, health care, unemployment insurance, old age pension) in fact superior to those in capitalist countries? Part of his methodology, that no doubt made his account ring true in many ears, was to incorporate actual stories of real
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people, many of whom were well known in Canada. This methodology allowed him to individualize the statistics and personalize the immigrants experiences. Suomela was disappointed from the day he first set foot in the Soviet Union. He was stunned by the poverty, crime, disrepair and filth in Leningrad; he had not expected to see so many uniformed soldiers and police that seemed to patrol everywhere; and he was dismayed by the lack of organization and many delays. His next disappointment was his horrible train ride with small children in a cold, dirty train. This was followed by the inadequate housing conditions in the immigrant built barracks in Petrozavodsk that did not afford his family privacy or adequate shelter. Ironically, in the midst of the rich forests of Karelia, there was shortage of firewood. His greatest disappointment, however, was the poor quality of food. He explained: I have travelled all my life on land and sea I have seen and experienced many things but I have never in my life felt such disappointment as I did in this house for the immigrants. I had never felt that my future prospects were as bleak as they now were. I saw many men, women and children cry in this house. The parents cried tears of disappointment, children cried for bread... (Suomela 1935:8) According to Suomela the inadequate food supplies in Karelia compromised peoples ability to fight disease. There was sickness everywhere. At worst he witnessed starvation, particularly among the local Karelian population, who did not have the special privileges afforded to the North Americans. Suomela was affected by the many sick children, the epidemics, and horrified by the state of the medical care, the conditions in the hospitals, and the long lines everywhere. Medicare may have
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been free, but it was not readily available, and as a consequence people suffered and many children died. Once again, Suomela recounts actual cases, real suffering of well-known people. He concludes: Signs of hunger can be seen in all the faces, same with suffering and despair. Where is the much touted welfare? (Suomela1935:16) The promised free education for all had been a powerful inducement for the North American immigrants. According to Suomela, this was much exaggerated. He claims that two thirds of the local population were illiterate. Although attending school was compulsory, during the entire six months that Suomela stayed in Karelia no one ever suggested that his own children should go to school. If they had demanded it, Suomela would have done everything in his power to keep his children from going as it, according to Suomela, was tantamount to murder because of the raging illnesses, epidemics and overall poor, drafty, and freezing cold school buildings. The working situation in Karelia was another disappointment for Suomela. Workers, according to him, were sold like slaves to the many industries in Karelia. Suomela, a car mechanic, had no choice but to take the job offered to him and accept the wages negotiated on his behalf by the head of this human slave-trade of the Resettlement Administration, Kalle Aronen. Suomela disputes the hailed seven hour work day. He claims that invariably workers are expected and strongly pressured to put in extra hours, even extra days for no compensation. Many find the pace unrealistic, particularly because of the inadequate food supplies. Complaints are not tolerated and strikes are banned. Criticism can get one black-listed or labeled as enemy of the people with dire consequences. Everyone must belong to a union, but workers have no actual say in union matters. Suomelas observations go beyond the North American immigrants conditions. He feels great pity toward the suffering Karelians, particularly
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those making their living from the land, the kulaks, whose life is insufferable. By using the Karelian dialect, Suomela adds credibility to the statements of old Karelians who told him that however bad the situation in Russia has been before, however poor the Karelian conditions and suffering in the past, never before has it been as bad as under the current communist dictatorship. The second major theme in Suomelas book was the question if workers have freedom in Soviet Karelia? Suomela claims he is still a committed socialist when writing his expos of Soviet Karelia. He states that the capitalist system has collapsed and is reaching its inevitable demise. His criticism is not against socialist principles, but rather that those principles have been subverted, improperly carried out, in Soviet Karelia. Not only do the workers not have the standard of living and services that were promised to them, they also did not have any power or freedom. Suomela succinctly summarizes his findings as follows: Workers Freedom Do they have freedom of press? No Do they have freedom of assembly? No Do they have freedom of speech? No Do they have the right to strike? No Do they have the right to change their place of work without permission? No Do they have the right to travel? No Do they have the right for leave from work except when ordered? No Do they have the right to choose what they eat? No Do they have the right to choose their representatives to the unions? No
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Varpu Lindstrm Do they have the right to send a tired comrade to a rest home? No Do they have the right to change their place of living without permission? No Do they have the right to leave the country without permission? No Do they have the right to give food to the hungry if they have extra? No Do they have the right to share their home with travelers? No Do they have the right to criticize the government? No (Suomela 1935:5758)
Suomela concludes that what exists in Soviet Karelia is a dictatorship of the Communist Party and that the dictators control every move and action of the workers. To Suomela, freedom in Soviet Karelia was a bad joke. It simply did not exist. There was only one political party, the Communist Party, and even that was frequently cleansed of its bad elements, those who dared to speak up or be critical of the Party. One major cleansing occurred while Suomela was in Karelia in the spring of 1933. Suomela was equally disappointed by the lack of equality among people in Karelia and the class distinctions that could be seen everywhere, in trains, at work places, on the street. The American cars brought over by the workers now belonged to the party bosses. They had better housing, could employ servants, did not have to do manual labour. Suomela had equal scorn for his fellow North Americans, even those who had been socialist activists and union organizers in North America, including Kalle Aronen, who disregarded their socialist principles in Soviet Karelia and gladly accepted their extra entitlements. He explains:
Heaven or Hell on Earth? We were so full of comaradery that we accepted for ourselves better housing, received four or five times better food, bought more clothes and shoes from the immigrants specialty stores even though our American chests were full of clothes, while the Russian walked naked and in shoes made of bark. This was our comradeship, this was our so much talked about equality. Selfish interests blossomed everywhere... (Suomela 1935:1415)
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Suomela recalls how the North Americans complained when the specialty stores were shut down in 1933. To a committed socialist this kind of behaviour contradicted true socialist principles of equality and lead to divisions within different ethnicities in Karelia. According to Suomela, the Karelians disliked, even hated, the privileged North Americans. Suomela also makes references to people who disappeared. He claims to have witnessed forced labour on the construction of the canal where most miserable humans toiled in horrible conditions. Suomela describes these political prisoners as innocent workers whose crime had been to speak against the injustices they saw or who had dared to criticize the system. He describes the culture of informants and the consequent life lived in fear of neighbours. He concludes that: The Russian dictators power lies at the end of their bayonets. (Suomela 1935:6) Not everything in Soviet Karelia was negative. According to Suomela the army seemed disciplined, well dressed, well equipped, and was strong in numbers. He also pointed out that on the outskirts of Leningrad he saw new, well organized large industries. He noted that women had equal opportunity to work in the Soviet Union. They were not only carpenters, lumber workers, and mechanics, but also soldiers. However their wages were considerably less than those given to men. He was impressed with the ease at which it was possible to get married and again divorced. He was somewhat impressed with the social activities, May Day celebra-
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tions, dances, theatre and cinema and he liked the fact that Russian women swam without bathing suits! There was no unemployment in Russia, and it was true that old age pension, although small, was available to workers on retirement. Healthcare was free and people received full pay while sick. However because of the inadequacy of the healthcare it is not a great benefit. Suomela noted that Soviet Union was rapidly industrializing and its level of civilization would increase as people become literate. The positive aspects were stated without elaboration and the conclusion returned, once again, to the outright condemnation of the Soviet Karelian dictatorship. The Triumphant March of Socialism in Karelia Suomelas publication, combined with other negative articles in the Canadian press, created heated debate and raised many questions both amongst the critics and the supporters of the Karelian movement. Because of negative assertions by the returnees, the FOC deemed it necessary to clear the air and to send a trusted delegation of people to Soviet Karelia. Gus Sundqvist, the Secretary General of the FOC, was entrusted with the organizing of the travel details. He discussed the idea in a letter to Edvard Gylling, who responded with an enthusiastic endorsement of a visit from a delegation from Canada. Gylling invited the delegation to tour Karelia, promised to have the delegation met at Leningrad, or any other place on the Soviet border, and agreed to cover all the expenses caused by the delegations tour while in the Soviet Union. He further suggested that the delegation arrive already in March (1935) when the forest work is in full swing so that the delegation could get a better sense of that industry. It is also noteworthy that in November 1934, when immigration to Soviet Karelia from North America was pretty well at a standstill and return migration in full swing, Gylling suggested in his letter to Sundqvist: The arrival of your delegation would be welcome for another reason as well.
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We could discuss the further continued immigration of forest workers and other workers to Karelia. (Gyllings letter to Sudqvist 26.11.1934). On February 26, 1935 Sundqvist received the welcome news from the Consulate General of the U.S.S.R in New York that visas had been granted. (Consulate General of U.S.S.R. letter to FOC 26.2.1935). The delegation consisted of four members, A. Autio, N. Heikkil, M. Hedman and G. Sundqvist. The delegation arrived in Leningrad on 25 March, 1935 and continued to Petrozavodsk the same day. Sundqvists first impression of Soviet Karelia was positive. After visiting three different lumber camps near Petrozavodsk, and after speaking with dozens of Canadian and American lumber workers privately or in groups, he wrote a private letter to William Eklund, editor of the Finnish Canadian newspaper Vapaus. The letter dated April 3, 1935 explains: We have spoken to many workers and have not found a single worker who expressed a wish to return there (to Canada)... and the fact is that the kind of person who wants to move back from here to a capitalist country must have something wrong with his head or then he is here for some specific purpose. (Sundqvists letter to Eklund, 3.4.1935). Sundqvist further alerts the editor of Vapaus that he will be receiving a hefty manuscript sent from Karelia and signed by over a thousand Karelian workers. The manuscript that had been prepared in Karelia before the delegation arrived was in response to: the scurrilous attacks that returnees from here have made and that have been so eagerly spread by social fascist newspapers such as Vapaa Sana and others. (Sundqvists letter to Eklund, 3.4.1935). Sundqvist urges the publication of the manuscript first in Vapaus and then in book form for further distribution. He vouches for the accuracy of the contents as far as he has had the op-
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portunity to observe the situation in Karelia and as far as he has read the manuscript. The delegation had an opportunity to observe the May Day celebrations in Leningrad which Sundqvist found an awe inspiring experience, before returning to Canada in late May 1935. On the voyage to New York they wrote a pamphlet for publication that described their observations and experiences in Canada. On June 3, 1935 Sundqvist sent the delegations manuscript to Kalle Aronen in the Resettlement Administration in Petrozavodsk for his comments. Sundqvist pointed out that the pamphlet was designed to be a companion piece to the previous manuscript sent from there by Karelian workers. Immediately upon their return to Canada the delegation went on lecture tours, first speaking together as a group and then individually, to spread the good news about Soviet Karelia to suspicious Finnish speaking audiences in Canada. (Sundqvists letter to Aronen 3.6.1935). While lecture tours provided an important opportunity for Canadians to ask questions directly from the members of the delegation, the most powerful way to disseminate information about Soviet Karelia more widely was the printed media. In October, 1935 the delegations observations, together with the manuscript written by Karelian workers and sent for publication to Vapaus came out as a book. The first part (27 pages) of Sosialismin voittokulku Karjalassa is entitled 1483 NeuvostoKarjalaan siirtyneen tylisen lausunto siit, mit tapahtuu NeuvostoKarjalassa [Statement of 1483 workers who moved to Soviet Karelia about what is taking place in Soviet Karelia]. Since 1483 workers could not have collectively written this document, the author or authors have deliberately chosen to stay anonymous. Within the text the voice is that of the workers: we the North American workers believe... However a letter in June, 1935 sent by Sundqvist to Kalle Aronen, who was in charge of the Resettlement Administration in Soviet Karelia, refers to the docu-
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ment and discusses its publication. (Sundqvists letter to Aronen 3.6.1935). Aronen himself may not have been the author of the document but his office was clearly responsible for the delivery of it to the North American Finnish press. The document has two main objectives: to discredit the information and informants who returned from Karelia and to provide statistical and factual evidence of the triumph of socialism. The second part (30 pages) of Sosialismin voittokulku consists of the delegations own manuscript Canadan suomalaisten raatajien Neuvosto-Kajalanlhetystn lausunto [Statement from the Finnish Canadian toilers delegation to Soviet-Karelia]. This section is signed by the four members of the delegation. It is designed to give accurate and detailed eyewitness accounts and current information about Soviet Karelia. The tone of the first part by 1483 workers is angry, aggressive, and at times threatening. The document reflects the shift in the attitudes towards korenizatsiia policies that encouraged local nationalities and their cultural and language maintenance. The document highlights the increasing fear of imminent war in the region and the suspicion that North American immigrant communities had been compromised and infiltrated by saboteurs. The document, although originally drafted shortly before Kustaa Rovio and Edward Gylling, the leading architects of the Finnicization of Karelia, were removed from power, was not ultimately published in book form until after the two Finnish Karelian leaders were already deposed. The goal of the document was to refute in the strongest possible terms the negative propaganda, the unprecedented, unrestrained, furious attack against the Soviet Union. The document condemns the dirty slander spread by returning immigrants, bourgeois agents masquerading as workers, in Canada and the United States. Suomelas publication, Kuusi Kuukautta Karjalassa, receives special scorn and is quoted at length. Its author (Suomela is not mentioned by name but the title of the publication is) is labeled as an agent of White Finland whose writings are indistin-
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guishable from Finlands anti-Soviet, Academic Karelia Society inspired, propaganda. It is suggested that he, along with many other unnamed Finnish North American immigrants, moved to Soviet Karelia in the first place for the express purpose of discrediting the proletarian fatherland and specifically Soviet Karelia. While doing so, the document argues, the immigrants were paving the way for Finlands planned and imminent military invasion of Karelia. The authors are convinced that when faced with true facts and information the entire social fascists and white bandits structure of lies will collapse in its own decomposing rot. (Sundqvist 1935: 67) The document further argued that it was no coincidence that these agents, posturing as immigrants, were now spreading their hateful propaganda in North America at a time when similar insidious plots to discredit the Soviet Union had been uncovered in the Soviet Union including terrorist acts such as the murder of Sergei Kirov. The objective of the returning immigrants was the same as that of all other saboteurs in their common front against the Soviet Union. The returnees were taking their first steps in the war against the Soviet Union. This stage preceding the military attack was without weapons but it was nevertheless war. (Sundqvist 1935: 10) The mission of the North American immigrant agents posing as experts was not only to spread misinformation about Karelia in Canada and the United States but also to sow the seeds of discontent among workers in Karelia. They waged a whisper campaign glorifying the capitalist system and North America. They whined and complained about everything in Karelia and predicted the inevitable demise of the socialist system. These agents, these enemies of their own class, had cleverly infiltrated the North American workers organizations so that they could undermine them and be able to travel to Karelia to be saboteurs. It was, therefore, impossible for the immigrant agents from North America to recognize the many achievements in Karelia because they were blinded
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by their express mission to destroy the socialist system and help extend Greater Finland to Karelia. For this reason alone, the pamphlet argued, nothing that the returning immigrants said could have any merit. Having discredited the informants, the document then proceeds to give detailed statistics about the rapid expansion of the Karelian economy, the increase in workers wages, the eradication of unemployment, the rapid industrialization of Soviet Karelia, the building of factories and industries, and the progress in the collectivization of farms. The document highlights the real equality of women and the achievements in health care. One major claim was the eradication of illiteracy: illiteracy is nearly gone and will be gone altogether in two years (Sundqvist 1935. 15) The pamphlet further confirms that instruction in two languages is totally protected as the victorious proletariat has destroyed the old Tsarist Russification policies. In the time between the writing of this document and its publication the conciliatory policies toward national minorities was changing rapidly and the struggle against Finnish bourgeois nationalism took centre stage. In the Fall of 1935 many Finnish leaders were ousted, hundreds were arrested, and the language policies of Karelia were no longer sacrosanct. Markku Kangaspuro has pointed out the time lag that existed between official pronouncements and the changing policies toward national minorities in Karelia. (Kangaspuro 2000. 282-322). In many ways events in Karelia shifted at such speed that they now stood in contradiction of these official printed pronouncements. The critics of the pamphlet in Canada were quick to seize on these inconsistencies. Another major point that the 1483 workers document wished to make was the wide-ranging power the workers had in Soviet democracy. They had the ability to vote and to collectively decide on Karelian matters. We are the masters of our land, we the workers own our socialist country. (Sundqvist 1935. 31) The document then proceeds to explain
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how proletarian dictatorship is in fact the most democratic form of government; a real democracy that supports the aspirations of the majority. This segment of the document refutes, step-by-step, the allegations about the illusory power of workers made in Suomelas Kuusi kuukautta Neuvosto-Karjalassa. The document concedes that Soviet Karelia is work in progress and that with success has come some difficulties, such as shortages of supplies, housing, and food. But these pale in comparison with the incredible achievements. The document reflects confidence that all of the difficulties can be overcome with the collective sacrifices and hard labour by the enthusiastic builders of socialism in Karelia. The concluding sentence of the anonymous pamphlet by 1483 North American workers in Soviet Karelia is ominous. It bluntly declares that criticism of any kind of the Soviet Union or its leadership will no longer be tolerated. It calls for ever more vigilant and steadfast support for the leader of the workers of the world, Comrade Stalin, by crushing all activities by anti-Soviet outcasts from the start. (Sundqvist 1935:33) The second part of the book is quite the opposite, in tone as well as in substance. The delegations report is measured, calm, even conciliatory. The delegation speaks of the many difficulties and tries to understand why some immigrants were dissatisfied and had left Soviet Karelia. It describes in detail the primitive housing conditions, the necessary rationing of food, the living conditions in lumber camps, and in urban areas. The tone of the document is hopeful and optimistic. Were Kuusela saw nothing but misery, Sundqvist and his colleagues saw progress and hope for a better tomorrow. Were Kuusela found dissatisfied workers, the delegation found workers who were quite content with their situation, and who would much rather toil in Karelian forests than be unemployed in Canada. The delegation argues that the 20 per cent that had left were a minority who had gone to the Soviet Union for wrong reasons, unprepared for the
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difficulties and unable to adapt to the new system despite the fact that the information they had received in Canada prior to the voyage had clearly stated the challenges in Karelia. The delegation argued that the 80 per cent who stayed reflected the satisfied majority. According to the delegation, anyone who wished to leave was free to do so. Sundqvist and his colleagues were clearly impressed with the rapid construction of infrastructure in Karelia. They speak of the improvements on the Kirov railroad and the construction of roads and canals. They tour the new industries and are impressed by the enthusiasm of the workers and their commitment to voluntary overtime. There is no mention of prisoners or slave labour. They see signs of improvements in construction of housing, hospitals, schools and other social and cultural institutions. In short, they see a socialist state under construction and are confident that when complete it will surpass in its glory any capitalist system of government. The strength of the delegations report is that it attempts to strike a calm, factual tone. It gives detailed information about the living and working conditions and wages in Karelia. This was a deliberate calculation. The authors knew that this is the kind of information that their North American readers were craving for. They were naturally concerned about the serious accusations Suomela and other immigrant returnees had made. They wanted to have trusted information and details not inflammatory propaganda or accusations. It seems that Sundqvist had some concerns about the non-political nature of the report. When Sundqvist sent a draft of the report to Kalle Aronen for comment he apologetically wrote: A few words about this statement. You may well find it too detailed, that it pays too much attention to small matters, in other words not very political. And indeed that is true. But as you know the delegations other members were particularly inter-
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Varpu Lindstrm ested in precisely these kinds of insignificant details. And taking into consideration that the document sent from there was published here recently, I too feel that this kind of explanation of details is needed here. (Sundqvists letter to Aronen. 3.6.1935)
Sundqvist does express his political views in the introduction to the book. There he too accuses the returnees of harbouring hidden motives to discredit socialism. He also speaks of the fear of war, and he praises the Soviet system. Conclusion A comparative analysis of these three contemporary documents is revealing. Unlike letters that are frequently censored or biographies that benefit from hindsight, these investigative documents are trying to make sense of the rapidly changing conditions in Soviet Karelia in 19331935 while they were actually happening. They all claim to have the same purpose: to tell the truth about Soviet Karelia by giving facts or sharing eye-witness accounts. The truth, however, was in the eye of the beholder: some found hell and others heaven in the making. All documents contain propaganda and attempt to persuade the reader to see the situation from one particular perspective. V. Suomela was a family man. He had gone to Karelia not only to build socialism but to give his family a better life, his children a better future. His disappointment was magnified by his concern for his wife and children. His dissatisfaction was in direct proportion to his expectations. It is apparent that he made up his mind about the bad situation on the first day that he arrived in Leningrad. Unable to take responsibility for his choices, he blames the recruiters. He is angry and vengeful. Although his stated goal is to help others he also has a personal need to settle a score with the recruiters. His use of language is harsh and his accusations, while based on details, were often severely
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generalized. The credibility of the document was not enhanced by such emotionally charged generalized statements as sending children to school was tantamount to murder. He believes that his disappointment is shared by all other North American immigrants in Karelia and that they would all return if they could. The power of the Suomela document then is not in its tone but in its penetrating analytical aspects and the fact that he had been in Karelia for six months. The Suomela document does not only discuss the poor economic and social conditions but it expands to criticism of the way socialism was carried out in Karelia. The core of his criticism is the lack of power and freedom that workers actually have in the workers state. The criticism of the dictatorial nature of the government, the arbitrariness in decision making, and stifling the individuals voice, resonated well with the critics of the Soviet Union and its socialist system. While Suomela still claims to believe in international socialism, but not in the brand implemented in Soviet Karelia, his publication at times contradicts this assertion. In contrast, the 1483 North American workers document, is both defensive and aggressive. It uses several pages to discredit Suomela and other immigrants who have dared to slander Soviet Karelia. The document defends all aspects of the Soviet Karelian life and politics. This document, while clearly designed for North American audiences, may also have had a secondary objective. It may have been designed to placate the critics of pro-Finnish activities in Karelia and to safeguard the minority rights. By publicly accusing some immigrants of being enemy agents and saboteurs, and by stating that the war with Finland was imminent, the Finnish Karelian leadership may have been protecting their own fragile positions of power in Soviet Karelia. By demonstrating that they too were aggressively waging war against the immigrant saboteurs and protecting Karelia from the imminent threat from Finland, they may have hoped to
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appease their critics in Karelia. The aggressive tone of the document, however, did not inspire its North American readers. Of the three documents the FOC delegations report was most measured. It attempted to reflect the pros and cons of life in Soviet Karelia. It explained why some immigrants were dissatisfied while others were satisfied. The observations were limited to the selected events and places that the delegation witnessed. Their conclusions were interpreted through the socialist world view that the members of the delegation all shared. It was coloured by their firm belief that the capitalist system was about to perish and the socialist system was the hope of the future. This bolstered their desire to interpret their experiences in a positive light. These three fact-finding documents, these attempts to tell the truth, are a testament to the power of subjective analysis. They demonstrate how reasonable, intelligent people with different world views come to contradictory conclusions about the same events and phenomena. They are examples of how difficult contemporary truth finding missions are since they are necessarily based on limited observations and lack the depth of historical analysis. In hindsight, one can find clues in all three documents of what was to come: the national cleansing of North American workers, the mass murder of innocent immigrants in 19371938. In the contemporary context of Canada in 1935, however, the documents were merely contradictory views of life in Soviet Karelia. The examination and analysis of these documents also illustrates why history takes generations to digest.
References Consulate General of the U.S.S.R. in New York letter to Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC) 26.2.1935. National Archives of Canada (NAC) MG28 V46.
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Gylling Edvard letter to Gus Sundqvist 26.11 (1934). NAC MG 28 V46. Sundqvist Gus letter to Kalle Aronen 3.6.1935). NAC MG 28 V46. Sundqvist Gus letter to William Eklund 3.4.1935. NAC MG28 V46. Canadan Uutiset 1934: Palannut punatauti paratolasta 7.3.1934; Venjlt palannut suomalainen tymies kertoo kokemuksistaan Neuvostoliitossa 15.8.1934; Published letter from M. V. Karstula 10.10.1934. Kangaspuro, Markku 2000: Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta. Nationalismi ja suomalaiset punaiset Neuvostoliiton vallankytss 1920-1939. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Sura. Kangaspuro, Markku 2004: The Soviet Depression and Finnish Immigrants in Soviet Karelia. Journal of Finnish Studies Vol 8 No 1, 132-140. Kero, Reino 1983: Neuvosto-Karjalaa rakentamassa. Pohjois-Amerikan suomalaiset tekniikan tuojina 1930-luvun Neuvosto-Karjalassa. Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura. Suomela, V, 1935: Kuusi kuukautta Karjalassa: Mit siirtolainen nki ja koki Neuvosto-Karjalassa. Sudbury: Vapaa Sana Press. Sundqvist, Gus, 1935: Sosialismin voittokulku Karjalassa. Sudbury: Vapaus Publishing. Takala, Irina 2004: From the Frying Pan into the Fire. Journal of Finnish Studies Vol 8 No 1, 105-117.
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? 1934-1935 .
, , 1930- . Canadan Uutiset Vapaa San. , , , , , .
Controversy over the Piatiletka Controversy over the Piatiletka
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Controversy over the Piatiletka. The First Five-Year Plan and the International Debates of the Early 1930s
Timo Vihavainen University of Helsinki Controversy over the Piatiletka Timo Vihavainen 1928-32 a Neglected Period in Soviet Studies? Formidable amount of books and treatises have been devoted to Hitlers rise to power in 1933 and also to the social and economic history of the Soviet Union during the First Five-Year Plan in 1928-32. However, it is really difficult to find, for instance, any special studies concerning the central issues of international politics of that period on their own right. Could it be that scholars have dismissed as uninteresting many of the issues which by hindsight are known later to lead to a dead end? This is done although those issues actually were considered most important of all, for the time being. Instead, scholars seem to have concentrated rather on such items, which are interesting in the light of later developments, especially from the point of view of the future Second World War, which every researcher of the period sees in the horizon. Here, I want to highlight some points, which, to my mind, could also shed some light on the general background of the immigration to Karelia from North America.
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Timo Vihavainen
The Setting: International Politics and the Great Depression Certainly, its a platitude to say that history should not be read backwards, but forwards; that is to say, when we try to understand the world of the past, we should not be misguided by our afterwisdom, our superior knowledge of the actual consequences of past actions. The future of our ancestors is now our past. They almost certainly anticipated a different future and in so doing they were guided by their own past. We now know something of both of these, but it does not mean that we know either of them well enough and really better than our ancestors. If we dont be careful, we may easily fall prey to the fallacy of projection and begin to see in the past something, which at the time was not there... It happens that the years 1928-32, i.e. the period of the 1st 5-year plan were a very special era of turbulence both in the Soviet Union and the whole world. In the Soviet history it was not just continuation of the preceding period and it was not the beginning of the following period (Fitzpatrick (Ed.) 1978). It seems that we can here, in this short period of history detect an interlude, a tumultuous period of incubation, which finally gave rise to a bifurcation that threw the whole world into a totally new track of development: instead of security and steady progress there was suddenly massive economic depression and unemployment. Instead of the triumphal march of the democratic rule, which had spread to the whole of Europe there was a crisis of democracy. The angry masses were now ready to change their newly-won self-rule to a dictatorship, red or brown, in order to get rid of the unforeseen and incomprehensible state of misery and stagnation that suddenly had grabbed the formerly well-to do burghers and workmen of the most developed part of the world: Western Europe and the USA. True, the World War I had already shaken the fundamentals of European society. It had already ruined German middle class and it had sewn the seeds of national hate and resentment all over Europe. But still,
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up to the early 1930s, the great turn away from democracy had not yet taken place. History no more seemed rational and progressive. Yet, none of the essential elements of the history of what we came to know as the WWII was yet present, not to say obvious for the eyes of the contemporary observer: the end of the Great Depression was not in sight, some thought that it wasnt coming at all. The Soviet Union was not yet an industrial power, in fact, the whole project of creating a command economy in Russia was still in an initial state of construction and in constant jeopardy. Nobody could tell, whether a totally novel socialist system would work. It was especially doubtful, if it could be made work in a backward state like Russia. At least this would be in flagrant contradiction to Marxist theory and opinions were divided not only among the Western Marxists, but among the Soviet communists themselves. The great depression caused political turbulence, but who could foresee that it would give rise to a totalitarian rightist regime? At least this prospect did not very much concern the Soviet leadership. On the contrary, Stalin looked forward to an upsurge of communist movement in the West and ordered the Western communist to concentrate their struggle against the social democrats (especially the leftist social democrats) and not against the fascists, which were just a variety of the bourgeois. The depression rekindled hopes of a world revolution in the Soviet Union and the Komintern was given the task of inciting relentless class-struggle (Stalin July 13 1928 (Works Vol. 11:208)). And who could anticipate a Soviet-German schism in the beginning of the 1930s? In fact, since the 1922 Rapallo pact Germany was the best and only friend of the Soviet Union, it even allowed the Germans to develop forbidden armaments on its territory. And, after all, there was no obvious reason for a German-Soviet animosity. Soviet Union had good relations with Italy. The fascist regime was no obstacle for cooperation on state level (Stalin January 26, 1934 (Works, Vol. 13:302-10)).
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A couple of years were enough to change this all. Today we know well that the Soviet Union was able to start a functioning command economy and to build a mighty war machine in a few years. We know that Hitler came to power and that he cut relations with Stalin in 1934, only to restart them again in 1939. We know that all this turbulent development ended with a Second World War and a Holocaust. We know that Stalins collectivization caused a famine, which killed several million people. We know that a terror machine was built in the Soviet Union and that it decimated the population, not stopping even at the functionaries of the machine itself, who were devoured by the communist Moloch on all levels. The first 5-year plan meant regimentation of labour force and massive build-up of the Gulag. Now we know the horror stories, which have been told to us by Solzhenitsyn, Shalamov, Grossman, Robert Conquest, Russian historians, the Ukrainian government and many more (Conquest 1986). We know, what people were telling to each other about the regime, we have reports of NKVD opinion surveillance (e.g. Sovershenno sekretno), and we have the letters to the government and its organs. We even have the party documents and minutes of its meetings on several levels. In the early 1930s all this looked different. The Decline of the West a time-honoured theme seemed imminent. The bankruptcy of democracy (spelt as bourgeois democracy) seemed obvious to so many Europeans that only Finland among the new states formed as a result of the WWI remained a democracy by the end of the 1930s. Others voted for authoritarianism and totalitarianism, Czechoslovak democracy was finally overrun by its neighbour. The fascist challenge became really serious in the middle of the 1930s. By then even the Soviet Union declared its concern for the preservation of remaining democracy and called all democratic forces to an anti-fascist popular front (Carr 1982).
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But in 1930-32 all this was ahead. Democracy, for Soviet communists was just one form of bourgeois domination. Imperialist France, which was supposed to have commanding power in Poland, Romania, the Baltic States and Finland, was maintained to prepare military intervention to the Soviet Union. The head of this aggression was reputedly Aristide Briand, president of France, who in 1928 had undersigned the Kellogg-Briand agreement, which forbade war as a means of international politics. Along with this story, a couple of other fantastic histories were advertised by the Soviet government: Soviet engineers were plotting against their fatherland and tried to crush the Piatiletka by wrecking. Another political conspiracy was allegedly led by famous economists, Kondratiev and Chaianov and purported to raise the peasants against the Soviet Power (Lih-Naumov-Khlevniuk (Eds.) 1995:187-98). It is not quite clear, who actually believed these stories. The fact was that the Soviet government did put its not too weighty credibility behind these accusations. There was also other kind of information available. Inmates from the Gulag quite often fled and many of them were able to get abroad, mostly though the Finnish border. There they told their stories and published their memoirs (Solonevich 1999). Also news about the Ukrainian famine in 1932-33 were published in Western press. Reporters like Maurice Hindus had the opportunity to witness some of the consequences of the famine themselves (Conquest 1986). But the credibility of news concerning the Soviet Union was a highly political matter at that time. In our days, all experts of Soviet Union know about the political pilgrims. The story about the critics of the Soviet Union is much less known.
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The Great Upheaval. Class War and Revolution from Above in the Soviet Union Towards the end of 1928 Stalin launched the first Five-Year Plan and ordered severe methods of repression against such peasants, who were not willing to deliver grain at the cheap official prices. In 1929 the campaign for wholesale collectivization of agriculture followed, accompanied with a total liquidation of the exploiting classes. The better-to-do peasants were defined to be the class enemy of the toiling peasant masses. These in turn were incited against the exploiters, who were to be expelled from their homes, their property fell prey to the kolkhozes, which were being formed. In principle the poor peasants had a material interest in supporting collectivization, which Stalin defined as a revolution from above. According to the famous Short Course of the History of the CPSU, the specific trait of this revolution was that it was organized from above, while the masses actively supported it from below (Istoriia VKP 1953:291-92). Certainly, there were always some elements that supported Stalins politics of class war. Some probably did so because of sheer material interest, others were fanatical believers of the revolutionary ideology and still others just had to do, what was ordered. However, for the Kremlin leadership it was just as obvious that this return to the violent methods of the Civil War period met stubborn resistance in the countryside and even in towns (Viola 1996). Lenin had not succeeded in breaking the spine of the peasantry during the Civil War and the politics of requisitions had come to a dead end by the spring of 1921, when the party had been forced to adopt the NEP, which meant a return to market economy and a sharp turn away from command methods. Now the offensive was more total and more forceful. For Stalin, it was not enough to take the grain from the peasants, also their status as independent economic actors was annihilated by making them to join the
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kolkhozes. The peasant mir, which had been resurrected after the revolution, was now discontinued for good. Industrialization was concentrated in certain hero-projects, especially such that were linked to the construction of heavy industry. Hydroelectric stations were also being built and canals dug at a breakneck speed. Ample work force was available for canals, mines and forestry, thanks to the millions of liquidated kulaks, who filled the GULAG and the special villages. Also peasants, who had fled from the turbulent countryside moved to towns and sought employment in the new projects, moving from job to job. Scholars have spoken about a quicksand society, where everything was in a state of constant flux (Lewin 1985: 222). The revolutionary ethos of the time was further characterized by the campaigns against the intelligentsia (the story about the wrecking engineers being just the beginning for a general class-war-like onslaught against the authority of the immediate superiors in every hierarchy), the anti-religious crusade, which consisted of closing the churches and arresting the priests, confiscation the church-bells and the church silvers and also by the loud propaganda proclamations concerning the alleged preparations of a military intervention against the Soviet Union, which was now constructing the socialist society (Fitzpatrick 1978:8-40). If we add that the liquidation of private trade (part of the liquidation of the exploiting classes) had destroyed retail trade and caused a chaos, which produced huge queues and a dearth even of the most elementary everyday necessities from bread to cloth, matches and kerosene, we will have some idea of the Soviet everyday of 1929-31 (Fitzpatrick 1999:40-66). The Kremlin was provided with accounts concerning public opinion, dissent and urgent problems of daily life. The reports make terrific reading. The Soviet state was in something that very much resembled a state of war. The collectivization made the peasants resort to acts of resistance,
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the most perilous of which was the killing of their cattle. This led to a grave shortage of horses, which in turn aggravated the shortage of grain, when the land could not be sufficiently cultivated. This did not prevent the state from requisitioning its planned share of the grain, which was exported in order to finance the build-up of the heavy industry. I towns, rationing system was introduced it was the first time in world history that this measure was taken in peace time, but this did not help the countryside. In some regions, notably the Ukraine and Kazakhstan, people starved and died in their millions (Conquest 1986). In the spring of 1930, Stalin published his famous articles concerning Dizziness from Successes (Works, Vol. 12: 197-205). Here he hypocritically criticized the ways in which the collectivization had been carried about. Now Stalin allowed for every peasant one cow and a plot of one hectare and he underlined that collectivization was a voluntary process. This entirely new approach to collectivization had the effect that about a half of the kolkhozes now dissolved within a couple of months (Nove 1992: 168-73). Sure, they were re-established later, but this dramatic change of policy may have saved the Soviet Union from still greater damage, when the spring sowing of 1930 could now be done more or less effectively. Abroad, it was quite difficult to get adequate information about what the violent processes in the Soviet Union were really about. What was obvious, was that there were huge construction works in the making, and this happened at the very moment, when the Great Depression was grabbing the Western world harder and harder. The International Scene: The Pilgrims The story of the Western pilgrims to Russia is famous enough. It is well known how a contingent of western intellectuals was carried away by the
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romanticism of the Stalinist five-year plans, and how quite a few believed in the authenticity of the show trials of the Great Terror Undoubtedly, it was also the case that the Russian intelligentsia, or at least a part of it, was carried away by the grandiose scale of Stalins social construction. Western intellectuals, on their pilgrimages to the Soviet Union, met Soviet colleagues, who were enthusiastic about the prospects of socialist construction. The Soviet leadership staged worldwide campaigns in order to make the intellectuals of the world express their solidarity with the USSR (Flores 1990:19). Paul Hollander, in his study of western intellectuals' "pilgrimages" to the Soviet Union and other totalitarian countries, provides a general picture of the politically active intellectuals (Hollander 1981). He concludes that, the intellectuals are generally defined on the basis of shared attitudes, interests and predispositions, rather than on the basis of either occupational specialization, or the substantive content of the ideas they adhere to. The emphasis is on a mindset more than anything else. As regards moral-ethical aspects, they are regarded as idealistic, critical, irreverent, iconoclastic and imbued with altruistic ameliorative impulses, deep moral concerns and commitments. As for their social roles, they are usually regarded as outsiders, yet the conscience of society (Hollander 1981:48-49). It is generally known that there were some western pilgrims to Russia even in the early days of the Revolution when Lenin was in control; namely, John Reed and a handful of others. However, the Bolshevik revolution, not to mention its immediate aftermath, had very little constructive to offer, which could impress a western observer. The NEP was an even unhappier period, as far as western pilgrimages to the USSR are concerned, for, in essence, it was nothing other than an inglorious retreat from communist principles. It was only the Soviet Union of the five-year
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plans (starting from October 1928) that could boast really magnificent views of, reconstruction, of a new world, and a new man (Flores 1990:95). The timing of the socialist offensive was perfect when compared with conditions in the capitalist world. The whole western world was in the grip of an unprecedented economic crisis, which started at almost exactly the same time as the launch of the first five-year plan. The crisis severely shook the foundations of western self-conceit. The leading capitalist countries were forced to accept the reality of mass-unemployment, the ruin of small and large entrepreneurs, hunger, and despair. In this atmosphere, the phenomenon, which Hollander has called "the first wave of estrangement, was born (Hollander 1981:74-101). The appeal of Soviet society for western intellectuals was manifold. Everybody seemed to find, in the Soviet Union, just what he was looking for. For many, Bolshevism seemed "a new, more gloriously intransigent bohemianism" devoid of the bourgeois hypocrisy of the west. Strange and bizarre though it may appear, for many it also seemed to be a paradise for rebels. Many were convinced that social justice and equality had been realized in the USSR and that it offered everybody a sense of purpose and cohesive values. In the Soviet people the visitors saw the sum of all imaginable virtues, beginning with good health and ending in wisdom and simple authenticity. As Paul Hollander sums up, it was "an image that combined time-honoured elements of the Noble Savage, the Earthy Peasant, the Happy Poor, the Powerful Proletarian and a glimmer of the Renaissance man of Utopia" (Ibid.:106, 135). The gullibility of the western pilgrims is famous. The visitors wondered at model prisons and concentration camps, praising the potential of the OGPU, which was achieving "triumph in human regeneration". Many critical intellectuals were also totally convinced of the authenticity of the show trials of the great terror (Ibid.:160-67; Feuchtwanger 1937).
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All this was achieved by using a variety of techniques, including a selective exposition of reality, lavish hospitality and so on. It is clear too that, their estrangement from their own societies made western intellectuals more susceptible to their hosts influence. We must also remember that their hosts treated them very skilfully, massaging their egos. In the Soviet Union many a Western intellectual though a nonentity in his own country, was treated like a king or at least like a very important person. This naturally convinced them of the high intellectual level of the USSR and made them yearn for the same kind of rationalism in their own countries (Margulies 1968). Their western guests were scandalized by the fact that capitalist society seemed to be unable to do anything at all to solve the appalling problems of society during the great depression. In the Soviet Union, by way of contrast, not only was "something" being done, a vast amount was apparently being achieved, and the regime was not restricting itself to pettybourgeois half-measures, but was apparently ruthless enough to use all possible means to attain its goals. Western governments seemed cowardly and wavering as compared with the imposing Soviet giant, which was reporting incredible growth rates, and where unemployment was being liquidated at the very same time that it was rising in the west to unheard of levels. A large section of the intelligentsia had always believed that all social problems could be resolved if only the government would be radical and ruthless enough. This now seemed to be happening in the Soviet Union. The violence, which would be needed to make a perfect society in Russia seemed to be no problem for such remarkable intellectuals as G.B. Shaw, who made fun of it with gusto (Geduld (Ed.) 1963, 76-79, 80-82). There were, however, moments, in the development of Soviet ideology, which in principle should have been uncongenial to western radicals. For instance, egalitarianism, after 1931, was no longer on the march. All
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kinds of radical doctrines in society and culture were gradually being extinguished during the second five-year plan including new methods in schooling, trends towards the withering away of law, lenient views in criminology, sexual radicalism, artistic avant-gardism and so on. The Soviet Union of the 1930s rapidly became less and less "radical; least of all was it the paradise for rebels, which many had supposed it to be. Instead, it increasingly began to resemble a petty bourgeois society, something that both the old Russian intelligentsia and the western guests abhorred. Of course it might, reasonably, be admitted that the kind of "petty bourgeoisie, which emerged in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1930 s was not of quite the same variety, as that experienced by the western guests in their own countries. The great terror and other, specifically Soviet, phenomena certainly added their own ingredients to the general picture of the land of the Soviets. In any event, the real situation in Soviet Union by the end of the 1930s represented a development that was a far cry from the ideas of the first five-year plan, when the building of the utopia had started. Some of the Western guests, in fact, thought that the industrialization of Russia, which the five-year plan heralded, meant the Americanization of Russia (Nacci 1990:60-61). Indeed, one of the slogans of the first five-year plan, technology decides everything (tekhnika reshaet vsyo), could easily give the impression that the most important development in the Soviet Union was in fact merely an attempt to introduce modern machines plus Taylorism and Fordism. Many Western capitalists, including Ford himself, believed that Russia would have to follow the same path as other modernizing countries and that there was now a good opportunity to influence Russia by means of technical and economic cooperation (Flores 1990:90, 65-67). On the other hand, Americanization was precisely what many representatives of the old Russian intelligentsia most detested. At least, this was
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the case if Americanization was understood to be mere striving for the colossal, devoid of spirituality, empty collective worship of technology. This was the way in which a contemporary conservative critic of the modern world, Julius Evola and many others saw it (Nacci 1990:377; Cataluccio 1990:335-42). During the first five-year plan more and more reliable first hand information about the reality of Soviet socialism became available. Tens of thousands of Western specialists went to the USSR to take part in construction work and more than a few books were published (Flores 1990:117-35). In fact, there was no shortage of accurate information about the USSR at the time of the first five-year plan. Even a tragedy like the famine of 1932-33 was rather well known, not only on a popular level in neighbouring countries, but also in the literature of the time (Graziosi 1990:157-71). It was the attitude of the reader, which, most of all, determined the quality of the picture of the Soviet Union. In 1928-32 the other important factor, which influenced the image of the USSR was the great depression, which, for many, seemed to signify the beginning of the final act in the decline of the West, a development, which had been prophesied since time immemorial, especially in Russia (Flores 1990:120). Nazism, as another remarkable factor influencing the image of the USSR, only became really important after 1933. In 1932 a collection of writings by prominent western intellectuals was published, in which more than a hundred people presented their opinions of the Soviet Union. Amongst the contributors were Heinrich and Thomas Mann, Erwin Kisch, Ernst Toller, Anatole France, Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, Andr Maurois, G.B. Shaw, H.G. Wells, Theodore Dreiser, Stuart Chase, Anna Louise Strong, Albert Rhys Williams, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Martin Andersen Nex and George Lukacs (Glazami inostrantsev 1932). Needless to say, everybody's opinion was positive as regards the objective of the USSR, and although the views expressed
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were not always orthodox or conventional, this hardly diminished its value for the Soviets. Not surprisingly, the book was published in Russian, to give the Russian audience an objective, outsiders view, as it were, of their country. The Anti-Soviet Dumping Campaign and the White Sea Canal The global economic crisis, known as the Great Depression in the USA, swept through all the western countries. The shock it caused was at its most severe at precisely the same time that Stalins revolution began in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had been largely autarchic in the 1920s, but forced industrialization implied capital goods, which could only be obtained from the West. The capitalist countries did not like the Soviet system and the fear that the Soviets would export their revolution was not without some foundation. However, when the markets collapsed, exports to the Soviet Union were tempting for western countries. These exports, of course, had to be paid for somehow, but all the Soviet Union had to offer, except gold, was its agricultural products and raw-materials, like timber. Soviet exports boomed: by 1928 they had returned to the levels of 1913, and by 1932 they were 2,7 times more and by 1940 still 1,5 times more (Depretto 1997:356). Unfortunately, the depression had already forced prices down to very low levels. The sudden flow of Soviet goods did not help the situation at all. The fact that the inmates of Soviet labour camps, where numbers had grown as a result of collectivisation and the liquidation of the exploiting classes, were used for producing timber for export, became known in the west almost immediately. Several inmates escaped from the camps mostly to Finland and readily described what life was like in the workers paradise. As early as January 1930, Mr. Bellairs, a British M.P., questioned the Foreign Minister, Arthur Henderson, about the import of timber, being produced by
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slave labour. This happened to be against the Foreign Prisonmade Goods Act of 1897 (Helsingin sanomat 3.1.1930). The Labour government was not easily persuaded of the horrors of the Soviet labour camps, although masses of information filled the pages of the press. At the end of the year, however, Soviet dumping became an international issue. France led the way, by raising tariffs and import quotas on Soviet goods (e.g. wheat and other agricultural products, whose low prices were ruining small French farmers). The French government tried to organize a wider international action, but was not very successful (Reports of Finnish envoy in Geneva to Finnish Foreign Ministry 1930). Nevertheless, the anti-Soviet campaign gathered momentum, even in England. In 1931 both the conservatives and the liberals returned to the issue of Soviet forced labour and the dumping of goods on western markets, several times, both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords (Reports of Finnish envoy in London to Finnish Foreign Ministry, 1930). An Anti Soviet Persecution & Slave Labour League was founded and at the beginning of 1932 it boasted of having organized as many as 80 meetings and of issuing a quarter of a million leaflets (Letter from the committee to Finnish Envoy in London January 20 1932). The Antislavery and Aborigine Protection Society also presented a report on Soviet timber production (Leading articles of the Times, Daily Telegraph, Morning Post and Manchester Guardian in June 5, 1931). The campaign in England became particularly venomous in July 1931 with the Morning Post leading the way. It interviewed dealers and importers of goods throughout the British Isles and was happy to report that almost no one was willing to buy or sell Soviet goods. It was not only Soviet timber that was regarded as odious, Soviet butter, for instance, was found to be disease-laden filth, which was highly dangerous to eat (The Morning Post July 20, 1931).
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Unfortunately for the supporters of the anti-Soviet campaign, the Labour government did not join the boycott, but, on the contrary, even consented to long-term export credits to the Soviet Union (The Morning Post July 23 1931). All this notwithstanding, the Soviet Unions exports to England did not recover. In 1931 they had represented 32.8 per cent of her exports, whereas by 1932 they had fallen to just 24.1 per cent of its total exports. British exports to the Soviet Union experienced a short boom so that in 1932 they constituted 13.0 per cent of the Soviet Unions total imports, whereas in 1931 they had only been 6.6 per cent (Chapman 1996:36). The campaign against Soviet dumping was not restricted to England or France, but encompassed several countries, including Austria, Finland and the Netherlands. In fact, the campaign was not too serious for the Soviet Union, which in the dire situation caused by the economic crisis, was a rather attractive trading partner for many western companies and countries. However, this campaign did damage the public image of the Soviet Union. The Soviets resorted to a policy with manifold tactics. On the one hand they declared that the whole campaign was yet further proof of the hostility of the capitalist countries and of the imminent danger of an intervention, which was to be begun by France. The campaign, as well as the call for a crusade by the Pope, was portrayed as part of the psychological preparations for a military attack on the USSR. Other parts of the same plan were the plots of the wrecking organizations, which, it was claimed, were directed by France and its foreign minister Briand (Stalins letter to Molotov December 19 1930, Vlast. I khudozhestvennaia 1999:138; Istotriia vneshnei politiki SSSR 1986:250-56). The Soviet Union responded to the foreign slander on an authoritative level. At the VI congress of Soviets the President of the Council of Peoples commissars, Molotov, in his report, discussed the topic of slave labour at length (DVP 1968:135-45). The main thrust of Molotovs argu-
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ment was based on Marx, who had shown that the workers under capitalism were factually, if not formally, in no better a situation than slaves. In the Soviet Union he asserted the picture was totally different. Whereas the working-day was becoming longer and longer in the capitalist world it was in the process of being reduced to 7 hours in the Soviet Union whilst wages were rising. Furthermore, there was a growing enthusiasm for work amongst Soviet workers. However, Molotov said, the Soviet Government never purported to conceal the fact that it, was indeed also using the labour of healthy, ablebodies prisoners for some publicly useful projects such as the building of highways and railways. Of special importance was the building of the Baltic-White Sea Canal. About 60, 000 people were engaged in these public works. They had an 8-hour working-day and were receiving a salary of 20-30 roubles a month. The workers were not under guard and cultural and educational work was well organized. The conditions of work, in general, were so good, that thousands and thousands of unemployed workers in capitalist countries were envious of them. This was the bitter truth, the orator quipped. As regards the cutting of timber, the prisoners were not used for this work. Molotov also rejected the idea of a foreign investigation commission, which had been proposed, arguing that no sovereign country could accept such terms. Instead, he declared that an exchange of workers delegations would be welcome and that the Soviet Union would promote the publication of the reports of the delegations (DVP 1968:135-45). In 1931-34 a canal connecting the Baltic Sea with the White Sea was, indeed, built. The building of this waterway was made possible due to the existence of hundreds of thousands of zeks (prisoners of the forced labour camps) who were easily available thanks to the collectivization and liquidation of the exploiting classes campaigns. The engineers that were needed were supplied by the NKVD, which fabricated so-called plots of
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wreckers, who supposedly had been preparing the ground for foreign intervention. Living conditions and working conditions were appallingly primitive and the convicts died en masse (Chukhi 1990). It has been estimated that hundreds of thousands of people perished whilst doing this work. The reasons for building the Canal seem to have been mainly strategic in character the canal was supposed to enable the passage of Soviet submarines to the Barents Sea when and as required. Why the canal had to be built at such a breathtaking pace has defied rational explanation. Solzhenitsyn has suggested that the idea was to kill people (Solzhenitsyn 1976:67). This more or less rational reason for the enterprise was not mentioned at the time, rather it was emphasized that the natural riches of the Karelian Autonomous Republic (which were scarce enough, consisting mainly of wood) could now be transported all over the world (BelomorskoBaltijski kanal 1998:68). For the Soviet Union, however, the building of the canal was just another project, which was realized because there was a large number of prisoners and a badly educated population, which could be used for primitive manual labour, which elsewhere would have been done by horses and machines. On the map, this grandiose project was large enough to make such feats of engineering as the Suez, Panama, and Kiel canals seem quite modest (Ibid, inner cover). The Soviet propaganda machine never missed such opportunities for advertising its unique achievements. Another unique achievement of Soviet propaganda was the image of a new kind of socialist, collective work. According to this propaganda, socialist work in the camps could turn morally depraved elements, such as swindlers, thieves, prostitutes, enemies of Soviet power, and wreckers into new people in just a couple of years. A merely symbolic staff of 37 chekists was needed for guarding this massive work force, which consisted of tens of thousands of people at a time. In fact, guarding was not
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even the right word, since the chekists did not act as prison warders but rather guided and conducted, in a comradely way, whilst all the time respecting the human dignity of the so-called canal-army people (kanaloarmeytsy) (Ibid.:608-13). All this, of course, as the author stressed, compared very favorably with places of detention in capitalist countries like the USA, Nazi Germany,or fascist Finland (Ibid.:48-64). The Communist party and the OGPU ordered Soviet writers to produce a worthy description of the building of the canal and a brigade of 35 writers, headed by Maxim Gorky, was organized to accomplish the task. The result was a masterpiece of socialist realism, collectively written and replete with minute details, lively interviews, characteristic anecdotes and convincing portraits. It turned out that the lifespan of this book was to be short, for in 1937 all copies were confiscated from libraries and destroyed. The reason was obvious: the book had presented a whole gallery of heroes, who in 1937 were exposed as traitors and enemies, including the main hero, Genrikh Yagoda, head of the OGPU/NKVD. Many of the authors were to perish later in the great purges of 1937-38 (Ibid.:2). When it was published the book was an anthem to a new kind of relationship towards labour. For Gorky himself, as he described it, the project was a triumph over philistinism. Gorky claimed that the building of the White Sea canal was yet another project to join a succession of famous and honourable feats, which were already common in the land of the Soviets. Moreover, it was a splendid success in the task of transforming former enemies of the proletarian dictatorship into qualified members of the working class and even enthusiasts of work, which was necessary for the government. The rapid triumph over the fiendishly hostile natural environment was impressive, but even more impressive was the triumph over the former nature of the people, who until recently had been under the anarchic,
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beastly power of a tyrannical philistinism (anarkhizirovannye nedavney, zverinoy vlastyu samoderzhavnogo meshchanstva) (Ibid.:12). Once more the policy of the OGPU of education through labour had succeeded. The proletariat in power had once more won the right to proclaim: I dont struggle in order to kill, as the bourgeoisie does, but in order to wake up labouring mankind to a new life. I kill only when it is impossible to erase from a person his entrenched habit of nourishing himself with the flesh and blood of other people (Ibid.:12). In the philistine (meshchanskoe) society, Gorky pondered, romanticism was born out of the injuries and violations of the individual by society. But philistinism was not able to foster self-esteem in man, for in a classsociety everybody necessarily remained somebody elses lackey. Philistinism did not teach people to think but to believe in the unthinkable. This is how the romantic came to separate himself from society. A less elevated and more common reaction was easier. People just came to think that it was more worthwhile to be crooks (vorami) than lackeys. Still others became enemies of society because the philistine life was dull and hopelessly grey (nishcheski sera). For many people the natural romanticism of their youth turned into an evil and anarchistic romanticism of despair and beastliness: if my life is worth a kopeck, why should yours be worth two? Gorky concluded, echoing the pathos of his early works (Ibid.:15). The truth of collective labour had now been able to create human beings even out of such half-human kulak types and worshippers of private property, who had hidden their grain and had preferred to let people die rather than reveal where they had hidden their treasure (Ibid.:17). Another peasant had been accustomed to stuffing himself with milk and porridge, which had caused ulcers but on the canal he had begun to eat like the poor and his stomach had been healed as a result (Ibid.:18).
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Twenty months of labour had transformed thousands of former enemies into qualified constructors, who had been through a school of strict discipline, Gorky asserted. They had been cured of the poisoning, which had been inflicted by rotten philistinism. This was a disease, which still ailed millions of people and which could only be cured by a feat of fame and honour and by feats of prowess and heroism that is, by honest and proud work, needed for the reconstruction of the first socialist society in the world (Ibid.:19). True, Gorky observed, there had been some reports that in some cases the real workers had adopted a cheap American-style philistine attitude (sluchai amerikansko-meshchanskogo poshlenkogo otnoshenia) towards the former socially dangerous elements. If this was true, Gorky argued then it was shameful of the workers of the Soviet Union and could only be explained by an idiotic philistine conceit(idioticheski meshchanskim chvanstvom). This was an evil disease and required a serious cure. It would suffice to take a group of the canal-army shock workers to a factory and make them show yesterdays peasants how one can work with enthusiasm and discipline (Ibid.:19-20). Here, as everywhere, Gorky was true to his idea that philistinism was the ultimate evil in capitalist society and that the peasantry was its true stronghold. Now, however, the final solution of this problem in Russia was at hand. As regards the cure for this disease, Gorkys account was just not plausible. Was not the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union based on the assumption that class was hereditary in the sense that it was not determined by ones current occupation but by ones origin, i.e. by the position of ones parents? How could it be claimed that some 20 months of the dictatorship of the proletariat even allowing for the fact that it was spent under the iron discipline of the Guard of the Proletariat, the GPU could remake somebodys consciousness?
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Obviously, the competent organs of the state did not share Gorkys ideas. The notion of class-origin in the passports of the Canal-army veterans was not changed in spite of their service. This kind of information remained in every Soviet citizens passport, and the Soviet state, the party, and its repressive organs continued to determine the social trustworthiness of Soviet citizens by the same criteria and in the same way as those workers, whom Gorky had accused of cheap American style philistinism. The building of the White Sea Canal was a strange event in Soviet history. Certainly, it was a phenomenon of the heroic age of the first fiveyear plan. The initiators of this enterprise had tried to arouse the enthusiasm of the workers. In some sense, it can be argued that they had tried, by force, to realize in practice some theoretical tenets about the alleged beneficial effects of physical work for a new society and its ability to create enthusiasm. On the other hand, it is all-too evident that the masses of people, who suffered and perished in the camps, had no less a sarcastic attitude to the official liturgy than had Solzhenitsyn in his description of it. The vast amount of White Sea Canal-text, which was published, had an obvious function: it was needed as an ideological counter-attack against the anti-Soviet campaigns in the west. For a political thinker like Gorky, both collectivization and the reforging of the peasants in the labour camps were part of the same, fundamentally important project; that of liquidating the petty bourgeois community and the psychology of its inhabitants. Maxim Gorky and the Stalinist Revolution Maxim Gorkys return to Russia, now transformed into the Soviet Union, coincided with the turmoil and horrors of collectivization. Stalin personally spared no energy in persuading Gorky to return to his homeland. He corresponded with the master and sent Soviet writers and a
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doctor to Italy to prepare for his home-coming (Vlast i khudozhestvennaia 1999:129-44). Gorky seemed to be flattered by the attention paid by the old comrade. Apparently he genuinely valued the collectivization of the peasantry. As he wrote to Stalin: since the party so energetically has begun to put the countryside onto the rails of collectivism, the social revolution has acquired a truly socialist character. This is almost a geological revolution and it is more, incomparably more, and more profound than anything that has hitherto been done by the party (Gorky to Stalin on January 8, 1930, Vlast I khudozhestvevvaia 1999:124-25). Gorky was also carried away by the show trials of the Prompartia, the Peasants Party of labour and the Plot of the II International and even began to write a play on this theme (Gorky to Stalin on November 2, 1920, Vklast I khudozhestvennaia 1999:130-31). Gorky gave his voice to serve Stalins revolution with gusto and the party answered in kind: the 40-year jubilee of Gorkys literary career was fully honored in the Soviet Union. By a decision of the politburo it was ordered that a special appendix of Pravda should be dedicated to the jubilee (Vlast I khudozhestvennaia 1999:143-44). In fact, Gorky was honored and flattered in a quite unabashed way: A literary institute, the central park of culture and Moscows main street, as well as the Moscow Art Theatre were named after him. He seems to have raised no objections to these genuine expressions of the new Soviet civilization (Shentalinsky 1997:257). The atrocities committed during the collectivization campaign were not unknown to the western public and they became the subject of particular scrutiny, when in the autumn of 1930 a campaign against the Soviet Unions dumping of various products was launched in the western press. A central point in this campaign at least in England was the fact that the cheap timber, which the Soviets were dumping on the British market, was
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being produced in North-Western Russia by slave labour, the inmates of the camps. In the midst of these scandalous revelations, it was not unnatural that western intellectuals asked Gorky to offer an explanation for his pro-Soviet stance. For those, who remembered Gorkys role during the October revolution and did not understand his zoological hatred of the petty bourgeois peasantry, the old intellectuals support for Stalins terrorist policies certainly seemed incomprehensible. In January 1931, Gorky answered, on the pages of Pravda, a certain foreign correspondents question, which though published in a very abbreviated and muddled way, nevertheless obviously suggested that the writer was cynically relishing in the despair of the masses and betraying the intellectuals traditional duty of defending the people (M. Gorky, O tsinizme). Gorky answered with a lengthy exposition of the cynicism of petty bourgeois European intellectuals, who did not care about the fate of the labourers in their own countries, but were eager to criticize Russia, about which they knew appallingly little, as some examples showed. To speak about an all-human truth of love (vsechelovecheskaia Pravda liubvi) was shameless at a time when international conflict was growing as a result of the policies of Versailles; when the great powers were preparing for a new war and when workers were being killed in the West just because they wanted to eat (Ibid.). Gorky was defending the Soviet Union at a time, when the campaign against Soviet dumping and slave labour was at its highest in the West and when the Soviet press for its part was energetically publicizing the testimony of the show trials against the Promparty and the Plot of the II International, which purported to show that the West was, at that very moment, preparing an armed intervention against the USSR. Some Western intellectuals took this information at face value. Gorkys old friend,
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Romain Rolland, for instance, announced that even though he was not a communist, he would, nevertheless, defend the Soviet Union against any attack (Romain Rolland I Gorky). There could be no other stance for an honest intellectual, Pravda commented. Any other position would be on the side of the imperialists, who together with the social-fascists of the Second International were preparing a criminal war against the only proletarian state in the world, the fatherland of the world proletariat. (Romain Rolland I Gorky). Consequently, it was stressed that the petty bourgeois reformists, now dubbed as social-fascists were making common cause with the imperialists. This was truly a tertium non datur situation and Gorky, whose return to the Soviet Union was being prepared at the time, was a model case of an intellectual, who understood the realities of the day. In early 1931, Gorkys Soviet colleagues answered the foreign critics of the old master, using what was to become the standard format of Stalinist argumentation. The answer came in a short article in Pravda, entitled Hands Off Maxim Gorky, (Ruki proch ot M. Gorkogo!) which contained the names of 56 Soviet writers (including B. Pasternak, Yu. Olesha and V. Kataev). The undersigned referred to the London Times and other western newspapers that were attacking the master and argued that Gorky needed no defence. However, the argument surrounding Gorky was a matter for the whole of the Soviet literary establishment and a challenge to him was a challenge to it as a whole. The reaction to this challenge had been that all the groups and currents within Soviet literature were now grouped around Gorky. Gorky was the best example of all that this literature had been doing and would continue to do. He was the symbol of a true writers service to socialism. In May 1931 Gorky published an article in Pravda called Answer to an intelligent, (M. Gorky, Otvet intelligentu) where he quite aggressively
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defended the current policy of the Soviet government against the criticisms of western intellectuals. At first, Gorky rather arrogantly declared that the creative force of western culture had already been exhausted and that these self same western intellectuals were now living at the expense of Russian culture. It was not true that primitivism (dikarstvo) was to be found in the East, where women were enslaved. In fact, the enslaved female body was to be seen in western music-halls and this practice doubtless also accelerated the growth of homosexuality and lesbianism which had their origins in housing problems. Now the civilized intellectuals of the West were protesting, because half a hundred crooks (sadists, who had organized the starvation of people) had been executed and because agriculture had been collectivized. It had to be understood that the policy of the Soviet government was to liberate the peasants from their zoological conservatism and anarchism. No capitalist government could have done this. The land of the Soviets did not violate the freedom of the peasants, Gorky maintained, on the contrary, zoological individualism, which was typical of all peasants around the world, was the result of exterior pressure against them in a class society. It was the personalitys desperate response, in self-defense. Moreover, the individualism of the intellectuals differed from that of the peasants only in degree, not fundamentally. Philosophical pessimism, practical skepticism and other deformations of the spirit had the same source. And it was worth remembering that the homeland of pessimism was India. Were the workers and the peasants happy with the policies of the Soviet government? In principle, yes, Gorky maintained. True, there were the well-to-do peasants, who had hoped to become still richer and to keep the poor peasants under their control. Such people might be dissatisfied, but their role was already played out.
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Gorky was especially vitriolic about the western intellectuals protests about the execution of 48 wreckers. After all, he stated, these in effect had been no less sadistic as the infamous serial murderer Kuerten, which had been caught in Germany lately. In some sense, it may be that Gorky had found a becoming place for himself in the service of revolutionary Bolshevik policies: the party was attacking the petty bourgeois in the countryside, and Gorky was not only defending this line against his foreign petty bourgeois writer colleagues, but was even moving on to the offensive. In 1932 Gorky published his famous article Who are you with, Masters of Culture? (M. Gorky 1932). In this article, Gorky once again most emphatically repeated his old credo. For him, the peasantry was the scum of the earth, whose style of life was the seed-bed for all kinds of beasts of prey and parasites. The peasant was by nature a cultural idiot. Now, western correspondents were accusing the Soviet Union of using violence against the peasants, but they had simply missed the point. Not all compulsion was violence, Gorky explained: was it violence, if you taught children to read? In the same way, the Soviet working class was bringing social and political literacy to the peasants. All this was in the interests of the peasantry itself. In fact Gorky maintained the peasantry did not want to live in dirty villages at all but in agrocities (v agrogorodakh) (Ibid.:26-27). It was also the case that Russian culture was developing and progressing whilst culture in the west was rapidly declining. Were there any talented people at all in the west these days? This cultural decline was due to the fact that the Western petty bourgeoisie was inimical to science and culture. Now it was busy closing universities (Ibid.:16-17). As regards cultural values, they were not and never had been universal, Gorky declared. Mutual hatred was the necessary relation within the bourgeoisie, in other words amongst themselves, and between the ex-
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ploiter and the exploited. Some western correspondents were criticizing Gorky for preaching hate and wanted him to preach love. This was, however, immoral: No, to preach love of the poor towards the rich, of the worker towards the master thats not my job. I am not able to console. I know too well that the whole world is living in an atmosphere of hate. I can see that it is becoming deeper, more active, and more beneficial (stanovitsia vsio gushche, aktivnei, blagotvornei) (Ibid.: 24). The humanists should understand that there were two kinds of hate: one was born among the beasts of prey and arose from mutual competition and also from fear of the future, which was threatening the bourgeois with unavoidable destruction. The other variety of hate was the hate of the proletariat. It arose from its disgust with reality and its understanding about its right to power. Nothing, except the violent conflict of both sides, could reconcile these parties, Gorky concluded in an orthodox Bolshevist manner (Ibid.: 24). The intellectuals should now decide, whose side they were on, Gorky demanded. The fate of the Russian (migr) intelligentsia provided a lesson here. It had not sided with the Russian working people and now the old intelligents had drifted into emigration, where they were rotting and would die with the stigma of traitors (Ibid.:30-31). The passage about the virtues of hate became famous, but there was nothing novel or new in it in regard to Gorkys own works. When the newspaper Pravda had its 15th anniversary (1927), Gorky had told its staff about class hate, using as an example a friend of his, who had a special talent for this: he understood and felt the truth of hate so well. (Friche 1928:230). This friend, commenting on a novel he was analyzing, had asked: do you know, whats good about it? Its the hate of the author, the truth of hate. It must be so: calmly, with resolution, without polishing. When people speak about a holy, great or other kind of
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truth, I understand it only as the truth of hate. There is no other truth. Any other truth is a lie! This is the way Lenin understands it. (Ibid.:230). In the class-conscious, militant atmosphere of the Cultural Revolution, all the old masters of culture were exposed and attacked by the militants. Like Mayakovsky, Gorky might have been a predictable victim. However, when in 1929 a Siberian journal dubbed Gorky the mouthpiece and shield of the whole reactionary part of Soviet literature and maintained that Gorky was defending all the Soviet Pilniakovism (pilniakovshchina), the party reacted. A decision of the party politburo no less, condemned such hooliganism (bearing in mind that hooliganism was a petty bourgeois phenomenon) and ordered the removal of the editor of the journal (Vlast i khudozhestvennaia 1999:123-25). It was Gorkys ideas about the nature of philistinism, not those of the proletarian zealots that would prevail in Soviet culture. Even in the midst of a general struggle against all kinds of masters, Gorky was too precious for the Soviet leadership to be left at the mercy of second-rate proletarian scribes. It was not in vain that Maxim Gorky was canonized as the greatest master of literature and culture in general in the Soviet Union. His portrait would symbolically adorn each issue of the main page of the organ of the Soviet Writers Union, the Literaturnaia Gazeta, together with no lesser a writer than Alexander Pushkin himself. Internationally, Gorkys authority in defending the incipient Stalinism was enormous. In fact, collectivization and the great famine of 1932-33 were the darkest pages of the whole Soviet history. They gave rise to a great battle about the image of Soviet Socialism, where the communists and their henchmen gained remarkable success. The blunt denial of the existence of forced labour, famine or violence in general, and the praise of the beneficial work of the security organs, when it was rendered by outstanding
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masters of culture like Gorky, greatly contributed to a positive image of the developing terror regime. A socialist society, if it was genuinely socialist, was certainly supposed to be no less natural than a society, which was based on free competition. In theory, it could not possibly be based on terror and non-economic coercion. Those, who knew socialist theory, understood this. By the early 1930s, socialist society was not yet proclaimed to exist in the USSR, this happened only in 1936. But even so, it could be anticipated that a country, which was building socialism, would not resort to terror. The great controversy of the early 1930s concerned the existence of this terror. The Soviet Union was no more just theory, but who was to interpret the facts and what were the facts? The heroic and human image of the USSR shall be counted among the factors, which attracted foreign workers to the USSR. Not all of them were true believers and not all of them were even unemployed. Many sacrificed their personal savings in order to contribute to the building of a world, which was believed to be more just and more human than the callous capitalism, which had forsaken its children. They were ensnared by sirens like Gorky and by useful idiots like the Western collaborators, to whom theory was more precious and credible than just plain facts.
References Belomorsko-Baltiiskii kanal 1998: imeni Stalina. Istoriia Stroitelstva 1931-1934. Pod red. M. Gorkogo, L. Averbakha I S. Firina. Reprint from 1934 edition. Moscow: Ogiz. Carr, Edward, H. 1982: The Twilight of Comintern 1930-1935. London: Macmillan.
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Cataluccio, Francesco 1990: Joseph Roth e i miti dellAmerica. In Flores e Nacci 1990. Chapman S. 1996: The Metro-Vickers Trial in Context (MA thesis CREES, Birmingham). Conquest, Robert 11986: The Harvest of Sorrow. New York: Oxford University Press. DVP XIV 1968: Dokumenty vneshnei politiki SSSR, tom XIV: Moscow. Feuchtwanger, Lion 1937: Moscow 1937. My Visit Described for my Friends. New York: Viking Press. Depretto, Jean-Pierre 1997: Les ouvriers en URSS, 1928-1941. Paris. Fitzpatrick, Sheila (Ed.) 1978: Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press. Fitzpatrick, Sheila 1999: Everyday Stalinism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Flores, Marcello 1990: Limmagine dell URSS. Loccidente e la Russia di Stalin (1927-1956). Milano: Il Saggiatore. Flores, Marcello, Gori, Francesca 1990: Il Mito dellURSS. Milano: Franco Angeli. Friche 1928: M. Gorky i proletarskaia kultura. In: Krasnaia nov 3: 230. Geduld, Harry M. (Ed.) 1963: The Rationalization of Russia by Bernard Shaw. Indiana University Press. Glazami inostrantsev 1932: Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo khudozhestvennoi literatury. Gorky, Maksim 1931a: O tsinizme. Otvet korrespondentu. Pravda, January 30, 1931. Gorky, Maksim 1931b: Otvet intelligentu. Pravda 21-22. May 1931. Gorky, Maksim, 1932: S kem vy, mastera kultury? Otvet amerikanskim korrespondentam. Moscow. Graziosi, Andrea 1990: La conoscenza della realt sovietica in occidente negli anni 30. Uno sguardo panoramico. In: Nacci e Gori 1990.
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Hollander, Paul 1981: Political Pilgrims. The Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba 1928-1978. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Istoriia vneshnei politiki SSSR 1986: Moscow: Nauka. Istoriia VKP. Kratkii kurs 1953: Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo politicheskoi literatury. Lewin, Moshe 1985: The Making of the Soviet System. New York: Pantheon Books. Lih, Lars, Naumov, Oleg and Khlevniuk, Oleg 1995: Stalins Letters to Molotov 1925-1936. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Margulies, Sylvia 1968: The Pilgrimage to Russia. The Soviet Union and the Treatment of Foreigners 1924, 1937. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Nacci, Michela 1990: Il comunismo Borghese: la Russia e lAmerica viste dallEuropa. In: Marcello Flores e Francesca Gori (Eds.), Il Mito dellURSS. La cultura occidentale e lUnione Sovietica. Milano: Franco Angeli. Nove, Alec 1992: An Economic History of the USSR, London: Penguin Books. Solonevich, Ivan 1999: Rossiia v kontslagere. Moscow: Moskva. Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr 1976: Vankileirien saaristo. Tampere: Kustannuspiste. Sovershenno sekretno. Lubianka Stalinu o polozhenii v strane 1922-1934 gg. Moscow 2001-2008: Institute of Russian History. Stalin, Iosif 1928: Results of the July Plenum of the CC. report to a meeting of the active of the Leningrad organization of the CPSU July 13 1928. Works Vol 11. Stalin, Iosif 1934: Report to the 17th Party Congress, January 26. Works Vol. 13.
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Viola, Lynne 1996: Peasant rebels under Stalin. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vlast i khudozhestvennaia intelligentsia 1999: Moscow: Fond Demokratiia.
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, 1930- . . , , , , . , , , , . , . , .
Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment to Karelia Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment to Karelia
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Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment of North American Finns to Karelia: New Questions
Alexis Pogorelskin University of Minnesota Duluth Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment to Karelia Alexis Pogorelskin Kaarlo Tuomi, who went with his family to Karelia in the early 1930s, undertook to write a biography of Matti Tenhunen, alas never completed. (Interview with author: 5.9.1993). For scholars of the Finnish diaspora, Tenhunen is an obvious subject of study. He initiated recruitment of Finnish-Americans to Karelia, starting in 1931. From that year until 1935, he oversaw their resettlement in the Karelian Soviet Republic. Tenhunen, along with the Karelian leadership itself, proved indispensable to the migration of North American Finns to Karelia in the early1930s. Tuomi has explained the source of Tenhunens accomplishments. He was known personally [to] more American Finns, not necessarily Communists but [to those] with the opposite views. He had traveled the country so extensively [and] made so many connections as a business manager for Tymies People respected Matti Tenhunen more than any other Communist leader he was a born speaker He had that special knack. (Interview with author: 5.9.1993). While Tenhunen still awaits his biographer, in this essay I will confirm just how important was his contribution to Karelian fever. I will argue
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that the very subject cannot be comprehended without reference to his role and that he may even have been the pivotal figure in the attempt to bring to Karelia as many as one third of the North American Finnish diaspora in the early 1930s. Ignorance regarding the extent of Tenhunens contribution to recruitment as well as his motivation in undertaking it has up to now obscured our understanding of Karelian fever. Tenhunens career presented a fundamental paradox. He himself insisted that he held certain convictions on applying Leninism to Communist work to the revolution and [to] the building of a Communist society deep-rooted enough to be compared almost to a religious fervency. (Tenhunens Statement, 17.1.1929: 1). Yet at the same time he possessed commercial instincts and business acumen arguably to a degree unique among American radicals. Reconciliation would presumably occur if he put skills suited to the marketplace at the service of his leftist convictions. Some would argue that Tenhunen failed at such reconciliation, favouring his own financial benefit at the expense of radical causes. Tenhunen revealed his extraordinary commercial skill when in 1914 he saved the flagship newspaper of the Finnish-American left, Tymies, from bankruptcy. (Tenhune: 4). He provided financial solvency for the newspaper in two ways. With the first issue under his management, he introduced the capitalist practice of selling advertising space in the paper. Combining the papers socialist identity with a clever marketing tool proved even more lucrative. For a mere thirty-five cents, Tenhunen produced a souvenir knife. (Tenhune: 5). On one side under a plastic cover shone a picture of recent Socialist candidate for president, Eugene V. Debs. The other side bore the rallying cry of Marx and Engels, Workers of the World Unite. You Have Nothing to Lose but Your Chains. The knife rewarded purchases connected with the newspaper. According to Tenhunens son, Toik, Finns bought like they were going crazy to get this souvenir pocketknife. (Tenhune: 5).
Matti Tenhunen and the Recruitment to Karelia
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In one simple device, Tenhunen had combined a host of associations to create the marketers dream: a must have item. Leftist identity joined the Finnish culture of the knife, an implement adult males have to carry and adolescent boys crave. The item generated so much revenue that Tenhunen paid off all of Tymiess creditors and purchased the three storey building in Superior, Wisconsin that became the papers permanent home. (Tenhune: 5). The souvenir device not only underwrote the papers solvency, it helped to launch the Co-op Central Exchange, the wholesale distributor for a network of 130 co-operative retail stores in the Western Great Lakes region. The Exchange stood at the center of the success that the network enjoyed for over a decade. By 1924 it could boast more than half a million dollars in sales to its member co-ops. From 1917 to 1924, its total sales had topped 2.5 million dollars. (Alanne 1925: 67). Located a stones throw from the Tymies building in Superior, the Exchange, along with Finnish, the language of the co-op, united the Finnish-Americans of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in a single community. (First Year Book 1925: 6). The growth and prosperity of the Exchange coincided with that of the Tymies under Tenhunens management. The finances of the paper and the Exchange intersected as did the management of both institutions. No one seemed to understand better than Matti Tenhunen that even leftist causes required a sound financial footing in order to thrive. At the same time he remained devoted to the Communist party, whose District Nine encompassed the region served by the Exchange. According to his son Toik, Tenhunen used his position as President of the Board of the Exchange to manipulate the composition of the boards of 130 member co-ops so that Communists formed a majority on each one. (Tenhune: 11).
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Up until 1929 Tenhunen appeared to be able to square the circle. An anonymous contributor to the First Yearbook of the Northern States Cooperative League, perhaps Tenhunen himself, had written four years earlier, The cooperatives show that they are not only purely business establishments, but that they are a part of the working class movement against capitalism. (Anonymous 1925: 71). But 1929 proved to be a watershed for Tenhunen. Events occurred that led the cooperatives to expel him and the American Communist party to censure him. Tenhunen had fallen afoul of the two institutions that embodied his principals and provided his income. The reversal that caused his downfall was purely his own. He had tried to introduce business efficiency to the party; he had tried to impose the needs of the party on the co-ops. Tenhunens falling out with the American party began with a statement that he submitted in January 1929. He complained that the center of the party under a shameless police-method regime stifled criticism and that the inner democracy of the Party had succumbed to bayonet rule. (Tenhunens Statement, 17.1.1929:4). He noted that fraction work, with the exception of the co-operatives in our District, District Nine, had stalled. (Statement: 26). He called for the re-organization of the party that was three years over due, accountability, and new blood so that the truly functioning bolshevist party will rise. (Statement: 26). Within a month Tenhunen had his answer. He had been removed from all political and front line work on a district or larger scale as a result, he said, of my temerity in bringing forth my views in the fullest responsible manner to the higher units of our Party. (Statement: 25, 26, 29). Perhaps to return to the good graces of the Communist party, by fall 1929 Tenhunen had agreed to jeopardize his position in the cooperatives and advocate sharing their profits with the party. The party had first urged such an arrangement a few months earlier in the summer of that year. Party control of co-op boards in District Nine, the one success that Ten-
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hunen had pointed to in his list of complaints to the party, became the first casualty of the new effort. The 130 local co-op enterprises in the region were to contribute from $100 to $500, depending on the size of the store. (Tenhune: 11). The party sought $10,000 from the Exchange itself. Tenhunens son, by now a prominent figure in the co-ops, led the fight against the partys interference with their finances. According to Toik Tenhunen, he devised the plan to remove the Communist influence in the co-ops that his father had so carefully nurtured. He intended to expel the Communist board members before they could be elected as delegates to the Exchange annual meeting which occurred in April of each year. (Tenhune: 13). Starting in October 1929, and for the next five months, Toik directed speakers to the 130 stores of the region, urging members to expel Communists from their boards, thus preventing their election as delegates to the annual meeting. It was no easy task, he wrote. We had to convince people that ... men whom they held in such high esteem were a bunch of crooks who were trying to steal [the] stores away from the members who own them Dad and I often spoke in the same town on opposing platforms on the same night. (Tenhune: 13-14). Victory went to Toik and not his father: when the annual meeting came we had the delegates from 114 or 115 stores and they had 12-15 stores. ((Tenhune: 14). Tenhunens son now presided over his fathers fall. He insisted not only that Communist members of the board be expelled immediately, but that as non-delegates to the meeting they be escorted from the hall. I knew the audience was looking at me, so I assigned myself with one helper to walk my Dad out. (Tenhune: 15). Tenhunens rout was complete. He attempted to found a Communist wholesale exchange, but the whole thing went down the drain. (Tenhune:15). He tried to organize a rival network of co-operatives under the banner of the Workers and Farmers Co-operative Unity Alliance with the
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same result. Tymies lost advertising and hundreds of subscribers because of [the] split in the cooperative movement. (Tianen 1993: 12). For a time Tenhunen worked in the editorial office of the New York Worker, in exile from District Nine, which he had once appeared to control. (Osobyi sektor, l. 28). At this point, it might be said that if recruitment to Karelia had not sought Tenhunen, he might well have sought it. In February 1931 he travelled to Petrozavodsk, spending two months there. He returned with the charge from the Karelian government to direct the recruitment organization Karelian Technical Aid. (Takala 2002: 36). Tenhunen opened its offices in New York on May Day of that year. He was to recruit those of Finnish ethnicity to re-settle in the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Among other reasons for his selection, Tenhunen was available for the job. He had shown loyalty to the party in the co-op crisis when other Communist stalwarts on the Exchange such as George Halonen and Eskel Ronn had not. No one knew the prosperous and vigorously Finnish District Nine as well as he did. Tenhunen also had other qualifications. He had made several visits to the Soviet Union in the late 1920s at the behest of the Comintern; and on those occasions he became acquainted with the Karelian leadership. (Takala 2002: 35). He was also close to Otto Wille Kuusinen, the most prominent Finn in the Soviet regime. Ties between them, according to Tenhunens son, developed during a visit that Kuusinen made to the U.S. in the early 1920s (Tenhune: 15). Tenhunen met Kuusinen again on visits to Moscow in 1927 and in December 1929 (Pogorelskin 2004a: 32). Tenhunen, in effect, met with both Kuusinen and the Karelian leadership on his trips to the Soviet Union in the late 1920s. Kuusinen, Toik maintains, promoted recruitment of North American Finns with Stalins approval (Tenhune: 16).
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As scholars know it is impossible to diminish the role of Edvard Gylling and Kustaa Rovio, the Finnish administrators of Karelia, in the recruitment effort. Yet the account of Tenhunens son coincides with recent work of Markku Kangaspuro. According to Kangaspuro, Kuusinen and other Red Finns in Moscow interfered in the administration of Karelia. They sought funds having lost, by 1929, the donations from Finland that once subsidized them in exile. The Moscow Finns, it might be said, trolled widely. They may also have put some of the pressure on the American co-ops to share their profits with the Comintern. The question arises was Tenhunen the intermediary for Kuusinen in both instances, that is in District Nine and in Karelia? Karelian fever, as overseen by Tenhunen, generated significant funds. But was the money that recruitment provided intended for Moscow as well as Karelia? Other evidence is also suggestive that North American Finns may have been donating to more than the cause of Karelia when they gave to the Machine Fund at the time of their recruitment. I will examine two events, one which occurred shortly before Tenhunen left for Karelia and one that occurred after he had arrived. Both raise questions regarding the destination of the money collected for Karelia from North American Finns. The Special Sector of the Karelian Oblast Party Committee investigated the recruitment to Karelia and the work of the Resettlement Administration in Petrozavodsk (Pereselencheskoe upravlenie) which Tenhunen headed from 1931 to 1935. It uncovered the fact that Tenhunen, before his departure for Karelia, had turned over all his property, his farm, his bank accounts, etc. to his son in America [who] was excluded from the Komsomol for counter-revolutionary activity against the U.S.S.R. (Osobyi sektor, ll.4-5). To the Soviet secret police, such generosity to a traitor provided evidence of Tenhunens own treason. Toik confirmed his fathers generosity in his memoir, suggesting that by it Tenhunen sought to end the estrangement which had divided the two
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since the co-op vote in April 1930. According to Toik, the day before Dad left Superior [for Karelia] he called [to say] that if things had been normal, I would have inherited the farm in Wisconsin and the house in Superior. Instead of doing what he asked the other 10,000 people to do, namely sell their properties and donate the money to Karelia, [he gave me] the titles to the two properties (Tenhune: 16). The next day Toik drove his parents to the train station. Did Tenhunen intend to return to Wisconsin and therefore wanted his property in tact? Did he intend to sequester his wealth because he feared that it would benefit not the cause of Karelia but a small group of Finnish migrs in Moscow? Whatever Tenhunens intentions, his son condemned what he perceived as the hypocrisy behind his fathers conduct. The Special Sector documents make no mention of a curious incident that began in August 1932. The events link Tenhunen directly with Kuusinen, who never figured in the Karelian Osobyi sektor investigations. Toiks memoir of his father is the only source on what follows (Tenhune: 17-31). Having been in Karelia for about a year, Tenhunen departed for a trip to the U.S., stopping off in Finland where the Finnish government promptly arrested him. Toik learned of the arrest from a Swedish-American Line representative who called him from New York. Tenhunen had established a lucrative partnership with the steamship company. In 1932 Karelian recruitment was at its height. Tenhunens incarceration could bring the company substantial financial loss (Pogorelskin 2004a: 37-38, 40-41). The official contractor for the company subsequently told Toik, we in the steamship line very much appreciate the business your father has brought [from] these people going from the USA to Karelia (Tenhune: 18). In the end Kuusinen negotiated Tenhunens release via a prisoner exchange with Finland, but not before Toik travelled to Moscow to seek his
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assistance. The encounter between the two on that occasion revealed just how close Kuusinen and Tenhunen were. Speaking by phone in Finnish with Kuusinen, Toik had first to verify his identity by answering a series of intimate questions about his family (Tenhune: 29). When they met Kuusinen emphasized how important Tenhunen was and that he had to be rescued. Released from prison in January 1933, Tenhunen went directly back to Petrozavodsk. For the next two years he continued to direct the Resettlement Administration. After it was shut down, he worked for the publishing house Kirja. At the time of his arrest in 1937 on charges of connections to Finnish intelligence and the American Trotskyites, Tenhunen worked for the obkom press of Karelia. He was tried and shot in 1938 (Makurov 1997: 291-294). The foregoing permits us to raise new questions, even if we cannot as yet answer them. Thanks to the work of Markku Kangaspuro, we know that a portion of the money that North American Finns donated to the cause of Karelia probably enriched Finnish migr Communists in Moscow. Did Tenhunen serve as the conduit for such funds? Was his closeness to Kuusinen the basis for such a diversion? Did Tenhunen intend to profit from it too? Did he share with Kuusinen the commissions that the Swedish-America line provided for ticket sales? By 1933 the Finnish administration of Karelia was under siege. Markku Kangaspuro has observed that the purges were already so extensive that Gylling and Rovio were fast becoming generals without an army. (Pogorelskin 2004b: 183-186). The head of Leningrad, to whom Gylling and Rovio answered, Sergei Kirov, heartily disapproved of recruiting North-American Finns. Did Tenhunen know of the weakness of the Karelian administration and therefore sought a powerful patron in Kuusinen? Or had they already forged a partnership at the time of the crisis in the co-ops or even earlier with Kuusinens visit to the U.S. in the early 1920s? The pressure to
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fleece Finnish-American co-ops may after all have originated with the Moscow Finns whom Tenhunen visited at the end of 1929 in the midst of the co-op struggle. If Tenhunen played a double game, did he do so because he believed that the Moscow Finns sooner represented the cause of Leninism and Communism to which he was devoted with a religious fervency? Or did he intend, as Oscar Corgan did, to return to the U.S. and work within the co-ops again, if it were possible (Corgans letter to Pivi 17.3.1937). Whatever his intentions, Tenhunen made the accumulation of funds a central aim of the recruitment to Karelia. According to his son, he urged those whom he recruited, to dispose of their homes, their farms, whatever they had and donate the money to Karelia, holding on to [just] enough to pay for their tickets. (Tenhune: 16). Tenhunen also recruited as widely as possible. Far form encouraging an exclusively Red Exodus, he told his audiences, Our task is not to let the Finnish nation die Karelia must be a homeland of the Finns. (Osobyi sektor, l. 6). The Special Sector documents recount that Tenhunen wrote his close associate Kalle Aronen, to whom he had turned over responsibility for KTA upon his departure: Recruit anyone so long as they have money. (Osobyi sektor, l. 3) Such a statement could be dismissed as simply the means to justify the arrest of the Finnish-American leadership in Karelia except that possible corroboration for it exists. In 1934 Finnish-Americans in Petrozavodsk tried to call Tenhunen to account for his machinations and chicanery with their money but failed in the absence of appropriate financial records. (Osobyi sektor, l. 61). Tenhunens career bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Edvard Gylling. Gylling spent a two year period of exile in Stockholm before going to Karelia. Tenhunen found a temporary refuge in New York, which would have been a foreign city for him. Gylling had no intention of remaining in Karelia permanently after he arrived there in late spring 1920.
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He aspired to return to Finland and to re-establish the moderate socialist regime in which he had once prospered. Tenhunen too may have believed that his defeat in the civil war within the Finnish-American co-ops would be undone, and he too could return to the status that he had enjoyed before his expulsion. If he could condemn the American Communist party for its police-method regime and bayonet rule, it is unlikely that he saw Stalins Russia as his permanent home. In the end Gylling and Tenhunen shared the fate of arrest and execution. Kuusinen lived into old age, still hiding the answers to questions about the recruitment to Karelia that we are only now able to pose.
References Osobyi sektor, Karelskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Noveishei Istorii (KGANI), f.3, op. 5, kor. 207, d. 276, ll. 1-128. Tenhunen, Matti, 17.1.1929. Statement in View of the Situation in the Workers Party. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotzialnopoliticheskoi Istorii (RGASPI Moscow) 515-1-1567. Comintern Archive (Communist Party of the USA): reel 119. Tamiment Library and Robt. F. Wagner Labour Archives of New York University. Tuomi, Kaarlo, 5.9.1993: Interview with Alexis Pogorelskin. Duluth, MN. USA. Alanne, V.S., 1925: The Story of the Co-operative Central Exchange. First Year Book of the Northern States Co-operative League. Fergus Falls: Free Press. pp. 67-69. Anonymous, 1925: The Secret Success of a Co-operative Store. First Year Book of the Northern States Co-operative League. Fergus Falls: Free Press. p. 71.
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Makurov, V.G. (editor), 1997: Dokument 97. 21.4.1938. Neizvestnaia Karelia, 1921-1940. Petrozavodsk. pp. 291-294. Pogorelskin, Alexis, 2004a: Communism and the Co-ops: Recruiting and Financing the Finnish-American Migration to Karelia. Journal of Finnish Studies, 8, 1: 28-47. Pogorelskin, Alexis, 2004b: Pipeline Accident on Lake Onega. Journal of Finnish Studies, 8, 1: 176-187. Takala, I.P., 2002: Finny v Karelii i v Rossii. Sankt Peterburg: Zhurnal Neva. Tenhune, Toik. The Matti Tenhunen Story, unpublished. pp. 1-33. (Courtesy of Tenhunens descendents). Tianen, Henry, 1993: Memories of the Good Old Days-and the Hard Times. For Dignity and Justice, Ninety Yearsthe Tymies-Enteenpin, 1903-1993. Superior. pp. 12-13.
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Memoir Accounts of Finnish North Americans
Memoir Accounts of Finnish North Americans in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s

Brje Vhmki University of Toronto Memoir Accounts of Finnish North Americans Brje Vhmki Much archival and other historical research into the experiences of Finnish Canadians and Finnish Americans who moved to Soviet Karelia in the early 1930s has been published in the last 1520 years. Thus a great deal is known about the so-called Karelian exodus. (See, for example, Karelian Exodus (2004), edited by Ron Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin, which offers recent information in 13 articles as well as a selected, but largely state-of-the-art, bibliography of research on North American Finns in Soviet Karelia). An examination of published memoirs may also inform us of such experiences. This paper will focus on one particular memoir Karjala Kutsui (Summoned by Karelia) (1973), written by Christer Boucht about the experiences of Finnish Canadians Aino and Eino Streng. The observations will be evaluated against the background of two other memoirs, They Took My Father written by Mayme Sevander with Laurie Hertzel (1992) and Karelia A Finnish American Couple in Stalins Russia, 19341941 (1991) written by Lawrence and Sylvia Hokkanen with Anita Middleton. One reason for focusing on Karjala kutsui is that it was published earlier than most of the historical re-
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search. This allows us to evaluate and appreciate what the Strengs knew at what stage of their sojourn. The article will examine what their experiences were, and what role attitudes toward ethnicity and language played in those experiences, which incidentally continued beyond Soviet Karelia via the Amur River region in the Far East, the Caucasus, Germany, Sweden, and Finland where they arrived in 1944. Elaborations on the Memoir Genre The term memoir requires some deliberation for our purposes. Nancy E. Zuwiyyas (Zuwiyya 2000) offers a well-balanced definition of memoir: A memoir is a piece of autobiographical writing, usually shorter than a comprehensive autobiography. The memoir - often tries to capture certain highlights or meaningful moments in ones past, often including a contemplation of the meaning of that event at the time of the writing of the memoir. The memoir may be more emotional and concerned with capturing particular scenes, or a series of events, rather than documenting every fact of a persons life. She continues by stating that the memoir form is characterized by narrative structure, including many of the usual elements of storytelling such as setting, plot, development, imagery, conflict, characterization, foreshadowing and flashback, and irony and symbolism. The consequence is that the reader perceives a fictional quality although the story is true. Karjala kutsui by Christer Boucht fits these criteria quite closely. All three of the memoirs under scrutiny are eloquent eyewitness accounts, which offer us some extraordinary glimpses into the Soviet experience. Powerful, vivid, and detailed, these documents would seem to be remarkable sources for the study of Soviet Karelian history.
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An additional factor to bear in mind in the three memoirs under discussion is that they all have an outside writer: Christer Boucht, a Finnish (actually Finland-Swedish) travel/explorer writer with several books to his credit, tells the Strengs story based on his interviews with them. Mayme Sevander writes her story herself, with editing help by Laurie Hertzell. The Hokkanens told theirs stories to their daughter, Anita Middleton, who does the actual writing and editing. Karjala kutsui is perhaps the memoir with the most developed literary qualities, yet all three provide a first person perspective. The narration in Karjala kutsui is from Ainos perspective, both as main character and as narrator, They Took My Father accounts for the experiences from the perspective of Mayme Sevander, and Karelia tells Sylvias and Lauris stories by allowing each to take turns telling their stories without separate narrator, but with each providing distinct perspectives and emphases. Reasons for Going to Soviet Karelia Finnish Canadians and Finnish Americans were recruited to Soviet Karelia by the Soviet Karelian Technical Aid 193134. Oft-cited reasons for the migration include (1) political or ideological conviction, (2) the unemployment in North America caused by the Great Depression, (3) Karelia Fever, which is a term used to signify that the chain migration had reached epidemic proportions, (4) youthful adventurousness, and (5) nostalgia for a Finnish-speaking home environment. Karjala kutsui offers a well-developed description of the various factors that influenced Finnish Canadians decisions to migrate to Karelia. The news of people going to Karelia became spread frequently and widely. Aino and Eino, who claimed to be uninterested in politics, loved to attend evening dances and other programs at the Finn Hall in Vancouver. In 193132 frequent agitation and recruitment meetings were held at the hall. The memoir describes in abundant detail one particular meet-
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ing, where the head recruiter of the Soviet Karelian Technical Aid in Canada, John Latva from Toronto, hosted by Martin Hendriksson3, is the main draw. He gives a rousing speech: Starting by praising of the Finnish worker, for his enlightened class consciousness and revolutionary attitude, his diligence, work skills, and modesty. He proceeds to outline the failures and ruinous state of capitalism in Canada and the United States. As contrast, he praises the noble ideals of socialism: equality and brotherhood, and the liberty of the workers. He then proceeds to praise the Soviet Union that welcomes all workers and their families to live aurinkoisessa, lmpimss Neuvostoliitossa, mailman suurimmassa valtakunnassa, jossa aurinko ei koskaan laske (Boucht 1973:37). [in sunny, warm Soviet Union, the largest nation in the world, where the sun never sets.] The Soviet Union offers Finns tens of thousands of pleasant jobs, lots of free time, excellent wages, and is very close to your homeland. Soviet Karelia offers a Finnish-language society where the Finnish language holds a central position. In the weeks before this meeting Aino and Einos courtship had developed and deepened. Having been repeatedly presented with arguments of this kind, having been informed they could sign up for a three-year contract, and given the fact that Einos sister Vieno, who was a staunch communist, and her husband Vilho Brunila, had already decided to go to Karelia and had repeatedly urged Eino and Aino to join them there, they had a serious discussion about their future during a long walk into the night following the meeting. They reached an ominous decision: they would get married and go to the Soviet Karelia for a three-year honeymoon (Boucht 1973:44); The honeymoon turned out to last no less than twelve years. The reasons for the Strengs decision thus encompassed all of the common factors mentioned above: (Einos) unemployment, a touch
3
Boucht (1973:3233) somewhat misleadingly describes Martin Hendriksson as the local boss in Vancouver. In reality Hendriksson was an experienced Finnish American recruiter traveling all over Finnish North America.
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of Karelia Fever through the Brunilas example and urgings, sense of youthful adventure, and nostalgia for Finnishness, at least on the part of Aino, who was not as fluent in English as Eino. The politico-ideological argument factored in only indirectly through Vienos convictions. In They Took My Father the reason for the Corgan family's move to Karelia was decidedly ideological. Oscar Corgan had worked to recruit North American Finns to go to Karelia and actually served as head of the Soviet Karelian Technical Aid in New York in 1934 when he and his family made the move. Mayme Sevander suggests that Oscar Corgan made the decision out of political conviction, but also out of a sense of obligation to the cause, and loyalty to those he had helped send there (Sevander 1992:3132 and 3839). The reasons for the migration in 1934 cited in Hokkanen (1991: 89) are partly similar: uncertainty about the future during the Great Depression, the example of many relatives who had signed up earlier giving them a touch of Karelia Fever. But despite the fact that both Sylvias and Lauris parents, immigrants to Michigan, had become socialists, and later communists, Sylvia and Lauri claim that they were not moved by political or ideological consideration; they state that they were apolitical. Neither was the criterion of nostalgia for a Finnish language homeland a factor for them; they had both learned English in school and Sylvia had built a career as an English teacher. Yet, Sylvia and Lauri Hokkanen also embarked upon their honeymoon to Karelia, which in their case lasted seven years. Levels of Political Awareness The previous section offered an account of the degree of political awareness the North American Finns who migrated to Soviet Karelia displayed before departure. Boucht (1973:31-32) emphasizes the political activities at the Finn Hall and how the Finnish immigrants in Vancouver were avid readers of newspapers such as the Communist [sic] paper Vapaa Sana
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[The free word]4, the bourgeois Canadan uutiset [Canadian News], the organ for the labour unions Industrialisti and Punainen Karjala [Red Karelia] which appeared in Soviet Karelia. In fact, Karjala kutsui includes dozens of excerpts from Punainen Karjala throughout the book, which signifies that it was their main source of knowledge and information but also gives the reader of the book a sense of the times and the conditions in Soviet Karelia. Karjala kutsui leaves the reader with the impression that while many Finns were not personally involved or actively ideological or political, most of them, perhaps due to their high degree of literacy, were quite aware of the political, economic, and social situation in North America, Finland and Soviet Karelia, and perhaps even the larger Soviet Union. Aino Streng offers the observation that Einos sister, Vieno, the staunch communist, had come to learn the enormous difference between the theory and practice of communism: Kanadassa teoria, tll kytnt. [In Canada theory, here practice] (Boucht 1973:122). Karelia also reflects a high degree of political awareness among the Finnish American workers in Michigan. There are some mentions of socalled church Finns, but only in passing in Sevanders and Hokkanens book respectively, while such mentions are completely absent from Karjala kutsui. As is to be expected, They Took My Father exudes in political and ideological awareness throughout because of the central role in the Karelia Project of the authors father, Oscar Corgan. During their stay in Soviet Karelia the Strengs maintained considerable awareness of political matters and the political system. They read Punainen Karjala regularly, yet do not appear always to react to the increasing discrepancy between what political news they read and the political reality they lived. Other sources of political information for the Strengs were Finnish party members and supervisors they apparently had befriended and developed close relationships with. They seem to be re4
This is obviously a mistake. The author most likely intends to refer to the socialist or communist Vapaus, the official organ of the Finnish Organization of Canada.
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markably aware of changes in the political climate and rules of conduct in Soviet Karelia. They Took My Father was all throughout even more politically oriented. Young Mayme Sevander is portrayed as possessing extraordinary political observation skills and her family as politically oriented. The Hokkanens by contrast are portrayed as not having a political outlook of or even any interest in the larger political reality. It is, however, possible that the daughter Anita Middleton, who was an American, exercised some degree of censorship as she presumably did not want her parents to come across as communists. Such speculation to some extent is corroborated by one reviewer of the book, Rudy Pinola who states: one comes away from reading this book feeling that had it not been for the Stalinist Russification program and the purges, the Hokkanens might still be living in Karelia. (Pinola 1992:45). However, as the mysterious disappearances began in earnest in 1936 1937, all three memoirs register the nuances and shifts in the political climate with extraordinary sensitivity. The Role of Ethnicity and Language As mentioned among the reasons for migrating to Soviet Karelia the language issue often played an important role. It was a powerful and important recruitment argument in Karjala kutsui. John Latva ended his speech at Finn Hall in Vancouver referred to above: Ja muistakaa, ett tulette suomalaiseen maahan. Itse Lenin on luvannut, ett It-Karjala aina tulee silymn autonomisena neuvostotasavaltana, jossa suomi on pkielen. Ja mink Lenin on luvannut, sen pit Stalin. Teill ei tule olemaan minknlaisia kielivaikeuksia siell kuten tss englanninkielisess maassa. Valtiokoneisto toimii suomen kielell, ja kaikki virka-
Memoir Accounts of Finnish North Americans miehet ovat suomenkielisi. Tulette olemaan kuin kotonanne. (Boucht 1973:3738) [And remember that you will be coming to a Finnish country. Lenin himself has promised that Eastern Karelia will always remain an autonomous Soviet republic where Finnish is the main language. There you will not encounter any language problems as you do here in this English-speaking country. There the state machinery works in Finnish and all civil servants speak Finnish. You will feel at home.]
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Karjala kutsui describes the attitudes toward Karelians, who were the original inhabitants of the area. The Karelians were widely considered somewhat backwards, technologically challenged, and, in general, quite set and complacent in their old ways. The Karelian language was considered merely a spoken dialect of Finnish and as such unsuitable to serve as the official literary language of the autonomous republic. Hence literary Finnish was adopted as Soviet Karelias official language alongside Russian (Boucht 1973:135). Soviet Karelia had experienced an influx of large numbers of Finns from Finland after 1918, but they were not technologically as advanced as those who were recruited from Canada and the United States. The two most important objectives the Gylling administration espoused were (1) how to increase the number of Finns or Finnish speakers to make and keep the areas Finnishness viable, and (2) how to transform Soviet Karelia to the modern, technologically advanced republic the adopted five-year plan called for. The North American Finns were expected to contribute to the solution of both of those prevailing concerns. Karjala kutsui discusses how to achieve membership in the Communist Party. This was described as virtually impossible for North American Finns, but somewhat possible for Finns from Finland, particularly those
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who had been members of the Communist party in Finland (Boucht 1973:123). The North American Finns had more in common among themselves than with the Finns from Finland or the Karelians. They had a distinct identity while also having underlying multiple identities, which may partly explain why they would not be good candidates for membership in the Party.. They did not integrate well with others in Soviet Karelia. Since these enclaves were a reality, Karjala kutsui is, in effect, almost exclusively focussed on the North American Finns. For example, Aino Streng never learned Russian well, while Eino became quite fluent (165). This memoir also registers with considerable precision the gradual advent of more Russians and increased prominence of the Russian language during the Russification period. (See Kangaspuro 2000: 333360). There was ultimately very little ethnic and linguistic homogeneity within the province of Soviet Karelia, despite Gyllings plan for an autonomous, Finnish Karelian republic (see Kangaspuro 2000:87259 and Pogorelskin 1991:ixxvii). Being Finnish and particularly being a North American Finn was described as increasingly undesirable during the middle and latter half o the 1930s. Given this fact, it is likely that Aino and Eino Streng, as well as Aate Pitknen, the subject of the documentary film Letters from Karelia (Saxberg 2004) avoided arrest because they were celebrated elite athletes, which was deemed more important than their nationality or ethnicity. Mayme Sevander and her mother also struggled with problems arising from the fact they did not know Russian (e.g. Sevander 1992:64-67). For the Hokkanens the language issue is centred on Sylvias education at the Karelian Pedagogical Institute where she studies Finnish language and literature; she had been an English teacher at home in Michigan (Hokkanen 1991:29-35). In 1936 she was informed she could no longer attend the Institute because she was not a Russian citizen. However, upon applying for
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her Russian citizenship and a passport she was allowed to graduate and even start teaching. What They Knew and When In Karjala kutsui the Strengs are described as having extensive knowledge of the workings of the Karelian society. For example, Aino contemplates (Boucht 1973:123-124), probably correctly, that there are three ways acquiring tolerable living conditions in Karelia. The first way is by showing political interest and a desire to become a member of the Party, which, as mentioned, was virtually impossible for North American Finns. The second group who could succeed are technical specialists and those who possess needed special skills; they constitute a privileged category. However, they are almost always also required to have sufficient Russian skills: Jrvimki ja Vkev ovat spesialisteja, ammattitaitoisia ja kielitaitoisia (123). [Jrvimki and Vkev are specialists, have professional and language skills.] The third favoured category is made up by elite athletes. Athletes are allowed to use limitless hours to practise, are given necessary equipment free, greater food rations, and full wages for time used for practice and competition trips. In addition, they could receive monetary bonuses for outstanding performances. Eino Streng was an elite soccer player and an accomplished boxer. Aino Streng turned out be an elite level cross country skier as well as a rower. It becomes clear to the reader that they ascribe their survival to their recognized athletic prowess. When the Strengs are about to move from Sorokka to Kontupohja in September 1933 in Karjala kutsui they describe an enormous prison camp outside of Sorokka: Nemme korkeat, miehitetyt vartiotornit ja kilometrikaupalla piikkilankaesteit vartiokoirineen. Siell silytetn kymmeni tuhansia onnettomia ja syyttmi, joiden tehtvn on lapioilla
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Brje Vhmki ja kottikrryill avata valtava kanava Onegan ja Vienanmeren vliin. Kaiken kaikkiaan heit voi olla satatuhatta. Pivst pivn, vuodesta vuoteen krsivt nm niin sanotut vastavallankumoukselliset ja kulakit rangaistuksia rikoksista, joihin he eivt koskaan ole syyllistyneet, kunnes vihdoin nntyvt ja menehtyvt. Heidn rangaistusaikansa on kymmenest kahteenkymmeneenviiteen vuoteen eik kukaan kest kuin muutaman vuoden. Heill on vain yksi mahdollisuus jd eloonkarata. Ja se mahdollisuus on miltei olematon. Sittenkn ei kulu pivkn ilman karkausyrityksi, jotka snnllisesti pttyt siihen ett karkurin ryhmtoverit kaivavat alastomalle ruumiille matalan kuopan (Boucht 1973:112113): [We see tall, manned watch towers and miles of barbed wire obstacles with watch dogs. Tens of thousands of unfortunate and innocent people whose job it is with shovels and wheelbarrows to build an enormous canal between Lake Onega and the White Sea. There may be altogether 100,000 of them. From day to day, year to year these so-called counter-revolutionaries and kulaks suffer punishments for crimes of which they are innocent until they finally starve and perish. The length of their sentences is from ten to twenty-five years and no one lasts more than a few years. They have only one way to surviveescape. And that option is all but non-existent. Yet not a day passes without escape attempts, which regularly end in the prisoners peers digging a shallow pit for the naked body.]
Passages such as this would appear to reflect a good portion of hindsight as it is not likely the Strengs had such detailed knowledge. V. Suomelas booklet (Suomela 1935) Kuusi kuukautta Karjalassa [Six Months in Karelia] describing his experience in Soviet Karelia in 1933
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does mention the prison camp workers building a canal, which suggests it is possible to have known about the existence of the prison camp, but probably not in as much detail as the quote above offers. However, perceptive people in the memoirs would know and conclude from personal experience and rumours a number of facts about the political system, such as the informant system, that someone was always observing you and that one had to censor oneself and refrain from criticizing the conditions or the state even in private conversations to avoid serious consequences. Most of the information the North American Finns absorbed came from Punainen Karjala and some from the radio. They knew very soon that the Party wants to exact total control of the peoples access to information and opinions (Boucht 1973: 165167; Hokkanen1991:35). An example of how the Strengs learned what was going on is given in Karjala kutsui (Boucht 1973:163164). In 1935, Jussi Vkev, a friend of the Strengs who had risen to a high position in the party, decided to begin to limit his contacts with the Strengs. One evening he arrives under meticulous secrecy for a visit and tells them it is best for all parties if they are not in contact with each other. Even his position was by no means secure, he said. He told them what he knew about what appeared to be in store for the Finns in Soviet Karelia: Meill on kaikilla kovat ajat edessmme. Nyt ei slit ketn, nyt puhdistetaan, karkotetaan, teloitetaan. Itse Kustaa Rovio, Neuvosto-Karjalan kommunistisen puolueen psihteeri, joka kvi tll Kontupohjassa pitmss juhannuspuheen tn kesn, on pidtetty kansanvihollisena ja toimitettu Moskovaan. --- Hn ei tule en kauan olemaan elvien kirjoissa. Moskova on vain vliasema iankaikkisuuteen (Boucht 1973:163) [We are all about to face hard times. Now no one is spared, now they are purging, deporting and executing people. Kustaa Rovio
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Brje Vhmki himself, the Secretary General of the Soviet Karelias Communist Party, who came to Kontupohja to give the midsummer speech this summer has been arrested as an enemy of the people and transferred to Moscow. --- He will not be among the living for long. Moscow is but an intermediate stop on the way to eternity.]
Vkev continues by telling about Yrj Sirolas humiliating public confession that he was the father of the wrong national policy of Soviet Karelia. Vkev states that he is afraid all Finns and Karelians will be deported from Karelia and thus the North American Finns will all end up in Siberia or local prison camps. He expected that Aino and Eino Streng, because of their elite athlete status, might still be safe in the short term. The Strengs contacts and friends in high places apparently allowed them greater access to knowledge and the goings on than others. The Strengs knew about Kirovs murder, about Gyllings and Rovios removal from power, and the Russification actions. Eino Strengs brotherin-law, Vilho Brunila, was taken in 1937, but beyond that the Strengs dwell much less than Sevander and Hokkanen on the horrors of the purges 193638. This is likely due to their relatively privileged status as elite athletes, which status likely diminished their personal fears and anxieties despite being Finnish Canadians. The Hokkanens are much more detailed and emotionally affected by the knowledge of the purges. In the chapter How Can They All Be Guilty (Hokkanen 1991:8996), Lauri tells the names and circumstances of numerous North American Finnish friends and acquaintances who were arrested during the horror years. After the great horror (suuri kauhu) in July 1938 when 23 of Lauris workmates were arrested, the Hokkanens decide to apply for permission to return to the United States. Their application was granted in 1941.
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The Corgan family obviously acquired considerable knowledge of the workings of the Soviet Karelian society, which, however, did not prevent Mayme Sevanders father, Oscar, from being taken and disappearing. Living and Survival Strategies Karjala kutsui describes the reception of the North American Finns in Petrozavodsk. The people are instructed as to what jobs they are assigned, where they are to be sent, and where they are going to live. The enthusiasm has already begun to dissipate; the methods of choosing workers for various jobs and locations and picking specialists remind the Strengs of a slave market. They are assured that there is work, food, and housing for everyone. Then they are given a short speech on the history of Soviet Karelia. They were given a foreshadowing of what to expect and what was to come. The Strengs were ingenious and resilient and made new friends easily. Aino was a determined Finnish Canadian woman, a true defiant sister, as evidenced in several situations where she asserted herself with gusto. Eino, by contrast, was easy-going; he was physically exceptionally tall, slender yet strong (had never lost a fight), a star soccer player, an excellent runner and high jumper, and an impressive boxer/fighter. The Strengs developed friendships with influential persons easily and were well liked by everybody. They did not hesitate to use their contacts to advance their lot. Particularly Aino, had a keen sense of self, strong self confidence, and intuitive political instincts. They realized early on that individual freedom and fairness for the worker were not the leading values, but the reality was that the authorities held and exercised absolute power and control. The Strengs adapted admirably to that reality and survived, with a good measure of luck as well to be sure. The same is not true for Mayme Sevanders father, Oscar Gorgan, and countless other North American Finns who were arrested or taken, as
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described in Karelia and They Took My Father. The Hokkanens also responded creatively and inventively to their challenges and managed to survive. Conclusions All three memoirs are well written and correlate exceptionally well with established historical research results about the reasons for migration to Soviet Karelia, about the living and working conditions, and about the complexity, importance, of the political dimension of Soviet Karelia. All three tell the story of exceptionally talented, resilient, adaptable, and politically and practically astute individuals or couples. They all abound with human interest and have the feel of recreated situations were the characters are alive with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, which allows the reader to gain insights history writing is seldom able to provide. They bring the human beings to the forefront while still keeping in mind the larger picture. The fact that some details are not historically accurate does not really matter. Christer Boucht, an establish explorer-writer, and Mayme Sevander, a professional scholar, with Laurie Herzell do justice to the memoir genre: they offer excellent narrative structure, vivid setting description, develop strong plots, and excel in the characterization. Their memoirs do have a fictional quality although the story is true. The Hokkanens Karelia is different. It is stated that Sylvia and Lauri found recalling and revisiting their experiences from sixty years earlier emotionally draining. The end result is a series of vignettes which, however, combine to produce a versatile and balanced account of the seven year sojourn in Soviet Karelia. Both Karjala kutsui and Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple in Stalins Russia, 19341941 are largely void of bitterness or accusations, perhaps because the Strengs and the Hokkanens survived. The tone in They Took My Father is less conciliatory, which is understandable as Sevander
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describes the loss of her beloved father to the purges. All three memoirs reflect the insecurity, the fear and horror, and the vulnerability the people experienced due to the random and arbitrary actions of the authorities. Neither our memoirs nor the published historical research emphasize the fact that only the North American Finns were recruited with the express promise of a Finnish autonomous Karelia. The Finns from Finland had largely arrived for political reasons, e.g. as border hoppers [loikkarit] (See Kostiainen 1988). The Karelians, who were the original inhabitants of Karelia, had of course never been recruited or promised anything nor had the Finns been recruited or promised perpetual Finnishness of Karelia. The expectations of the North American Finns vis--vis Finnishness coupled with their brand of hall culture from North America that they transplanted in Karelia likely made them stand out and attract the not always favourable attention of the Finns and the Karelians, and later of the Russians. Despite the multiple identity the North American Finns displayed they had a distinct identity, possibly exactly for that reason. They were reportedly more vocal than the Finns from Finland, particularly when they perceived the Finnish language promise was being violated. The Finnish-speakers in Soviet Karelia never developed desired homogeneity although the language issue clearly was the perhaps most important variable in the multitude of ethnic, national and culture groupings in the area. The memoirs did not touch on taboo issues, such as sexual mores, homosexuality, suicides, mental illness, etc., which memoirs commonly do not do. They are all, of course, subject to the limitations of selective memory and conscious to considerations of how to present themselves to the world. However, neither of these factors diminishes the power, the validity, or the truth value of these memoirs, as human testaments and as historically relevant texts.
168 References Primary Sources
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Boucht, Christer, 1973: Karjala kutsui [Karelia Summoned us]. Helsinki: Kirjayhtym. Hokkanen, Lawrence and Sylvia, with Anita Middleton, 1991: Karelia, A Finnish-American Couple in Stalins Russia, 19341941. St. Cloud, MN: North Star Press. Sevander, Mayme, with Laurie Hertzell 1992: They Took My Father. Duluth, MN: Pfeifer-Hamilton. Republished by University of Minnesota Press in 2004. Secondary Sources Harpelle, Ron, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin, eds. 2004: Karelian Exodus. Beaverton, ON, Canada: Aspasia Books. Kangaspuro, Markku, 2000: Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta. Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, Bibliotheca Historica. Kostiainen, Auvo, 1988: Loikkarit: suuren lamakauden laiton siirtolaisuus Neuvostoliittoon. Keuruu: WSOY. Pinola, Rudy, 1992: Karelia: A Finnish-American Couple in Stalins Russia. Review in Finnish Americana, pp. 4445. Pogorelskin, Alexis, 1992: Historical Preface. In Hokkanen 1991, pp. ix xvii. Saxberg, Kelly, Director, 2004: Letters from Karelia. Documentary film, National Film Board of Canada, Winnipeg, Canada Suomela, V., 1935: Kuusi kuukautta Karjalassa. Mit siirtolainen nki ja koki Neuvosto-Karjalassa. Sudbury, ON, Canada: Vapaa Sana. Zuwiyya Nancy E.: http://inkspell.homestead.com/memoir.html
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Samira Saramo
Piecing Together Immigrant Lives: An Analysis of Personal Letters Written by North American Finns in Soviet Karelia
Samira Saramo York University Piecing Together Immigrant Lives Samira Saramo The study of immigrant letters provides an opportunity for historians to piece together the relationships people developed with both their home and adopted lands, and sheds light on what life was like for the immigrant. Using three collections of letters written by Finnish North Americans living in Soviet Karelia demonstrates how personal letters can provide valuable insights into the material circumstances of life in Karelia, the cultural trends developed by Finnish North Americans, a social understanding of how Finns in Karelia maintained ties to North America, and how the purges and war were understood and expressed on a personal level. Specifically, this paper examines the flow of personal goods from North America to gain a sense of how the Karelian standard of living compared to the life Finns had been accustomed to, the vibrant youth culture of Karelia to show how building a socialist utopia also meant establishing new cultural rules for sociability and courtship, how letter writers sought to develop their previous relationships to gain a sense of personal
Piecing Together Immigrant Lives
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continuity (Gerber 2006:4), and finally how the arrests and murders of the purge and war period were written about by Finnish North Americans. This paper seeks to discover what life was like for builders of utopia, how immigrants understood their role and place in the world, and how they dealt with the trauma of terror. Instead of relying on sources from the Communist Parties involved or published memoirs, letter collections inform this work. However, finding a model for the analysis of immigrant letters proves quite challenging. It is clear that interest in using immigrants letters exists, as evidenced by a new Canadian project on Mennonites imprisoned in Soviet gulags, entitled Letters From Stalins Russia (Letters From Stalins Russia Homepage 2007). However, after a thorough search, it seems safe to say that there is a real paucity of scholarly material focused on letters. The two significant contributions both deal with nineteenth-century British immigrants. In 1972, Charlotte Erickson published Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in 19th-Century America, a groundbreaking study of British immigrants in the United States, based on the private correspondences of common people. Erickson recognized that letters provided immigrants with a means of remaining himself and justifying himself when he felt most disoriented (Erickson 1972:5). Beyond that, however, Invisible Immigrants offers little in the way of a model for the study of personal letters. Fortunately, David Gerbers Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century offers many valuable considerations. The methodology employed in this analysis of letters from Karelia to North America builds off Gerbers 2006 work. For Gerber, letters provided immigrants with personal continuity in the midst of disruption caused by migration. Importantly, Gerber encourages readers to view letters not only as a way to maintain relationships, but rather as a tool to de-
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velop them (Gerber 2006:3-4). While these assertions may seem simple, in fact they provide a way of re-conceptualizing immigrants bonds to their homeland, or second homeland in the case of some Finns in Karelia. That is, letters were a way to continue to stake out a place in the community left behind, rejecting both the uprooted and transplanted theories prevalent in immigration studies, in order to recognize the possibility of existing in two places at once. Gerber goes as far as to say the content of letters may be less significant than the social function they serve (Ibid.:51-52). This examination of letters written by Finns in Karelia accepts Gerbers primary focus on the letter as a social dialogue, but also pays close attention to the material and cultural circumstances the letters are rooted in to see what insights can be gleaned from the background. Likewise, sensitivity to the everyday issues and events shared through letters provides a sense of the authors life and values. After all, as Gerber rightly suggests, letter-writing, while serving a very social role, could also provide an opportunity for self-reflection (Ibid.:75). The study of private letters is a very fruitful way of gaining an appreciation of immigrant life on a personal, social, and cultural level, but not without a range of challenges that historians must tackle. In order to provide concrete examples of the challenges, attention now shifts to the collections utilized in this study. This paper uses three sets of letters that are a part of the collection being pieced together by the Missing In Karelia Research Project (See the Missing In Karelia Research Project Homepage 2007). The Heino Letters include 10 letters written by daughter Alice and mother Justiina, and one letter written by Tauno Salo to Carl Heino. Little is so far known about the Heino family, other than that Justiina and Frank Heino emigrated to Karelia from Menagha, Minnesota, with children Bill, Carl, Walter, Arthur, Urho, Alice, and Martha, listed by age. Carl and Martha returned to Minnesota to join siblings Laura, Arvid, and Win, who had stayed be-
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hind. While these letters provide a great deal of new and useful information, the challenges caused by the limited information accompanying the letters requires further discussion, provided below. Next, the fourteen letters of Aate Pitknen, written to his parents, sister Taimi and brother-in-law Jim, and friends between March 29, 1933 and June 12, 1942, are accompanied by one very emotionally-charged letter written by Aino Pitknen, Aates aunt, on July 25, 1938. Pitknen immigrated to Petrozavodsk from Kivikoski, just outside of present day Thunder Bay, Ontario. Aate Pitknens remarkable story became public when he was made the subject of a 2004 National Film Board of Canada documentary, Letters from Karelia (Saxberg 2004). Now, Aates letters have been revisited to further benefit the study of Finnish North Americans in Soviet Karelia. The final set of letters is quite different from the Heino and Pitknen collections. The letters of Jack Forsell provide a retrospective look at life in 1930s Karelia. The Missing In Karelia Research Project has acquired twenty-eight letters and several Christmas cards written by Forsell to his niece Janet Lehto in his old home town on the Dog River Valley, just outside of the city of Thunder Bay. The letters were written between February 20, 1972 and December 6, 1996, with a final letter written by wife Elvie on June 23, 1997. Since they are retrospective, Forsells letters could be closely aligned with the available published memoirs. However, it can be argued that since Forsell wrote his recollections over a period of several years and with a very select intended audience, these letters provide a more organic account of his experiences in 1930s Karelia. While some articles, like Paula Autios Haaveet jivat haaveiksi, have made an effort to tell Forsells story, his personal letters provide the best insight (Autio 1993:37-43). There is no doubting the value of studying personal letters. However, like with any type of source, letters pose a multitude of challenges that
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historians must be sensitive to. The primary challenge with letters is posed by the gaps. Missing dates on letters can be a real problem. For example, the Heino letters are all without years, and most without any date at all. To overcome the organizational challenge, the Heino letters are all organized and referenced by number. In addition, at times the content of the letters helps to piece together the dates. For example, Heino Letter No. 8 tells the news of Arthurs passing on January 7th (J. Heinos letter to Win 25.01.1933, No. 8). By referring to a Heino family tree compiled by Martha Heino, it is clear that Arthur died in January of 1933. Another example comes from the letters of Aate Pitknen. A letter from 1933 shows the number 29, but the month is illegible (Pitknens letter to Davis 29.03.1933). However, the letter talks about it being the end of winter. Another letter written on April 6th was included in the same envelope, mentioning that the he had not gotten around to mailing the one he wrote at the end of the previous month. Therefore, it can be ascertained that the previous letter was written in March. When such clear hints are unavailable, historians must carefully construct a time line to try to determine the dates they are dealing with, using mentions of specific events, deaths, and birthdays. Another challenge is posed by missing pages: an obstacle facing all of the letter collections used. In Tauno Salos letter to Carl Heino, it is clear the third page is absent (Salos letter to C. Heino 23.11.1935). As Gerber warns, historians must be critical of all the absences (Gerber 2006:9). Gerber asks historians to also consider the role of the recipient in the case of missing pages or gaps in correspondence (Ibid.:8-10). It is important to ask if something in the letter proved offensive to the original recipient or their descendants. However, like with many Soviet topics, censorship is a serious obstacle to the study of North American Finns in Karelia. During the purges, letter flow decreased significantly. Tellingly, a letter from Justiina Heino reveals that she had sent daughter Martha a letter inform-
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ing the family of the arrest of Frank Heino (J. Heinos letter No.5). Justiina is certain Martha had not received the letter because she believed a reply would have been sent promptly, plus no other letters sent to her in Karelia mentioned the arrest. It is important to ask whether missing pages fell prey to the censor or if the author self-censored knowing their letters would be monitored. Historians must also question how representative the letter writers are. For example, it is important to note that while youth were faced with opportunities to build a community that would support their social and personal needs in Karelia, those who immigrated with families and small children did not necessarily benefit from the same avenues. Ericksons work, which organizes the authors by occupation, contrasts knowledge about occupational groups to the experiences presented in the letters (Erickson 1972:229-232). In the case of the Karelian letters, the information presented by a specific letter writer can be compared to the themes in other peoples letters and to what is known about life in 1930s Karelia. Finally, as Gerber wisely points out, letters are unavoidably emotional sources (Gerber 2006:44). Historians must take note of the tone of the letters and be sensitive to how it may affect what is being expressed. To make the most out of the study of letters, it is vital to be aware of the accompanying challenges and work through them. Using private letters makes it possible to piece together information to further knowledge about the material circumstances in Soviet Karelia. An examination of the flow of small, personal goods from North America suggests which items were most missed and most needed by Finns in Karelia. As people made their way from North America to Karelia, those with family and friends already there sent along goods and messages. Not only did the goods need to be brought overseas, once in Karelia workers were divided and sent to different regions to work, so it could be months before gifts and necessities arrived at their final destination. Items like
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darning needles, razors, aspirin, iodine, and alarm clocks were much appreciated by their recipients (Pitknens letters to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933, to Parents 9.11.1933, and to Parents 1.01.1939). Finns in Karelia asked for and received clothing like sweaters, underwear, socks, woollen long underwear, and especially shoes (Pitknens letter to Parents 9.11.1933 and 1.01.1939; J. and A. Heinos letters No. 4 and 25.01.1933, No. 8). Books and Finnish North American socialist and communist papers, like Punikki, Vappu, and Tymies were sent to keep Finns in Karelia connected to their communities in Canada and the United States (Pitknens letters to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933 and 8.04.1933). Often relatives and friends would send treats like cookies, coffee, candies, and chewing gum, which likely held some nostalgic value for the recipient (Pitknens letters to Davis 29.03.1933, to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933, and to Parents 9.11.1933). Calendars seemed to hold special significance for those in Karelia, likely because of the pictures on the pages (Pitknens letters to Lakeridge Residents 8.04.1933 and to Parents 20.03.1937; Forsells letter to Lehto 29.11.1983). In fact, after receiving a particular calendar, Aate Pitknen told his parents: That one calendar was so fine quality that people line up here so they can come and admire it (Pitknens letter to Parents 20.03.1937). Thank-yous for paper, envelopes, and pictures were usually accompanied by requests for more letters (Pitknens letter to Davis 29.03.1933; J. and A. Heinos letters No. A1 and No. 9). The small sample of letters used to compile the range of items being sent from North America to Karelia demonstrates how a broader study of personal letters could provide a real sense of the trans-national flow of goods. Looking at the types of goods being sent to Karelia, like books, magazines, and treats, shows how North American Finns in Karelia attempted to maintain and develop ties to their home communities. An interest in the news of Finnish socialists in North America is a clear
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example. The range of practical goods, like clothing and needles, for example, offers a sense of what commodities were needed in Karelia but not readily available. Although historians have gained a sense of the large items, like automobiles and tractors, donated through the Soviet Karelian Technical Aid and the Machine Fund, it is fascinating to develop an understanding of the products used in everyday life (Pogorelskin, 2004:38). The study of personal letters provides an excellent view of the material circumstances facing North American Finns in Karelia. Likewise, the letters also give a sense of cultural life. The letter collections provide insight into the flourishing youth culture of 1930s Soviet Karelia. The letters of Aate Pitknen, Alice Heino, and Tauno Salo suggest that building a socialist utopia could also mean scripting new cultural norms of sociability, courtship, and sexuality. Aate Pitknen was so hopeful of the community he saw developing that when informing his friends he had applied to become a Soviet citizen, he proclaimed I dont believe Ill ever regret my decision (Pitknens letter to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933). Yet, to date, no scholarly work has investigated how the prevalence of a significant number of youths impacted the cultural and social development of Karelia. By using the letters to look at the ways youth built their community, their opportunities for entertainment and sociability, and understandings of dating and sexuality, doors are opened for further study. As people were arriving in Karelia, others were deciding to leave. Aate Pitknen often wrote about the importance of forming communities and getting involved in activities and youth culture to lessen the hardships of life in Karelia (Pitknens letters to Parents and Davis 9.11.1933, and to Lakeridge Residents 8.04.1933). Pitknen believed that attending community events provided an opportunity to reveal the bad side of things and we could have tried together to bring about improvements (Pitknens letter to Lakeridge Residents 8.04.1933). The letter collections
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clearly demonstrate the wide array of activities available for those who wanted to be active in Karelias youth culture. In 1933, as an antidote to the high return rate, a city-wide Anglo-American Club was formed in Petrozavodsk for young people (Pitknens letter to Davis 9.11.1933). Many other groups formed for youth. Youth Leagues, Young Pioneers, and Soviet schooling primarily intended to educate Finnish youth in Communist ideology, art, and history. Alice Heino was proud of the tehtvt or tasks assigned to her by the Young Pioneer group (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Likewise, Aate Pitknens letters reveal that he stayed active in the Youth Leagues Agitation Bureau until at least 1939 (Pitknens letter to Parents 1.01.1939). While these organizations certainly worked to train future Communist Party members, the letters hint more at the opportunities for socialization that accompanied educational activities. Many youths took part in musical groups, like choirs and bands, organized through their schools, employers, unions, and Communist youth groups. Alice Heino told her brother that she had joined many groups, or piirit, where she learned songs and poems that were frequently performed for community evenings of entertainment or iltamat (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Aate Pitknen wrote of taking part in group recitals at the radio station as a part of his commitment to his workplace Youth League (Pitknens letter to Parents 9.11.1933). Athletics, both formally organized and recreational, were an important aspect of youth culture in Karelia. Skating rinks were found in most towns across Karelia (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Aate Pitknen was a part of a hockey team during winters (Pitknens letter to Davis 6.04.1933). A North American influence can be seen in the existence of a basketball league (Pitknens letter to Davis 6.04.1933). Wrestling, soccer, pespallo, a Finnish game like baseball, and track and field were popular for both participants and observers (Pitknens letters to Lakeridge Res-
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idents 8.04.1933, and to Parents 20.03.1937 and 12.03.1939). Skiing was another favourite past-time, both cross-country and downhill. For keen athletes, like Aate Pitknen, hobbies could become a ticket for travel, Soviet praise, and even freedom from Stalins purges. Pitknen was chosen for the Soviet Unions ski team and in late 1938 had been moved out of Karelia to head a sports department (Pitknens letters to Parents 1.01.1939). Official educational organizations and athletics offered youth a chance to socialize during the busy work and school week. Those in Karelian schools only had one day off from classes (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Alice Heino missed going to friends homes on school nights to listen to the phonograph, as had been the tradition in her Minnesota hometown (A. Heinos letter No. 4). When the school week or five-day work week was finished, youths would rush to the kulttuuritalo or cultural hall to take part in whatever event was scheduled (Ibid.). While Finns in Karelia were building a community from scratch, the letter collections demonstrate that youth enjoyed modern entertainments. Finnish youth had frequent access to movies, or kinos, in Karelia. Alice Heino, barely a teenager, was impressed by the movies she had seen. She wrote eagerly to her brother about a movie that had an especially strong impact on her: a film about a poet who defied the Tsar by joining the Soviet cause (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Aate Pitknen, however, was not so easily impressed by the available films. Pitknen told his sister and brother-in-law that he did not much enjoy the Party propaganda films, preferring the rare occasions when foreign films were screened (Pitknens letter to Davis 21.11.1934). However, Finnish Karelian theatre, according to Pitknen, could always be counted on for they put on some good plays (Ibid.). Billiards were also readily available for youths. Tauno Salo wrote about how pool rooms were very much in style in 1935 (Salos letter to C. Heino 23.11.1935). Youth could spend their time shooting
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pool for six Rubbles per hour (Salos letter to C. Heino 23.11.1935). The billiard halls, Saturday night dances, and other socials provided Karelias Finnish youth with opportunities for evenings out to raise hell (Pitknens letter to Parents 9.11.1933; Salos letter to C. Heino 23.11.1935). Alice Heino wrote about how she had learned to dance so well in Karelia that she could teach anyone, adding that many boys had asked her to dance but she had yet to promise anyone a lesson (A. Heinos letter No. 4). For older teenagers and twenty-somethings, Karelia provided ample opportunities to date. Aate Pitknen wrote his friends in Lakeridge, Ontario that dating was like a disease and that bachelors change the old [dates] to new ones just as often as gypsies change horses (Pitknens letter to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933). In March 1933, Aate told his sister: Theres been quite a few of these flares, summery, autumn, wintery, and springy and over night flares. I havent had a steady one for a long time, since last year... (Pitknens letter to Davis 29.03.1933). In 1937 Pitknen started to date Maikki and told his sister that people were very happy for them, except for some bachelors who had their eye on the sweetest and cutest girl on this side of the north pole (Pitknens letter to Davis 2.05.1937). The relationship with Maikki proved short-lived and Aate ended up marrying Lilia. When couples, like Aate and Lilia, did settle into serious relationships, parenthood quickly followed. Tauno Salo referred to the speed that couples had babies as a socialist race (Salos letter to C. Heino 23.11.1935). The few mentions of dating and sexuality that are raised in the letters beg for further historical examination. It seems undeniable that the presence of such significant numbers of youths in an undeveloped area led to new ways of conceptualizing sociability, courtship, and sexuality. A comparative study of dating and sexuality among Finnish youth in North America and Karelia would be fascinating. While the 1920s and 1930s
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urban youth cultures in North America had undoubtedly relaxed social mores, it is worth asking to what degree Finnish youth, who primarily lived in rural and hinterland regions of the western Great Lakes, had been affected by the popular post-WWI youth movements. Given the socialist upbringing of the young Finnish Karelians, it would also be worthwhile to explore whether the writings of socialist free love advocates had any impact on the ways sexuality was understood. It seems that personal letters provide the best insight into issues of social rituals and sexuality. It is likely and understandable that many retrospective sources, like Jack Forsells letters, ignore details of youth culture. For one, many of the entertainments described in so much detail can be easily forgotten or taken for granted years later. Similarly, oral interviews and memoirs may view such recollections as too frivolous to include in accounts of the horrors experienced during the purges. However, it is essential to remember the good days in Karelia, when the young were still filled with optimism for the world they were working to build. Such an investigation gives meaning and value to the lives these youths were committed to realizing and provides a contrast for the conditions facing North American Finns during the purges and war. The number of issues raised by such a small sample of letters demonstrates the usefulness of personal letters in shedding light on broader cultural trends, in addition to shedding light on material circumstances and personal conceptions of the immigrant experience. The use of immigrant letters arguably provides the best insight into how people understood their place in a trans-national world, and the relationships they forged and developed with both the home and adopted countries. One of the most fascinating issues that emerges through the study of the three letter collections are the authors expectations of what correspondence should be. Each of the authors were concerned with receiving letters in a timely manner and meeting the required number of
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replies. For example, in a letter to a group of friends in his hometown, Aate complains about his sister sending letters to friends in Karelia while neglecting him (Pitknens letter to Lakeridge Residents 20.06.1933). However, in the same letter, written in June, Pitknen confesses that there are many letters he has yet to respond to, including a thank-you for a Christmas card. Feeling as if they were not sending the required number of letters could cause anxiety for the letter writers. For example, Jack Forsell, who only wrote to his niece and one sister, feared that others would feel like they were being forgotten (Forsells letter to Lehto 6.02.1979). The way authors worried about their communication is an indication of their commitment to the community left behind. In order to meet the demands of letter-writing, the authors chose to open their private letters to the public. Jack Forsell considered his letters as open letters to all who have the patience to read them (Ibid.). Alice Heino provides a list of the people she wants to read her letters (A. Heinos letter No. 3). Gerbers work also confronted the authors tendency to address their letters to a number of recipients within a community or family (Gerber 2006:76). However, Gerber points to an interesting predicament facing letter writers who at times wished their letters to be made public and at other times hoped for confidentiality (Ibid.:108-110). This can be seen in Aate Pitknens letters. While Pitknen almost always asked the recipient to pass the letter on after they had read it, on April 8, 1933 he states: Even these news you should keep more or less for your own information (Pitknens letter to Lakeridge Residents 8.04.1933). Gerbers work makes readers question to what extent letter writers felt confident that their wishes for privacy would be honoured when in such stark contrast to their usual letters. While meeting the demands of letter writing was important to the authors, a failure to hear from loved ones could lead to a severe sense of loneliness and depression. After losing two sons in Karelia, and not
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knowing what had happened to her husband, Justiina Heinos letters act as a desperate plea for a tie to her family and old community. Justiina writes that she has been wondering about all kinds of old friends and looking at the few photographs she had, but confesses that she knows nothing of their lives as she has been without correspondence for so long (J. Heinos letter 16.06.1941, No. 9). The tendency of letter writers to provide a thorough list of all the people they have been communicating with, like the one evident in Alice Heinos March 18th letter, can be seen as an attempt to stay active and grow and develop alongside the social dynamics occurring in the home community (A. Heinos letter No. 2). Unfortunately, Ericksons Invisible Immigrants omitted all mentions of correspondences and greetings from the letters reproduced in the work (Erickson 1972:9). By paying attention to these seemingly mundane references, historians can better see the ways immigrants worked to stay up to speed on the social worlds they were distanced from. For example, as mentioned above in the discussion of the goods being sent from Canada and the United States, letter writers were careful to always list the items received. However, this practice and the items held more significance than just politeness and the acquirement of needed goods. For Alice Heino, the phonograph she cherished in Karelia held special significance because it was a gift from her brother, a fact she brings up in two letters (A. Heinos letters No. 2 and No.4). In 1939, having been in Karelia for several years already, Aate Pitknen lists all of the goods he had received over the years, from whom, and whether he still had them (Pitknens letter to Parents 1.01.1939). Such an act is especially telling of the value and sentimentality Pitknen attached to the gifts he had received, even the most practical of items. For Aate, socks were not just socks, but socks that Hulkkos gave me and paper Antti Karis paper (Pitknens letter to Parents 1.01.1939). Perhaps the emotion Aate
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Pitknen attaches to his possessions in the January 1, 1939 letter is also an indication of how he had become distanced from the community from which he had already been away from for so long. These glimpses reveal a very personal side of the letter writers that longed to develop with their home communities in order to be afforded a sense of personal continuity. A clear sense of longing and nostalgia for the friends, family, and places left behind further demonstrates how North American Finns in Karelia craved to maintain a place in their old communities. Even in the early days of settlement in Karelia, Alice Heino claimed to be happy and busy but schemed to return to the United States for a visit (A. Heinos letters No. 3 and No. 4). As more time passes and the effects of Stalins purges and the war had ravaged the optimism present in early 1930s Karelia, Aate Pitknens letters reveal a real sense of longing for family. In June 1942, just days before his execution, Pitknen expresses remorse for not having been there for his parents, stating: I am sorry that I have not been able to help you at all in your old age, but as you know yourselves, it has not been possible (Pitknens letter to Parents 10.06.1942). Pitknen continues to write: You did right, Father, when you returned to Canada in time, and didnt have to suffer these wars and become separated from home and family like me (Ibid.). In his final letter, from June 12, 1942, Aate confesses: It was always my wish to see you again one day, and particularly now that I have started a family of my own (Ibid.). Statements like these reveal that even with many years separating an immigrants time in their home community and establishment of a new life, Finns continued to stake a place for themselves in North America. While the letters reveal a very deep commitment to maintaining a place within the community left behind, an examination of the ways the purges and war were written about further develop an understanding of how Finnish North Americans viewed their identity and place in Soviet
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Karelia. The most significant letter dealing with the purges can be found in Aate Pitknens collection. The letter, however, was written by Aino Pitknen, Aates aunt (Aino Pitknens letter to A. and K. Pitknen 25.07.1938). The letter was able to describe what was happening in Karelia so vividly because the writer had been deported from the USSR a few months earlier, and wrote from Finland. The content is worth quoting at length: ...Russia is undergoing a big cleansing. The whole winter we were afraid whose turn it is tonight. Soldiers came with bayonets to get people and after that nothing more was heard from them. From the whole river they took Finns so thoroughly that only four men were left... You cannot believe what life was like last winter in the Soviet Union. People have done anything bad, only hard work, and this is the way they are treated, some are imprisoned, others sent away... All last winter we did not dare sleep. All the time we kept an eye on the door wondering when are the soldiers coming as they always came during the night... The letter tells the names of people known to have been taken, and continues to explain what went on. The freedom in writing afforded to Aino was not available to those in Karelia. According to Jack Forsell, however, they did already understand that people were being murdered in 1938 (Forsells letter to Lehto 14.01.1993). With the exception of Aino Pitknen, the letter writers tended to slip in mentions of the purges amid regular letter contents, rather than writing about it directly. Perhaps this was done in an effort to get past the censors. When the purges are discussed, the writers downplay their own losses and pains to lament the overall consequences of the purges on Finns. While Justiina was not sure whether her husband was alive or dead, she deflec-
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ted her own very evident mourning by saying he is but only one of thousands missing (J. Heinos letter to Son 16.06.1941, No. 9). Likewise, Aates final letter to his parents before being executed as a traitor by the Finns, follows the pattern of transferring his personal loss to the communitys grief, stating: I was hoping that when the war is over we would all somehow get together and that we could help you when you need help, but one cannot change fate. And so many boys, and much better ones than me, have died after all (Pitknens letter to Parents 12.06.1942). Arguably following this tendency, Jack Forsell was frustrated by Mayme Sevanders memoir, They Took My Father, because he felt that the book focussed too much on the struggles of one family, rather than the community (Forsells letter to Lehto 10.1992). Like Aino Pitknen, who twice writes that the recipients will be unable to understand what has happened, fifty years later Jack Forsell still believes those who did not live through the purges and war wouldnt understand anything about it or even believe it (Forsells letter to Lehto 4.12.1988). A year after complaining about Sevanders memoir, Forsell suggests that perhaps it was better that the book was so diluted because the actual tragedies would be too hard for you to digest (Forsells letter to Lehto 14.01.1993). From the letters of Aino, Justiina Heino, Aate Pitknen, and Jack Forsell it is clear that North American Finns in Karelia had built a strong sense of community that was solidified by trauma experienced collectively. The letters suggest no discrepancy between maintaining a place in the communities they left in North America and the way they began to understand themselves as a part of the Karelian community. A larger sampling of letters would undoubtedly help to broaden knowledge about how sense of self and the purges intersect. The Heino, Pitknen, and Forsell letter collections demonstrate the value of pursuing an analysis of immigrant experiences through personal
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letters. The letters show how Finnish North Americans in Soviet Karelia used their connections to home communities to enhance material circumstances. By studying the types of goods flowing from North America to Karelia, a sense of what was needed and not available, and the types of items that were valued by the immigrants is gained. Descriptions of youth sociability, courtship, and sexuality in the letters open doors to a new study of Soviet Karelias blossoming youth culture. An examination of how letter writers understood correspondence offers a sense of how Finnish North Americans in Karelia sought ways to remain active participants in the communities they had left behind. Finally, a look at the ways letters dealt with the purges illustrates how personal identity was shaped by the collective experience of the ethnic cleansing and war. The small sampling of letters analysed in this paper suggests how a broader study of immigrant letters could significantly contribute to current knowledge about the history of Finnish North Americans building socialism in Karelia. Such a project, which would have to work to overcome the challenges posed by the source type, could stand as a model for studies of twentieth-century immigrant letters, something currently missing. Just as picking up hints from individual letters sheds light on the experiences of the writer, a broad letter analysis provides a way of piecing together the material, cultural, social, and personal aspects of the immigrant experience.
188 References Primary Sources:
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Missing in Karelia Research Project Letter Collections: Jack Forsell, February 20, 1972 June 23, 1997. Justiina and Alice Heino, circa. 1933 June 16, 1941. (Nos. 1- 9) Aate Pitkanen, March 29, 1933 June 12, 1942. Aino Pitkanen, July 25, 1938. Tauno Salo, November 23, 1935 Secondary Sources Erickson, Charlotte, 1972: Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in 19th-Century America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gerber, David A., 2006: Authors of Their Lives: The Personal Correspondence of British Immigrants to North America in the Nineteenth Century. New York: New York University Press. Harpelle, Ronald, Varpu Lindstrom, and Alexis E. Pogorelskin, editors, 2004: Karelian Exodus: Finnish Communities in North America and Soviet Karelia During the Depression Era. Beaverton, ON: Aspasia Books, Inc. Websites Letters From Stalins Russia Homepage. http://www.gulagletters.com The Missing In Karelia Research Project Homepage. http://www.missinginkarelia.com
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190 Irina Takala
Irina Takala
North American Finns as Viewed by the Population of Soviet Karelia in the 1930s
Irina Takala Petrozavodsk State University North American Finns as Viewed by Soviet Karelians Irina Takala Human history is the history of human migrations. With the evolution of mankind, migration processes became more complicated, and new reasons for migration regularly emerged. Researchers discern several types of external migration, such as migration of tribes and nations, colonization movement; emigration of citizens of one country to another country due to different reasons (economic, political, ethnic, religious). For example, workers emigration became wide-spread during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as a migration from countries, as a rule, less developed, to rich and industrial countries, where the emigrants hoped to find better conditions of life and work. In the early twentieth century revolutions, as well as economic factors, strongly accelerated migration processes, while in the late twentieth century economic crises, political and racial conflicts in Eastern Europe gave rise to an increase in the number of refugees and immigrants who moved to Western Europe. The phenomena of immigration to and emigration from Russia also have a long history. Despite its large population, the country always lacked a sufficient labour force. On the one hand, in Russia there had al-
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ways been a shortage in qualified technical specialists; on the other hand, even unqualified workers were in demand in its spacious uninhabited territories. Russian authorities have tried, since the times of Ivan the Terrible, to solve these problems by inviting foreigners the first suburbs for foreigners (the places where foreigners settled in Russian towns) emerged in the sixteenth century. During the reign of Peter the Great the inflow of foreigners significantly increased, and in the times of Catherine the Great, foreigners (primarily, Germans) began to colonize uninhabited lands along the Volga river and the Black Sea coast. The economic migration of Koreans, Chinese, Finns, etc. in border regions of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century was also considerable. Colonists and immigrants were granted by the government significant privileges for the exploration of new lands; they were exempt from compulsory military service and from taxation. The period of the 1920 and 1930s is particularly interesting, since at this time tens of thousands of foreigners, driven by various influences, moved to the Soviet Union. The emergence of the first-ever socialist state, which became the centre of Communist ideas, initiated a phenomenon of large-scale political migration. Political immigrants were the most privileged group of immigrants. They were granted a number of privileges by the government, as they were to become the conveyors of Communist ideas in their own countries and across the world. The most numerous group of immigrants were, however, foreign workers and specialists, who came to the USSR to help the Soviet people build the shining Communist future. Most of the immigrants were sincere. The faith in socialism was strong among many workers in the world, and the economic crisis that swept through Europe and America only strengthened their faith. Nevertheless, this category of immigrants should be considered as labour immigrants, since their main reasons for immigration were mostly economic.
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The movement in support of the workers and peasants republic arose in many European countries as early as the time of the Russian Civil War. It was common that at workers meetings of solidarity, workers declared their desire to move to the Soviet Union to begin a new life. Many such workers were from Germany, which was hit by a severe economic crisis in the early 1920s. Thousands of Germans declared their intention to move to the USSR, and some of them set off without permission from either German or Soviet authorities. In 1919 Soviet government authorities, the Supreme Council of the National Economy and the Peoples Commissariat of Agriculture raised the issue of the recruitment of Western-European workers to Russia for employment in industry and agriculture. In spring 1920, the Council of Peoples Commissars adopted a number of resolutions, defining the conditions for immigration of workers in spheres of industry and agriculture from Western Europe (Decrety Sovetskoi Vlasti 1976: 298-299, 340-343). They referred, at first, to immigrants from Germany, but consequently were used as the basis for contracts with other immigrants. The main idea of all documents related to immigration of qualified German workers of particular professions, stated that the immigrants had to be allocated in groups to work in factories and at communal farms. This was supposed to lead to increases in production. Immigrants were granted a number of privileges, unlike other citizens of RSFSR, including exemption from national and regional taxes for five years and exemption from military service on condition that they obey laws and meets standards of production. Higher wages and additional food supply were also provided, as it was related to the increase in labour productivity (Tarle 2003). The preference was given to unmarried workers, and to those, who had a small family. The intention of the Soviet government to recruit labour immigrants who were equipped with tools in short supply in Russia and possessed up-
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to-date work skills initially was hindered by different institutions, as each of them tried to avoid the responsibility of paying benefits for foreigners. The documents attached to the resolutions of the Council of Peoples Commissars demonstrate the rivalry of institutions and inefficiency in decisions, related to immigration. However, the decisive point was the declaration of Lenin that a dozen, a hundred of high-qualified foreign workers could teach a hundred or a thousand of Russian workers, working with them, and therefore recruitment of foreigners was both desirable and necessary (Novikov 2007). At the same time, Lenin insisted on the necessity of getting a written acknowledgement from German delegates who visited Russia for negotiations on immigration; in this acknowledgement they had to confirm that they are familiar with all difficulties of lives of workers in Russia (Tarle 2003). Another possible source of mass immigration was the USA. It was frequently recent immigrants (including Russians) who hadnt adapted well to American life that expressed their intention to move to Russia, rather than Americans themselves. Immigration and re-emigration were realized under the slogan of help for restoration of the Soviet economy. All reemigrants (with a likely exception of political ones) and foreign immigrants purchased technical equipment for their work and provided themselves with everything necessary for two years both according to their own will as well as conditions of entry to the USSR. The Soviet industry really needed qualified workers because during 1917-1920 the number of workers in Russia reduced from 2.6 to 1.2 million. Many people left towns and moved to the countryside because of the lack of food (Sovetskoie Narodnoie Hoziaistvo 1960: 531). Soviet agriculture remained very outdated even in 1928, 5.5 million peasant farms used ploughs, and half of the crop harvest was gathered with reaping hooks and scythes (Lewin 1975: 29). Immigration of foreign farmers who used modern technologies of agriculture seemed very opportune for the
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Soviet government. In general, labour immigration was encouraged due to both ideological and economic reasons until late 1921. At the same time, the experience of the early immigration showed that the plan of large scale immigration was unrealistic as the country was not prepared for that. Reasons for failures and conflicts with the first immigrants were both of objective and subjective nature; the implementation of the projects ran into serious difficulties, concerning both sides. This circumstance, as well as changes that took place in the country, influenced the future political decisions concerning the scale and form of immigration and re-immigration. The first restrictions concerning labour immigrants were imposed in RSFSR in June 1921. In May 1922, the Council of Work and Defense decided to consider it necessary to reduce immigration as much as possible and give entry permit only to those groups of workers, who can surely find a suitable work in the republic (Sobraniie uzakonenii 1922: Article 440). But practically, this law was applied only to American farmers and workers, whose immigration was economically profitable for the government. At that time, American agricultural communes began to appear in different parts of the country. They operated with unheard-of thoroughness and efficiency. In 1922, American Finns founded a commune Kylvj (Sower) in the region of Rostov. Later they founded communes Ty (Labour) near Leningrad and Sde (Ray) in Karelia. The government set high property and income qualifications, taking into account economic conditions and aiming at reduction of the inflow of immigrants. Since 1923 the indispensable condition of entry access for immigrants was import of basic and circulating capital in amount sufficient for organization and operation. The quantity and form of the capital were determined by the contract between farmers and Soviet authorities. The government, interested in improvement of virgin lands, granted the farmers that settled there a number of privileges. For instance, some agri-
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cultural arrangements could substitute capital for rent, according to a special agreement. (Sobraniie uzakonenii 1923: Articles 128, 525) In 1923-24 industrial immigration became impossible. Many factories were closed because of a general industrial crisis and an absence of fuel and orders; this was followed by unemployment. Since 1924 the registration procedure for immigrants became even more complicated, as they had to pay for their own travel as well as for transportation of industrial and agricultural equipment. However, immigrants had to pay according to reduced rates and importation of their equipment was custom-free. Now the only direct privileges were exemptions concerning taxation and military service. Since 1925, in addition to all existing restrictions, the indispensable condition of entry access for labour immigrants became their membership in agricultural communes, workmens associations, and cooperatives according to the charters of corresponding organizations in the USSR (Sobraniie uzakonenii 1924: Article 383; Sobraniie uzakonenii 1925: Articles 119, 134, 152, 171; Sobraniie zakonov 1925: Article 303). Immigration processes completely ceased in 1927, when Soviet authorities, preparing for collectivization of the countryside, forbade agricultural immigration. (Sobraniie uzakonenii 1926: Article 458; Sobraniie uzakonenii 1927: Article 130; Sobraniie zakonov 1927: 95). A new turn in immigration policy of the Soviet authorities was related to industrialization the country needed an industrial work force and qualified specialists. On the one hand, legislation concerning emigration and immigration continued to get more stringent, on the other hand, the decisions of the sixth meeting of the All-Union Communist Party (which set a course for extension of practice of sending workers and specialists abroad and inviting foreign engineers, foremen and qualified workers to the USSR) (KPSS v resolutsiiakh 1953: 589) let a new wave of immigration in. The government planned to recruit 40.000 foreign workers and specialists to the USSR (Zhuravliov 2000: 27). Such decisions had the
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force of law in the class state with a one-party system, which constantly increased its influence on all spheres of life. There was no centralized system for recruitment of foreign workers various institutions invited foreigners along with the Supreme Council of National Economy. The scale of the recruitment can be demonstrated by the fact that just in the Soviet embassy in Germany in the early 1930s seventy people were employed for the recruitment activities (Zhuravliov and Tiazhelnikova 1994: 181). By the end of the first five-year plan there were about 20,000 highly-qualified foreign workers and specialists in the USSR (with members of families about 35,000) (Ioffe 1966: 28; Zhuravliov 2000: 29). Most immigrants were from Germany and the USA. The government of Karelia initially acted according to the direction of the mainstream policy, though bringing in their own ideas. Realizing the idea of Karelian state autonomy, and then implementing the policy of Korenizatsia, the government of the political emigrant Edward Gylling counted on the immigration of ethnic Finns to Karelia. Canada and the USA could be the source of the work force in addition to Finland, as in 1930 there were about 173,000 of Finnish immigrants in these countries (Andriainen 1969: 181). The idea of inviting Finns from the USA to Karelia first appeared right after the revolution. In May 1918 Eino Rahja and Edward Vasten discussed this idea with Lenin (Koronen 1969: 130). Edward Gylling, who was in charge of the Karelian Labour Commune from 1920, began inviting American Finns to the republic. Initially, it was planned to recruit not only political immigrants (who took part in the Finnish revolution of 1918). In the early 1920s the Revolution Committee of Karelia and the Council of Peoples Commissars discussed the idea of importing foreign workers. In 1921-22 the Commission on Transnational Corporation and the Finnish Industrial Union concluded a number of treaties on transport-
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ation of qualified work force from Finland to the forest factories of Karelia to cut and transport timber (NARK, f. R-550, op. 1, d. 3/37, l. 219; NARK, f. R-682, op. 1, d. 1/10, l. 5-6). At that time the first North American Finns appeared in Karelia in 1922 the USA Fishermens Association was founded in the North of Karelia (Kniazhia Guba), and three years later a group of Canadian workers and farmers founded an agricultural commune Sde. Sparsely populated Karelia was very much in need of a qualified work force. As the rate of economic growth heightened and ambitious plans were adopted in the country, the lack of workers was getting more obvious. Production goals concerning timber felling were constantly increasing, while importation of seasonal workers (tens of thousands of people every year) was too expensive and ineffective. Karelian authorities repeatedly applied to the higher authorities for allowance to revise their manpower policy. One of the requests to the Council of Peoples Commissars of RSFSR says: Rapid socialistic construction and restoration of agriculture in Karelia and rearrangement of the republic into an industrial region demand such a large number of workers that its impossible to satisfy the demand using only the local workers. The situation is aggravated by the insufficiency of qualified workers and by the absence not only of national proletarian staff, but even of the core of them (NARK, f. R-690, op. 1, d. 15/163, l. 46-47). Karelian authorities saw the solution to the problem in expansion of immigration policy and in an increase of the inflow of Finnish workers from Northern America. The most qualified workers, according to the plans of the authorities, should have been the core of national proletarian staff. The project of the Karelian authorities concerning immigration was initially rejected by the higher authorities. The reason for such rejection was said to be that using foreign workers in the Soviet conditions is ineffective (NARK, f. R-690, op. 1, d. 17/181, l. 14-15, 17-18). The decisions of
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the 16th Congress of the VKP(b), which became known as the Congress of the large scale offensive of Socialism, radically changed the situation. In autumn 1930 the first small group of timber workers from Canada arrived in Karelia. This year Karelian authorities finally managed to agree with the central authorities on the project of mass immigration of qualified North American Finns to Karelia. It should be noted that the problem was dealt with at the highest level: Gylling discussed it with Stalin and Molotov (Rabochii klass Karelii 1984: 8). In 1931-1932 the Councils of Peoples Commissars of the USSR, RSFSR and Karelia adopted a number of resolutions defining the number of foreign workers to be recruited for forest employment (NARK, f. P-3, op. 5, d. 276, l. 50-53). The large scale immigration of Finns from Northern America to Karelia began. During 1930-1935 about 6,500 North American Finns came to Karelia. More than a third of this number were women and children, not engaged in industry (for a more detailed account of the Finnish diaspora in Soviet Karelia see: Takala 2002). In addition to recruitment of Finnish workers, the government counted on Karelian workers from Tver, and Vepsians and Finns from Ingria. The resolution of the Council of Peoples Commissars of Karelia on scheduled figures of labour immigration (1932) states: To define as the minimum the recruitment of 12,600 workers in the course of labour resettlement, including 5,000 workers as foreign work force (America, Canada, Sweden); from regions of the USSR 7,600 people, about 6,000 of whom should be Karelians from Tver and Finns from Ingria (Rabochii klass Karelii 1984: 10). However, we shouldnt forget that in the time of the first fiveyear plan the influence of central Soviet authorities on the Karelian economy strengthened. Many large enterprises and trusts that had been passed under the control of central Soviet authorities, implemented their own recruitment policy. As a result, 64,813 people moved to Karelia in 1932: 38 Vepsians (0.06 %), 1,218 Karelians (1.9 %), 7,649 Finns (11.8
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%, Ingrian Finns totalled only 164 people (NARK, f. P-3, op. 2, d. 783, l. 4)); the percentage of Russians was 68.7 % (44,526 people), and of others 17.6 % (11,382) (calculated on the basis of: Perepis naseleniia 1935: 16-17, 47). We see that the actions of Karelian authorities concerning recruitment of labour immigrants from abroad, the establishment of the corresponding authorities and the using of broad propaganda and the system of recruitment commissions shouldnt be considered as the initiative only of political Finnish immigrants and Edward Gylling, who some researchers say were driven by pan-Finnish ambitions (Pogorelskin 2000: 25-26; Kangaspuro 2000: 87-99; Baron 2002: 279-308). As in the determination of the destiny of Karelian autonomy, the decisive point that allowed implementing the immigrant policy was the concurrence of Gyllings proposals and the national and economic policy of Soviet authorities. Immigration (internal and external), which was the main cause of the increase of the Karelian population and dissipation of its native population, resulted in the fact that by 1933, people not born in Karelia amounted to a third (32.8 %) of the Karelian population (Perepis naseleniia 1935: 47). So how did Karelian people treat immigrants, especially immigrants from abroad? Lately inter-cultural studies are becoming more popular. The interest in them is getting stronger because of unsolved political, social and economic problems, inter-ethnic conflicts and nationalism. But the understanding that we live in a multicultural world and that the unusual is not always bad has come to the mankind only recently. However, the process of the gradual adaptation of immigrants to a new environment has always been seen as a gradual dissipation that lasted for a long or short time, depending on individual features.
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The works, dedicated to the studying of adaptation of immigrants, focus on various types of strategies of behaviour of groups and individuals in the conditions of a new cultural environment. These strategies are: 1. Integration, when each of the interacting groups and its members preserve their own culture, but at the same time closely communicate with each other. 2. Assimilation, when a group and its members lose their culture and adopt the new culture; 3. Separatism/segregation, when a group and its members preserve their culture, but cut off contacts with another culture or they are outcasts from it. 4. Marginalization, when a group and its members lose their culture, but do not come into close contact with another culture. There are strong links between strategies of acculturation and the success of adaptation in a foreign cultural environment: the best results can be achieved by integration, the worst when we have to deal with marginalization, and assimilation and separatism take an intermediate position (Psikhologicheskaia i sotsiokulturnaia adaptatsiia immigrantov). But, as we know, minority groups are not always free to choose a strategy. Mutual accommodation is necessary to achieve integration. Both cultural groups should acknowledge the right to live as culturally different nations. This strategy demands that not only the minority accommodates to the principal values of the majority, but that the majority should be ready to adjust their social institutions to the needs of immigrants. Issues connected with the perception of immigrants by the local population are not so well explored. In the modern psychological research on how Russians perceive immigrants we can find assumptions that Russians prefer immigrants, who dont conform to the stereotypes of their nation, but who are more likely to conform to the stereotypes of typical Russi-
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an behaviour and way of thinking (Shchebetenko et al 2006). So, the bigger the discrepancy is, the more negative is the perception of foreigners. It seems that this assumption can be supported by historical material. As mentioned in our previous research (Takala 2004; Takala 2007), in 1920-30s Finnish immigrants were seen by the local workers not as a united ethnic group, but as several waves of alien foreigners who were thought to be dangerous to their life and welfare. Confrontation between the Red Finns, who were in charge of the republic during 1920-1935, and the local population was actually confrontation between Karelians and the Soviet authorities. Political immigrants became the personification of the new policy and, of course, the ones to blame for all the misfortunes that the Karelians had to struggle with. The image of the White Finn conqueror, promoted by the government, was projected onto the local authorities by the population. Bourgeois Finland and its revolutionary proletariat that suffered, as newspapers of that time stated, under the yoke of the white terror, were somewhere far away. The Red Finns were close, so very often they were treated as masters, wishing to deprive the Karelian people of their motherland, and sometimes even as the fifth column. This image of alien was almost not ethnically coloured, but it often merged with the image of bourgeois life and the privileges of immigrants contributed to it. After the beginning of the large scale immigration, the Karelian press became actively involved in the shaping of a positive image of immigrants among the local population. Republican and regional newspapers published enthusiastic opinions of the immigrants about the USSR and the work achievements of foreigners. There were plenty of such headlines: To borrow the experience of Americans, Canadian workers in Karelian forests, Canadian timber-workers support the request of the regional committee, No one of us will return to America!, Not slaves, but masters, Weve come to help (Krasnaia Karelia. 1931, Iss. 41, 123,
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291; 1932, Iss. 8, 54, 73). But an absolutely different image of immigrants begins to form in the society. There were a big difference in cultural priorities and value orientation between urbanized North Americans and the people of poor rustic Karelia. The extremely poor local population saw American Finns not as an ethnic group, but as foreigners, boarders, bourgeois, depriving them of rights and work. Leaving America the immigrants hoped in addition to everything else that they were moving to a country where there were no crises and unemployment, where all people lived like one big family working and resting together (see, e.g., Ranta 2000: 41-45). But in reality they got into a strata-bound society based on economic and political disparity of different social layers. Now they found themselves at one of the highest levels of the society. Immigrants were exempt from common agricultural taxation for ten years and from income taxes for 3 years. They had the right to receive an apartment immediately, to enter educational institutions, to have additional food supply, etc. (NARK, f. R-685, op. 1, d. 2/16, l. 3). The American Finns clearly understood their peculiar position. We were not border-hoppers, we were legal immigrants, who were invited to come, who worked under contract. We had special rights and privileges (Ranta 2000: 36). Immigrants considered these privileges as granted: We were in special conditions, we had special rations for immigrants. <> if we didnt have this, none of us could have lived even a week in Karelia (Tuomi 1984: 43). And they were unable to understand how the local population could survive, having such a small wage and without any additional supply: Only the American Finns bought goods in the shops for immigrants. <> moreover, we had special ration standards. But even now I cant understand how Russian people, who didnt have such rations, managed to survive (An interview with E. Rautio. May 25, 2002).
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The privileges of foreigners were a matter of jealousy and hatred among the local population. Russian workers said: Americans came here to eat our bread!, The bourgeois have come here and they are cared for while Russian workers can starve and nobody cares (NARK, f. P-3, op. 2, d. 790, l. 15; NARK, f. P-1230, op. 2, d. 9, l. 31; NARK, f. P-1230, op. 7, d. 6, l. 123). At many companies the wages of American Finns were much higher than the wages of local workers, and it was not always caused by the professional level of foreigners. For instance, the average wage of a foreign worker at the Onego factory amounted to 180 roubles, while the wage a local worker was only about 100 roubles (NARK, f. R-685, op. 1, d. 13/150, l. 73). The local workers were exasperated by the fact that foreigners got larger wages and that they held better jobs than the local workers. We work for five years and get 204 roubles in a month, and then come Finns, who havent worked before and also get also 204 roubles. <...> is there any justice? Russians are neglected in our workshop, all good jobs are occupied by Americans, and almost all of us have only day-work, thats why we work so only going to the dining room, to the smoking room and to the lavatory (NARK. f. P-1230, op. 6, d. 10, l. 32; op. 2, d. 9, l. 35). Complicated, often adversary intercourse between immigrants and the local population was caused not only by the rivalry for limited economic resources. As was already noted, ethnic-cultural distance (the difference in the system of social values and notions of a desirable way of life), which divided people, was of great importance. Immigrants didnt understand and accept many things in the surrounding reality. At work, foreigners were most dissatisfied with injustice and trickery in calculations, bad organization of work, dead-time and constant shock-working, and also with bureaucracy and passivity of authorities at different levels. Unlike Russian workers, who put up with many things,
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foreigners demanded that authorities should care about proper organization of work, liquidation of dead-time, raising wages, correct calculations, regular vacations, good living conditions, etc. They often acted the same as they did at capitalist enterprises: stopping work, organizing strikes, and issuing ultimatums, and this was typical for all foreign workers employed in the USSR. (Cf: Zhuravliov 1999). Such actions were the cause for irritation and perplexity of the local workers, and the authorities regarded these as the absolute incomprehension of practical problems of our building work, difficulties of the transitional period and especially of the strategy of the Communist Party (NARK, f. P-3, op. 2, d. 790, l. 10). The negligent policy of the local authorities contributed to the aggravation of conflicts among the foreign workers and the local population. The decisions of party and state authorities concerning the necessity to provide immigrants with good living and working conditions were sometimes implemented in a strange way. It was expressed in unreasonably high wages of immigrants, the preferential provision of lodging, the distribution of rations, etc. The documents of the early 1930s are full of evidence that many conflicts between the local population and the immigrants were caused mostly not by the actions, but by the words of the local officials, such as: The goods are not for you, they are for the Americans, youll get along without them (NARK, f. R-685, op. 2, d. 12/147, l. 25) Do you need an apartment? I know. We have satisfying apartments, but we wont give one to you. Were waiting for qualified foreign workers; were saving the lodgings for them. And who are you? Just simple labourers. Do you really think we can give apartments to simple labourers? (Alionkin 1932).
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Finns also added fuel to the fire. Many North American immigrants, especially at the beginning, treated the local population quite cynically and contemptuously, thinking that the Russians were retarded people, unable to make progress and order (See, e.g., Komulainen 1995: 24, 64). Taking responsible positions, they first of all tried to help their compatriots, and it was often at the expense of local workers. In April 1932, local workers at the forest factory October Revolution refused to work saying that the head of the mechanical shop, Peterson, and his deputy, Mki, gave preference to their people, appointing them to preferential positions that was often harmful to production. For instance, the worker Toropov was dismissed from the position of foreman. Peterson appointed his own son, who had no experience, to this post. The wage was raised to 47 roubles a day, which was a huge sum of money for those days (NARK, f. P-1230, op. 6, d. 10, l. 22). There were some cases when the American Finns tried to conceal improper behaviour of their compatriots. We can find complaints of that kind in documents: Foreigners constantly drink, skip up to three days, the authorities know this, but do nothing, while we, Russians, are fired for only one skipped day, our ration cards are taken away, and we are expelled from out flats (NARK, f. P-1230, op. 7, d. 6, l. 76). Conflicts and opposition sometimes developed into clashes that were harmful for industry and dangerous for peoples lives. For instance, the chief mechanic of the Onego factory reported that during ten days there had been four accidents that were obviously deliberately organized. In April 1933, the mechanic of the machinery shop, Kirpasov, let all the water out of a heated container before leaving work. He knew that a group of American workers would come soon. The result of this was an accident and several people were injured (NARK, f. P-1230, op. 6, d. 20, l. 11). The relationships with the local population and in everyday life were also not simple. They made ethnic-cultural differences even more evident.
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The conditions, which immigrants had to endure, were very poor, miserable for America and Finland, but in Karelia immigrants were considered to be wealthy and bourgeois. The things brought by the immigrants, were out of the ordinary for the local population, that hadnt seen much before. The clothes of the immigrants differed from those worn by Karelian people. The fact, that even in the unbearable conditions of life in the barracks Finns wanted to create something like cosiness and cleanliness, was seen by their neighbours as bourgeois and lower-middle class characteristics. These differences strongly affected women. Soviet women, who toiled as hard as men, didnt understand how Finnish women could stay at home with children and called them vagabonds and idlers, who are used to living at the expense of others in their bourgeois countries. Finnish women despised Soviet women for constantly muddy floors and untended children and household (An interview with E. Lemetti, February 28, 2002). The authorities recorded even these conflicts: The wives of foreign workers, who dont know Russian and are separated from the factory-work, live in isolation and are often subject to unhealthy moods due to the bad living conditions (NARK, f. P-3, op. 2, d. 790, l. 20). The relationships among children were also not very simple. According to recollections of American Finns, they always feared that the local children would laugh at them or beat them (An interview with P. Corgan, April 24, 2002). The children often quarreled at school, where there were Finnish and Russian classes. This fact is reflected in the memories of immigrants. We often saw Russian children in the school-yard, but we never communicated with them, only teased them. Russians cried to us: Finka-blinka and we answered: Russki-pusski (Miettinen and Joganson 2001: 21). Fights were also quite often. The energy of Finns, the fact that they were engaged in theatrical activities, singing, that they created their own orchestra, provoked open mis-
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understanding of the local population. The people couldnt believe how anybody could be engaged in a voluntary activity in such a difficult time, not having any means of subsistence. The people had suspicions that the Americans, in addition to the preferential rations for foreigners got some additional payment from Finnish authorities, because they couldnt understand how Finns could sing, play, and go in for sports while others were starving. The important factor, that aggravated the process of integration and caused conflicts, was language barrier. Many North American Finns were unwilling to learn Russian. This was caused not only by the wide distribution of the Finnish language in the early 1930s. It indicates that Karelia was still foreign for the first generation of immigrants, and they felt that they were temporary inhabitants of the republic. Their absolute aversion to the environment caused a very negative attitude to the Russian language and an unwillingness to get acquainted with the local culture. When my mother saw the Russian alphabet, recollected Mayme Sevander, she felt dizzy (Sevander 1991: 49). In many cases the only link to the surrounding world were children, who adapted to the new conditions more quickly and easily. Obviously most conflicts at work and in everyday life were created by complicated cause and effect relationship. Seemingly insignificant causes (for example, the defeat of a Russian in a game of chess (NARK, f. P-6153, op. 3, d. 253, l. 113)) revealed a number of concealed, but very important reasons. Often when we study a certain conflict we can trace a gradual accumulation and overlapping of multiple factors that lead to the conflict the factors are the shortcomings in organization of work and solving of everyday problems. Everything about the foreigners was alien to the local population of Karelia: the way they worked, their tools, life style, clothes, behaviour in private life and attitude to the environment. Thats why there was often the following answer to their complaints
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about bad food, living conditions and problems on work: Go back to your Finland or America, this is not a place for bourgeois like you! (NARK, f. P-3, op. 2, d. 790, l. 15; NARK, f. P-1230, op. 2, d. 9, l. 31; op. 7, d. 6, l. 123). In this situation the intention of immigrants to isolate themselves, lock themselves in their own little world was understandable. Foreigners usually settled close to each other, tended to work in separate groups and tried to reduce the communication with local workers, authorities and neighbours. The isolationism of Finns, which consequently became one of the reasons to accuse all immigrants of bourgeois nationalism, was a form of self-defence. While the circumstances were changing (the abolishment of special rations for foreigners, the equalization of rights, the re-immigration of most discontented Finns, the improvement of life conditions, etc), the attitude of the population to the immigrants was changing as well. In the new situation, when the fight with Finnish bourgeois nationalism in the republic was intensifying, the local population gradually realized that the immigrants, not used to such conditions, were in a much worse situation than them. The evidence of conflicts between the local population and the immigrants almost stopped appearing in documents after the end of 1933. On the contrary, we can find numerous examples of mutual help between the groups in archival files and memories and interviews of immigrants. The Karelian people tried to support the immigrants in a difficult situation; there is evidence of compassion toward immigrants (See, e.g., Miettinen and Joganson 2001: 31; An interview with T. Prnny, April 5, 2002). Exactly then, as one woman immigrant recollects, we felt that we began to understand each other. Though we barely knew the language, we could somehow agree and discuss some matters. We, the children, often interpreted what Russians said to our parents (An interview with T. Prnny, April 5, 2002).
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However, it can be concluded that in the early 1930s (the period when the number of Finnish immigrants in Karelia was the largest in the history of the republic about 15,000), the local population of Karelia and the immigrants were not ready to accept and understand each others cultures. The problem of mutual accommodation was very complicated for both sides, and they initially acted according to the strategy of separatism. Translated from Russian by Aleksandra Nikulina.
References Collections of the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia (NARK): Karelian regional CPSU Council f. P-3 Petrozavodsk CPSU City Committee f. P-1230 Association of trade-unions of the Republic of Karelia f. P-6153 Revolutionary Committee of the Karelian Labour Commune f. R-550 Delegation of the KASSR at VTSIK Presidium f. R-682 Resettlement Administration of SNK of the KASSR f. R-685 Council of Peoples Commissars of the KASSR f. R-690 Alionkin, G. 1932: Ne khochu stat dezertirom. Krasnaia Karelia, September 17. Andriainen, A. 1969: Dvizheniie proletarskoi solidarnosti zarubezhnykh finskikh trudiashchikhsia s Sovetskoi Kareliei. 50 let Sovetskoi Karelii. Petrozavodsk: Karelia. Baron, Nick, 2002. Regionalnoie konstruirovanie karelskoi avtonomii. Ab imperio. Vol. 2. P. 279-308. Decrety Sovetskoi Vlasti, 1976: Vol.8.
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Ioffe, A. 1966: Deiatelnost zarubezhnykh obshhestv druzhby s Sovetskim Soiuzom. Voprosy istorii, Vol. 3. Kangaspuro, Markku, 2000. Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta. Helsinki. Komulainen, E. 1995: A Grave in Karelia. New-York: Braun Brumfield. Koronen, M. 1969: Finskiie internatsionalisty v borbe za vlast Sovetov. Leningrad. KPSS v resolutsiiakh i resheniiakh siezdov, konferentsii i plenumov TsK, 1953: Vol. 2. Moscow. Lewin, M. 1975: Russian peasants and Soviet Power. New York. Miettinen, H., Joganson, K. 2001: Petettyjen toiveiden maa. Saarijrvi. Novikov, K. 2007: Kak Rossiia trudoustraivala inostrantsev. http://www.rokf.ru/carera/2007/12/10/102108.html Perepis naseleniia AKSSR 1933, 1935: Vol. 3. Petrozavodsk. Pogorelskin, Alexis, 2000: Why Karelian Fever? Siirtolaisuus/Migration, No. 1. Psikhologicheskaia i sotsiokulturnaia adaptatsiia immigrantov. http://www.faror.com/cpg134/albums/userpics/10002/ Rabochii klass Karelii v period postroieniia sotsializma v SSSR, 1984: Petrozavodsk. Ranta, K, 2000: Arpi korvassa ja sydmess. Helsinki. Sevander, Mayme, 1991: They took my father: A story of idealism and Betrayal. Duluth. Shchebetenko, S., Kornienko, D., Baleva, M. 2006: Vospriiatiie immigrantov russkimi: stereotip i ugroza Ja (postanovka problemy). http://www.psu.ru/psu/files/2216/05_2006.pdf Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva , 1922. Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva, 1923.
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Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva, 1924. Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva, 1925. Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva, 1926. Sobraniie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva, 1927. Sobraniie zakonov i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva SSSR, 1925. Sobraniie zakonov i rasporiazhenii rabochego i krestianskogo pravitelstva SSSR, 1927. Sovetskoie Narodnoie Hoziaistvo, 1921-1925, 1960: Moscow. Takala, Irina, 2002: Finny v Karelii. Istoriia vozniknoveniia i gibeli diaspory. St. Petersburg. Takala, Irina, 2004: Finny v vospriiatii zhitelei sovetskoi Karelii (1920-1930-e gody). Mnogolikaia Finliandiia. Obraz Finliandii i finnov v Rossii. Velikij Novgorod. S. 271-280 Takala, Irina, 2007: Finnish immigrants in the Soviet Karelia in 1920s and 1930s the study of ethnic identities. Challenges of Globalization and Regionalization. Proceedings from the conference Regional Northern Identity: From Past to Future. Lule. P. 57-69. Tarle, G. 2003: Rossiiskiie dokumenty o pravilakh viezda i vyezda za granitsu v 20-kh godakh 20 veka (Analiz istochnikov). http://www.rostmuseum.ru/publication/srm/013/tarle01.html Tuomi, K, 1984: Isnmattoman tarina. Amerikansuomalaisen vakoojan muistelmat. Porvoo. Zhuravliov, S. 1999: Proizvodstvennyie konflikty s uchastiem inostrannykh rabochikh na karelskikh predpriiatiiakh 1930-kh godov. http://www.hist.msu.ru/Labs/Ecohist/OB3/zhuravlv.htm
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Zhuravliov, S. 2000: Malenkiie liudi i bolshaia istoriia. Moscow. Zhuravliov, S., Tiazhelnikova, V. 1994: Inostrannaia koloniia v Sovetskoi Rossii v 1920-30-e gody. Otechstvennaia istoriia, Vol. 1.
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, - 1930- . , , 1930- (, - 15 .) . .
Western Perspectives of the Soviet Union Western Perspectives of the Soviet Union
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Western Perspectives of the Soviet Union: The Repression of Ingrians and East Karelians in the Eyes of Westerners During the 1930s
Auvo Kostiainen University of Turku Western Perspectives of the Soviet Union Auvo Kostiainen During the interwar years there was considerable interest in the Soviet Union in Western countries. Many official delegations visited to observe real socialism and to foster business links (Cf. e.g. Hollander 1983; Margulies 1968). There were lots of books published on the Soviet Union, which aroused heated debate between pro and anti Soviet camps. Many periodicals and newspapers reported and commented on Soviet affairs. When examining the contemporary papers and other material we find that discussion of matters relating to Soviet nationality and ethnicity only occupied a minor place in the literature. Notable exceptions to this overall trend were questions related to the position of Soviet Jews, as well as the Finnish-Ugric peoples that lived in Ingria and East Karelia. The Stalinist Iron Age (Chamberlin 1935:vii) had a profound effect on the status and living conditions of many national groups in the country. This paper deals with Western opinion vis--vis the Ingrian and East Karelian peoples during the 1930's. The study is based on an analysis of a number of Western newspapers, such as The New York Times and The
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Times, published in London. Other printed and archival sources have also been used to support the analysis, including a number of Western travel reports and memoirs from the 1930s (Chamberlin 1935; Kitchin 1935; Muggeridge 1934; Salmi 1976; Tschernavin 1935). Americans were interested in the Soviet Union for several reasons, and The New York Times often published articles and news stories about internal Soviet developments. Both the New York Times and The Times had more or less regular correspondents in the Soviet Union. In addition there were occasional visitors, such as significant cultural personages, who published descriptions of the Soviet Union. Those visitors' reports varied greatly, depending on their attitude, the topic of interest etc. When analysing the attitude of the papers towards the USSR, it seems that The Times was critical and even ironic. However, The New York Times special correspondent, Walter Duranty, proved a very controversial figure because of his pro-Soviet stance (See Taylor 1990). Another well-known Irish author, George Bernard Shaw, also aroused great feeling at this time because of his positive comments on Stalins rule, and his refusal to accept the magnitude of the catastrophic famine in the Ukraine. The Ingrian case is raised The ethnic Finno-Ugric population of the Soviet Union received a relatively large degree of international attention in the 1930's, when compared with other, much more numerous, nationality groups in the state. This can be partly explained by the problematic and large-scale deportation of Finno-Ingrians from the Leningrad region, and the fate of the peoples of Eastern Karelia or Soviet Karelia5. Several foreign reports informed their readers about the hardships faced by these groups and quoted the accusa5
The term Soviet Karelia points here to the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, which in 1923 replaced the Karelian Labour Commune, established in 1920. The KASSR was promoted in 1940 to the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. It was ended in 1956, and Karelia became an autonomous republic within the Russian Soviet Socialist Federation.
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tions made against them of their "nationalism". Tension between the Finns and the Soviets culminated in an exchange of diplomatic notes in 1931. During the height of the first "Ingrian raids" in 1929-31, it has been calculated that about 18,000 Ingrians were deported from their homes (Nygrd 1978:170; Matley 1979:7, estimated the number to have been 45,000). Much higher estimates were presented by Alfred J. Pearson, of the United States Embassy, when he reported back to Washington, DC in 1930. According to him, a total of 100,000 Ingrians had been deported to the Archangelsk region in Northern Russia (Alfred J. Pearson to the Secretary of State in Washington, Jan. 1, 1930). This information was originally published as a news clipping from Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper in Finland. Even if this number is apparently exaggerated, the northern GULAG sites of Archangelsk and Komi were common destinations for the deported Ingrian population. In recent research it has been estimated that the total number of deportations was around 60,000 (Cf. Lahti-Argutina 2001:23). Of course, the Finno-Ugrians were a small fraction of people which suffered the Stalin terror period, a total of several millions (Cf. Kangaspuro 2000:309-354; Ikh nado deportirovat 1991; Lahti-Argutina 2001; Autio 2002). The idea of Finno-Ugric kinship (heimoaate) soon gained support after Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917. Indeed, many active interest groups, which espoused greater Finno-Ugric co-operation, existed in the early 1920's. At the time there were even hopes of either obtaining outright independence for Eastern Karelia, or of officially annexing it to Finland. In 1920, the question was finally settled by the Tartu Peace Treaty. In the Treaty and its appendices, East Karelia was promised autonomy, and the Ingrians were promised cultural and linguistic rights (Nygrd 1978:70-74; Jskelinen 1965:222-272. Cf. Bericht ber die bisherige Entwicklung..., 15.7.1936, p. 3, Anlage 2, p. 3, by the Ingrian Committee. IL, NA).
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Ingrian and Karelian sympathizers in Finland launched a political campaign in 1929 because of the contemporary developments in the Soviet Union. Meetings were organized in Finland and there was extensive discussion in the Finnish press, with strong pressure being exerted on the Finnish government to take diplomatic measures against the Soviet Union. Demands were made that the Ingrian and Karelian peoples should be treated in accordance with the special rights "promised" in the Tartu Peace Treaty. Consequently, on May 16th 1931 the government of Finland reluctantly sent a diplomatic note to the Soviet government. It was followed by other Soviet and Finnish notes addressing the Ingrian problem. The factual basis for the initial note was the alleged transfer and deportation of the Ingrian peoples from their native areas around Leningrad, in connection with the collectivization process. The Soviets replied that the transfer of the Ingrians had been overdramatized in Finland. Moreover, it was in any case an internal matter, based on economic considerations, in which outsiders should not interfere. The Soviet government also commented on errors made by Finnish migr communists in Ingria, who were in charge of implementing agrarian policies. However, it seems that the Finnish government did not want to worsen its diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and therefore no major dispute about the Ingrians developed (Rantanen-Korpela 1989:139-163. Also see newspaper articles published in Finland, such as the one that appeared in Helsingin Sanomat on March 15, 1931, entitled "Terrori Inkeriss kiihtyy"; and the article that appeared in Uusi Suomi on June 7, 1931, entitled "Inkerilisten sorto". Lastly, see the article that appeared in Suomalainen 4/1935, entitled "Tuhotaanko Inkerin kansa lopullisesti?"). A contemporary Soviet account of the thorny diplomatic issue is provided by I.M. Lemetti, in which he expresses his strong disapproval of the frenzied press coverage in Finland concerning the Ingrian question.
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According to Lemetti, it was part of the international imperialistic conspiracy against the Soviet Union: [It was] a part of the provocative policy to bring war against the country that was building socialism. Those groups carried out false propaganda, supported by the church, press and other organizations. In Ingria the kulaks were destroyed as a class. This was particularly important, since the Ingrian kulaks were able to help imperialistic agents, spies and others, and their help would have been essential important to any white interventionist policy in the neighbourhood of Leningrad. Therefore, the destruction of the kulak class, particularly in the border regions, was very important when considering the ability of the Soviet Union to defend its borders (Russian language booklet by I.M. Lemetti, on Soviet Ingria, cited by Flink 1995:47-49). However, it is interesting to look at the Ingrian question in the 1930s from a wider international perspective. When doing so, the incident appears to be the first major occasion when various foreign opinion leaders, press outlets and even governments showed a growing interest in the minorities' problems in the Soviet Union. A decade earlier the Finns had responded in quite a similar manner regarding the East Karelian problems. On the other hand, in this case it is possible to study how Ingrian sympathizers in Finland and other countries tried to present their case to an international audience. Tension between the Finnish and Soviet governments was actually increasing over a period in the spring of 1931, with rumours even suggesting that war might breakout. A number of Western correspondents in Moscow also shared this opinion, mainly on the basis of a rather aggressive article published in the Moscow newspaper Izvestia. In Helsinki, for-
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eign diplomats also talked about the possibility of war, and rumours began to spread all over Europe (Published in Izvestia on May 16, 1931. Cf. Finnish delegation Moscow to Foreign Ministry in Helsinki, May 16, 1931. Rantanen-Korpela 1989:152-153, 158-159. Nevalainen 1991:261-266). However, these rumours soon died away when it was understood that the Finnish and Soviet governments were able to peacefully settle their disagreements. East Karelia is drawn into the discussion After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 thousands of Russian aristocrats, landowners, intellectuals and other opponents of the new order escaped to the West. In Finland refugees arrived, predominantly from the St. Petersburg area. Some continued on to other countries, such as Sweden, France and the United States (Cf. Engman 2008:645-663). A number of Ingrian and Karelian refugees lived in Finland and other Western countries, some having arrived immediately after the events of 1917. Others arrived following the East Karelian incidents of the early 1920's, in which the Red Army successfully defended its line against some White unites that had arrived from Finland. Another wave of Karelian and Ingrian refugees started to swell after the onset of forced collectivization in the late 1920's. In Finnish areas close to Leningrad, a large and active group of refugees were willing to do their utmost to help their ethnic kin in the Soviet Union. The focus of their activities was in Finland, where they enjoyed a wide degree of sympathy. In Finland they had the possibility to gain media publicity, and also to print books and other publications, some of which sold reasonably well. Their sympathizers, like those who advocated the cooperation of Finnish-related peoples, also frequently issued printed material. Yet, as Kari Immonen has established, books on the Finnish-related peoples of the Soviet Union only accounted for 0.4 % of all the books published in Finland at that time. In all, books about the So-
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viet Union made up less than two percent of all the books in print in Finland6. Even if many of the publications were quite provocative, their influence must have been limited because of their small numbers. The books typically discussed topics such as the oppression of the Ingrians, the destinies of the East Karelians, as well as the Turkoman and Germanic peoples living in the Soviet Union. Thus, an active anti-Soviet audience existed in Finland. The Finnish government, for their part, was relatively restrained in its policies towards the Soviet Union. A number of active individuals were involved in Finland. In addition to the Ingrian League (Inkerin Liitto) and its activists, the Academic Karelian Society (known as the AKS) made a particularly committed effort to arouse international attention regarding the nationalities question in the Soviet Union. Finnish historian Toivo Nygrd has commented that the Ingrian and East-Karelian incidents during the 1930's were associated together by the Academic Karelian Society activists. In Nygrd's opinion this was carried out in order to stress the problem of the Finno-Ugric peoples in the Soviet Union to the international community (Nygrd, 1978:319-325). Yet whilst the activists and sympathizers of the Ingrian League even tried to make a case in the League of Nations in the early 1930's, they met with limited success. Their representatives visited several European countries, including Sweden, Holland and Britain, in order to publicize their cause. Numerous German-language letters and memoranda were also sent to German government officials. A number of Finnish government officials even took part in these activities, including, the foreign minister and former Finnish Ambassador in Moscow, A.S. Yrj-Koskinen. He discussed the Ingrian and East Karelian problems with representatives from Great Britain, Germany, Italy, France
6
The publications on the Soviet Union and Russia between 1919 and 1939 only accounted for 1.9 % (506 pieces) of all the books and booklets printed in Finland (See Immonen 1987:350). In his study, Immonen focuses on the printed image of Russia and the Soviet Union in Finland. There were at that time eight books that took a positive stand to the development of nationalities in the Soviet Union (Ibid.:189).
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and other countries in Geneva at a time when the diplomatic crisis between Finland and Soviet Union, sparked by the exchange of notes, was at its peak. In his report to Helsinki, Yrj-Koskinen had only meagre results to report. Firstly, there were legal problems dealing with the interpretation of the case of the Ingrian people. Moreover, the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Henderson, stated that too many problems already existed between the Soviet Union and his country, for there to be any realistic chance of raising the issue of the deportation of the Ingrians. Henderson also attempted to dissuade Yrj-Koskinen from taking the case to the Council of the League of Nations (A.S. Yrj-Koskinen's Memorandum relating to discussions in Geneva about Ingria, May 15-21, 1931. On the Soviet Union versus the League of Nations, see Haigh, Morris and Peters 1986). Thus, it seemed that the Western powers were more concerned with world politics and with their own relations than with the Soviet Union and the deportation of a few thousand people. In addition, it became apparent that the Soviet Unions non-membership of the League would make the case even more difficult. Consequently, some sympathy was received, but no important political results were achieved. One of the leaders of the Ingrian League in Finland, Kaapre Tynni, even sent a letter from London to the well-known German socialist, Karl Kautsky, asking for his support, but he met with no response (K. Tynni to K. Kautsky, from London, July 7, 1931. IL). The initial public furore concerning the Ingrian deportations occurred at the turn of the 1930s'. A second wave of public indignation in Finland took place in the latter half of the decade, when the deportations resumed. In Finland these developments were keenly scrutinized, and several news articles were even published in the international press. The New York Times, for example, reported on the deportation of Ingrian Finns to Siberia and Turkestan. It stated that population transfers had been going on for some time in Ingrian and East Karelian areas, and that refugees had
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poured into Finland (NYT July 10, 1935, 13b; NYT April 30, 1935, 2:4; May 16, 1935, 13:6, August 18, 1935, 3:4; The Times October 14, 1935, 14f). It was publicized that the Finnish government had sent an inquiry team to the Soviet government in order to begin an investigation into the veracity of the newspaper reports. The Soviet government responded calmly, stating that the transfers were an internal matter. (NYT July 10, 1935, 13b). There was, however, an important difference between the developments in Ingria and East or Soviet Karelia. The Ingrian areas around Leningrad experienced mass deportations, while the Karelian Finns and other Karelian national groups were primarily a target of secret police (NKVD/OGPU) activities. It should be noted, however, that the Ingrian and East Karelian problems were only two among many nationality issues in Europe, and In 1930 certain White Russian refugee groups in Western Europe suggested that a discussion of the destinies of their kin folk in the Soviet Union should take place at the League of Nations (See news in the NYT, March 18, 1930, 10:6). There were also large Ukrainian immigrant groups in the West that were known for their anti-Soviet opinions. Their spokesmen organized demonstrations against the Soviet Union. In turn, it was claimed in the Soviet Union that German politicians, such as Alfred Rosenberg, had supported Ukrainian separatist movements (See the NYT, December 3, 1933, 26:3). Thus, ultimately the Ingrian and East Karelian questions received relatively scant attention in the Western press. It should be stressed that the pro-Ingrian elements in Finland made an especially great effort in the Western news media and among a number of internationally renowned politicians. Their results however, proved unsuccessful. Whilst a number of foreign newspapermen became interested in the matter and wrote about the national question in the Soviet Union, foreign politicians and governments were much more cautious.
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It may be concluded that the fate of small minority groups in the Soviet Union did not play an important role in international politics. Only the Finnish government responded positively to the requests. This fact may be largely explained as the result of internal pressure and the activities of the pro-Ingrian elements and refugees who lived in Finland. This group also benefited from receiving a warm reception from many important anti-communist politicians in Finland. Finland was arguably in an exceptional situation because of its geographical proximity, as well as because of the close relationship between Finns and Finno-Ugric peoples in the Soviet Union. (see, Gelb 1993:1097-1103; Gelb 2000) By the mid 1930s sensational news was filtering through to Finland regarding both the so-called show trials, as well as the fate of the Ingrians, Karelians and other Finno-Ugric groups. The waves of liquidation were reported on in the neighbouring areas, in Ingria and Soviet Karelia (Inkerin kansan asema on tll hetkell toivoton, Aamulehti 22.11.1936; Neuvosto-Karjala nyt, Suomen Sosialidemokraatti 6.11.1935). Added interest in Finland was also due to Finnish communists in the Soviet Union, such as O.W. Kuusinen. A heightened degree of interest was also due to the hundreds of people who escaped from the Soviet Union during the 1930's. They were mainly Finns who had initially left their homeland because of the "White government" rule, or because of the Great Depression, which badly affected many industrial areas of Finland and caused a wave of illegal migration to the Soviet Union (Kostiainen 1988:200-219). The Finnish Secret Police typically questioned returning Finns. Many of their horror stories were published in the Finnish press, which in many cases used them as propaganda against the Soviet Union. Nationality problems did not initially come to the fore, but the problems were common to all Soviet citizens. Thus, it became apparent that the problems were perhaps caused by economic and labour
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policies, which did not necessarily separate various groups (Kostiainen 1988:158-163). However, both illegal migrants and ethnic Finno-Ugrians arriving from North America experienced the tightening nationalities policy of the Soviet Union around the middle of the 1930's. Indeed, by the latter years of the decade a number of news stories had reported about the expulsion or disappearance of Finns in the Soviet Union. Thus, The New York Times had sources in Helsinki, for example, that forwarded news about what happened in the Soviet Union. In January 1935 it was told prematurely (!) that the Finnish born Edward Gylling, the Prime Minister of Soviet Karelia, had been killed. According to this news, Gylling was executed whilst being transported to the Solovki Prison Camp (Gylling was executed in 1938. Lahti-Argutina 2001:95). The report also included references to the general deportation of sections of the Karelian population "mostly Finns" to various distant places (The NYT Jan. 5, 1936, 38:1). The problems faced by Finns in the Soviet Union had previously been referred to. As mentioned, these Finns originated from a variety of different areas, including Ingria, Soviet Karelia and North America. In the news reports it is not always easy to determine the ethnic origins of the individuals that were affected by the trials and purges. However, one group that was affected as a whole were the Ingrian Finns, who faced a new wave of deportation from the middle of the 1930's. The border zones in the neighbourhood of Leningrad were also cleansed of their "Finnish population". This led to inquiries from the Finnish government, which echoed the events of the early 1930's. These events were a topic of interest in Finnish newspapers and in other countries. In June 1935, for example, The Times reported on the actions of the Finnish government. It was also reported that in May the Finnish government had asked the Soviet Union to clarify what was happening in Ingrian and East Karelian areas, and to explain why the population was being deported to other
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parts of the country. It was reported by The Times that the Soviet government had stressed that it was wholly an internal matter. The English newspaper interpreted this as a response tinged with heavy military undertones (The Times, June 10, 13b, and June 18, 9d, 1935). In February 1936, under the title "The Soviet Is Reported Exterminating Finns", alarming news was presented in the New York Times. The newspaper published a report based on an article that had earlier appeared in Uusi Suomi, a right-wing Finnish newspaper, which claimed that 4000 Ingrian Finns had been sent to Kazakhstan, and that 3000 had also been sent to the Urals to be executed. The American newspaper also cited another right-wing Finnish newspaper, Ajan Suunta, which reported that dozens of Finnish villages on the Soviet-Finnish border had been cleansed of unreliable inhabitants (The NYT Feb. 22, 1936, 6:3). Up until 1938 reports continued to describe the on-going purges, trials and deportations of the Finnish population in the Leningrad area and Soviet Karelia. By December 1938, however, when the situation gradually began to calm down, The New York Times could report, for example, that the Russification of the Finns of Soviet Karelia had many consequences. The measures had included large deportations of people of a "disloyal nature". Subsequently, a new Soviet "language" reigned in the area, instead those derived from Finno-Ugric, and a stress was placed on the denationalization of cultural life. The newspaper cited a number of sources in Helsinki, which reported that the former activities of the proponents of a "Greater Finland" had increased the sufferings of the population in Soviet Karelia (The NYT, Dec. 11, 1938, 41:2; cf. Kirkwood 1991; Austin 1992; Slezkine 1992; Ylikangas 2004). The problems experienced in the border zones of the Soviet Union have also been questioned in relation to the minority policies of the 1930's. Primarily these questions revolve around the cleansing of the border zones, which essentially began in the mid 1930's. The restricted bor-
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der zone initially stretched for twenty kilometres, but was eventually increased to 100 kilometres. It was thought that the people living close to the borders were in too frequent contact with their Finnish neighbours across the border. Thus, the peoples of the border zones were perceived to represent a danger to the security of the whole of the Soviet Union. The border zones were cleansed of suspicious nationality groups, who were deported to the interior. It has been argued by Michael Gelb that the ethnic nature of the Stalinist Terror has not been sufficiently appreciated and that one can note similarities between the de-kulakization policy and the attacks against intelligentsia. It seems, however, that the main argument for the cleansing of the border zones centred on international politics, and particularly the tension between the so-called capitalist Western countries and the Soviet Union. Stalin and the political leadership keenly followed the burgeoning expansion of Germany. In this sense, even a small country like Finland represented a possible threat (Cf. Gelb 1993:1102-1103). The propaganda campaigns waged by the pro-Ingrian and pro-Karelian refugees were still quite successful. Thus, in Sweden, for example, a number of newspapers wrote regularly about what happened behind the Eastern border of Finland. The right-wing Nya Dagligt Allehanda wrote an article, for example, in which it demanded that Sweden should not remain silent whilst the Ingrians and Soviet Karelians suffered. According to the newspaper, a delegation of Ingrian and Karelian refugees had been travelling around Europe. In August 1935, they had visited the Minister of Education in Sweden, as well as the Archbishop of Sweden. Moreover, the newspaper argued that Sweden was one of the most influential members of the League of Nations, and therefore it could use its influence to advance the lot of those Lutherans who were suffering in the Soviet Union (Nya Dagligt Allehanda Oct. 13, 1935, cited in Uusi Suomi Oct. 17, 1935).
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The Finnish emigrant press becomes worried Finnish immigrant communities in North America keenly followed the destinies of Ingrians and East Karelians. Interest in the old country was always very active, but particularly after independence in 1917 and during the ensuing Civil War in 1918. Of course, Finno-Soviet relations in general were interesting to many North American Finns. These matters became more acute after 1917 as there was a wave of refugees to Finland and also a wave of red revolutionaries from Finland to Soviet Russia. A notable degree of illegal migration from Finland also emerged, as well as legal migration from North America to the Soviet Union at the turn of 1930s (See, e.g. Kostiainen 1988; Kero 1983; Takala 1991). In a way the destinies of Finns from various parts of the globe checked each other, even if the Finns from Finland and North America did not cooperate, with notable exceptions, such as factories in the Petrozavodsk area. The special crafts skills of North American migrants ensured that they had varied employment opportunities in Soviet Karelia. However, many ultimately faced the same destiny labour camps, prisons and execution during the Stalin raids. There is available the list of circa 8000 ethnically Finnish-related victims of Stalins terror prepared by Lahti-Argutina. The persons are originally from Finland, North America, Leningrad area, Eastern Karelia and other locations (Lahti-Argutina 2001). Finnish destinies in the Soviet Union especially in Soviet Karelia, Ingria and the Leningrad region were keenly followed in Finland. It often transpired that information was received from publications published in Finland, then transferred to America, printed in Finnish emigrant press, and finally entered North American English language press. In addition, letters from Finns in the Soviet Union reached Finland and some were published anew in emigrant newspapers. Finally, there were probably three thousand (out of a total of approximately 6000) who left for the Soviet Union from North America, who consequently returned back to
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America. A number were willing to share their experiences in the Soviet Union. Yet, as Kero has concluded, most of the returnees were bitterly disappointed and they did not want to make any comments on their experiences. Some of them were taken into comrades courts in the United States or Canada to find out their experiences and opinions (Kero 1983:198-214; cf. Gelb 1993:1097). In North America there was a very active press, which included both left-wing and right-wing commentators, as well as liberal newspapers and periodicals. It has also been recognized that the ideological camps among the immigrants were strongly insulated. During the 1930s the number of news articles, editorials and other information in the press about Finns and their Ingrian and Karelian neighbours in the Soviet realm probably stretches into the hundreds. This is indicated by the collection of news clippings held by the Suomi Seura (Suomi or Finland Society) in Helsinki. It collected press clippings on Finnish emigrants from various countries. Material in this collection included press clippings related to the migration of North American Finns to the Soviet Union, as well on the Ingrian and East Karelian populations (Material on the Finns and Finnish related peoples in the Soviet Union are mostly to be found in Folder No. 1). As mentioned above, many articles and news reports were strongly opinionated regarding the developments in Soviet Karelia and the Soviet Union. There were several pro-Soviet newspaper articles published in the North American Finnish language press. Usually it was stated that there occurred disappointments because there was so much work to do in Soviet Karelia. However, many reports and memoirs were laced with resentment a sentiment also present in several newspaper editions, which reported on the unhappy plight of the migrants and the local population. (One of the longer memoirs was published in 1941 in the conservative Lnnen Suometar-paper of Astoria, or from Jan. 28 to March 23, Folder
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1). The period between 1938-1940 witnessed the height of this reporting in Finland and news were spread even in North America, at the time when the terror by Stalin had reached its peak, and also many people had managed to flee out of the country. An ignorant or nonchalant West? It is difficult to determine exactly how information about the situation of the Soviet minorities actually affected Western governments. It seems that the Ingrian and East Karelian cases were not seen as separate issues in the eyes of the foreign media, but they were often discussed together. Naturally, both cases were of special interest to the Finnish government because of the close linguistic and geographical ties between Finland, East Karelia and Ingria. On the basis of what has been presented above, it is obvious that in principle there was information available abroad about the internal minority problems of the Soviet Union. Apparently this was also the case regarding information about the disastrous famine years of the early 1930's. Perhaps it was more important to draw the Soviet Union into the international diplomatic co-arena and into contact with countries, such as the United States of America. One sign of the United States' policy towards the Soviet Union was the award of diplomatic recognition to the latter in 1933. The Great Powers wanted the Soviet Union to become member of the League of Nations, and this was finally realized in 1934. Its membership lasted until 19397. Why was it so that the international affairs of Soviet Union did not generate more direct pressure from outside? Sally Taylor is possibly right when she argues that the Western news media and public primarily considered the Soviet Union as a potential ally against Germany and Japan.
7
In 1939 the Soviet Union was expelled from the League of Nation because of attacking Finland. At the turn of 1939-1940 there raged the Winter War which lasted until March, 1940.
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Taylor comments that the United States government was restricted in its actions because of bureaucratic problems, and apparently also because of intensifying efforts to recognise the diplomatic and economic reality of the Soviet Union. As to the British government, it was relatively well informed about Soviet internal politics. However, Taylor comments that the British government did nothing except continued to collect newspaper clippings and to buy grain from the Soviet Union (Taylor 1990:236-237). The comments made by Taylor about the British government were apparently applicable to the United States government, and perhaps with many other states. Therefore, it may be concluded that the internal affairs of each country were solely their own concern. This was especially the case in the Soviet Union, with its complex nationalities and minorities policies. The Soviet regime pronounced that there were no problems in regard to the minorities or nationalities. Even if it was apparently realized in Western countries that the image presented was false, they did not react; the sole exception being Finland in regard to the Ingrian deportations. References have been made concerning the need to ensure the preservation of the economic advantages enjoyed by Western business interests in the Soviet Union. Finally, one must consider international politics, especially the possibility of having the Soviet Union as a possible ally in a future crisis. There is not much concrete evidence about how the imprisonment, execution and deportation of hundreds of thousands or millions of people in the 1930's actually affected the political activities of the Western countries. More specifically, we do not know about all the possible behind-the-scenes talks or agreements. In the case of the Ingrians, in particular, the deportations were definitely discussed on the international stage. However, it seems that outside the Soviet area, it was only the Finnish government that reacted strongly to these problems, and even this was mainly due to strong internal pressures in Finland. The other minorities or nationalities most often discussed in the West were the Ukrainians
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and the Jewish population in the Soviet Union. In the USA, for example, the Ukrainians and Jews had large migr groups, which keenly followed what happened in the Soviet Union. The large-scale liquidations and political trials in the Soviet Union were interesting to Western diplomats and the media, but perhaps nothing more. Also, unofficial associations and individuals reacted to their relatives destinies in the Soviets. The opportunities they enjoyed to have an effect on the foreign policies of Western countries, however, were limited. It has also been rather implausibly suggested that the West expected the communists to destroy each other and therefore did not really do anything. All in all, the problem of Western reactions to developments within the Soviet Union in the 1930's would be worth a more detailed examination. Perhaps in this respect a comparison should be made with the attitudes of various governments to the policy of ethnic cleansing carried out in Nazi Germany. There appears to be an analogy between the treatment of the famine in the Soviet Union and the treatment of the nationality and minorities question. Either there was no available information, or it was not believed. It is also possible that other matters were more important.
References Aamulehti (Tampere) 1936 Alfred J. Pearson from Helsinki to the Secretary of State in Washington, Jan. 1, 1930. Records of the Dept. of State Rel. to Pol. Relations Between Finland and Other States 1910-1944, 760d.61/124. National Archives, mf. T. 1186, reel 3. A.S. Yrj-Koskinen's Memorandum re. discussions in Geneva about Ingria, May 15-21, 1931. UM 12 L Neuvostoliitto 1929-1934, f. "Suomen
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ja Neuvostoliiton vliset suhteet kesll 1931". Foreign Ministry Archives, Helsinki. Austin, Paul M., 1992: Soviet Karelian: The Language That Failed. I: Slavic Review Vol. 51 No. 1. S. 16-35. Autio, Sari, 2002: Suunnitelmatalous Neuvosto-Karjalassa 1928-1941: paikallistason rooli Neuvostoliiton teollistamisessa. SKS: Helsinki. Bericht ber die bisherige Entwicklung..., 15.7.1936, p. 3, Anlage 2, p. 3, by the Ingrian Committee. Ingrian Committee, folder XXX. The League of Ingrians Archives, National Archives, Helsinki. Chamberlin, William Henry, 1935: Russia's Iron Age. Little, Brown, and Company: Boston. Conquest, Robert, 1992: The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Pimlico: London. Engman, Max, 2007: Raja. Karjalankannas 1918-1920. WSOY: Helsinki. Filene, Peter G., Americans and the Soviet Experiment. Massachusetts 1967. Finnish delegation in Moscow to Foreign Ministry in Helsinki, May 16, 1931. F. 5C18. Foreign Ministry Archives, Helsinki. Flink, Toivo, 1995: Pois Inkerist, ohi Inkerin. Yliopistopaino: Helsinki. Gelb, Michael G., 2000: Ethnicity during the Ezhovchina. I: Ethnic and National Issues in Russian and East European History. Selected Papers from the Fifth World Congress of Central and East European Studies, Warsaw, 1995. Ed. John Morrison. Macmillan Press Ltd: Chippenham, Wiltshire. S. 192--213. Gelb, Michael G., 1993: 'Karelian Fever': The Finnish Immigrant Community during Stalin's Purges. I: Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 45 No. 6. S. 1091-1116. Haigh, R.H., Morris, D.S. and Peters, A.R., Soviet Foreign Policy, the League of Nations and Europe 1917-1939. Aldershot 1986. Helsingin Sanomat (Helsinki) 1929, 1931
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Hollander, Paul, 1983: Political Pilgrims. Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba 1928-1978. Harper Colophon Books: New York. Immonen, Kari, 1987: Ryssst saa puhua... Neuvostoliitto suomalaisessa julkisuudessa ja kirjat julkisuuden muotona 1918-1939. WSOY: Helsinki. "Ikh nado deportirovat". Dokumenty, fakty, kommentarii. Red. N.F. Bugai. Moskva 1992. Iz istorii raskulachivania v Karelii 1930-1931 gg: Dokumenty i materialy. Petrozavodsk 1991. Jskelinen, Juhani, Inkerin suomalainen evankelis-luterilainen kirkko neuvostojrjestelmn ensimmisen vuosikymmenen 1917-1927. Mit Deutsche Zusammenfassung. Helsinki 1980. Kangaspuro, Markku, 2000: Neuvosto-Karjalan taistelu itsehallinnosta. Nationalismi ja suomalaiset punaiset Neuvostoliiton vallankytss 1920-1939. SKS: Helsinki. Keep, John, 1992: Die Sowjetische Geschichtswissenschaft der "Perestroika": Anfnge einer Aufarbeitung der Jngsten Vergangenheit. I: Schweizerische Zeitschrift fr Geschichte Vol. 42. S. 100-116. Kero, Reino, 1983: Neuvosto-Karjalaa rakentamassa : Pohjois-Amerikan suomalaiset tekniikan tuojina 1930-luvun Neuvosto-Karjalassa. SHS: Helsinki. Kirkwood, Michael, 1991: Glasnost, 'The National Question' and Soviet Language Policy. I: Soviet Studies, Vol. 43, No. 1. S. 61-81. Kitchin, George, 1935: Prisoner of the OGPU. Longmans, Green & Co.: London & New York. Kostiainen, Auvo, 1988: Loikkarit. Suuren lamakauden laiton siirtolaisuus Neuvostoliittoon. Otava: Keuruu.
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Kostiainen, Auvo, 2000: The Finns of Soviet Karelia as a Target of Stalins Terror. I: Ethnic and National Issues in Russian and East European History. S. 214--229. K. Tynni to K. Kautsky, from London, July 7, 1931. Ingrian League Archives, IA XVI. National Archives, Helsinki. Lahti-Argutina, Eila, 2001: Olimme joukko vieras vaan: venjnsuomalaiset vainonuhrit Neuvostoliitossa 1930-luvun alusta 1950-luvun alkuun. Siirtolaisuusinstituutti: Turku. Lallukka, Seppo, 1990: The East Finnic Minorities in the Soviet Union. An Appraisal of the Erosive Trends. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Ser. B, Tom. 252. Helsinki. Levin, Nora, The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917. Paradox of Survival. Vol I. London 1988. Luostarinen, Heikki, 1986: Perivihollinen. Suomen oikeistolehdistn Neuvostoliittoa koskeva viholliskuva sodassa 1941--44: tausta ja sislt. Vastapaino: Tampere. Malia, Martin, 1994: The Soviet Tragedy. A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917--1991. Free Press: New York. Margulies, Sylvia R., 1968: The Pilgrimage to Russia. The Soviet Union and the Treatment of Foreigners, 1924--1937. U. of Wisconsin Press: Madison WI. Matley, Ian M., 1979: The Dispersal of the Ingrian Finns. I: Slavic Review March. S. 2--16. Muggeridge, Malcolm, 1934: Winter in Moscow. Eyre & Spottiswoode: London. The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union. 1990: Ed. Graham Smith. Longman: London. New York Times (New York) 1930-1939 Nevalainen, Pekka, 1999: Viskoi kuin Luoja kerjlist : Venjn pakolaiset Suomessa 1917-1939. SKS: Helsinki.
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Nevalainen, Pekka, 1991: Inkerinmaan ja inkerilisten vaiheet 1900-luvulla. I: Inkeri: historia, kansa, kulttuuri, 1991. Eds. Pekka Nevalainen and Hannes Sihvo. SKS: Helsinki. S. 234--299. Nygrd, Toivo, 1978: Suur-Suomi vai lhiheimolaisten auttaminen. Aatteellinen heimoty itsenisess Suomessa. Otava: Keuruu. Pinkus, Benjamin, 1988: The Jews of the Soviet Union: The History of a National Minority. Cambridge U. Press: New York. Rantanen-Korpela, Tiina, 1989: Suomi Neuvostoliiton ulkopolitiikassa 1928-1932. University of Turku, MA thesis in general history. Salmi, Vin, 1976: Punaisen sirpin Karjala: muistelmia ja vastamuistelmia suomalaisten kommunistien kohtaloista Neuvosto-Karjalassa. Alea-kirja: Helsinki. Slezkine, Yuri, 1992: From Savages to Citizens: The Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Far North, 1928-1938. I: Slavic Review. S. 52-76. Suomalainen (Helsinki) 1935 Suomen sosialidemokraatti (Helsinki) 1935 Suomi Seura. Lehtileikekokoelma. University of Turku, Dept. of General history. Takala, Irina, 1991: Venjn-Karjalan suomalaisten kohtaloita. I: Historiallinen Aikakauskirja 1. S. 42--48. Taylor, Sally J., 1990: Stalins apologist: Walter Duranty, the New York Times man in Moscow. Oxford U. Press: New York Tschernavin, Vladimir V., [c. 1935]: I Speak for the Silent. Prisoners of the Soviets. Translated from the Russian by Nicholas M. Ouchakoff. Hale, Cushman & Flint: Boston and New York. The Times (London) 1934-1935 Uusi Suomi (Helsinki) 1931 Ylikangas, Mikko, 2004: Rivit suoriksi! kaunokirjallisuuden poliittinen valvonta Neuvosto-Karjalassa 1917-1940. Aleksanteri-instituutti: Helsinki.
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Soviet Karelia as Viewed by North American Finns
Soviet Karelia in 1940s and 1950s as Viewed by North American Finns

Stella Sevander University of Ume Soviet Karelia as Viewed by North American Finns Stella Sevander I was born and brought up in Petrozavodsk, the Soviet Union, in the early 1950s, in a family of American Finns. My parents Mayme and Milton met each other in Petrozavodsk, in Soviet Karelia. They were in their teens when they came to Soviet Russia with their parents in the early 1930s. The farther from history we are, the closer it becomes to us living today. And sometimes we start feeling ourselves a part of it. I think that many of the people of the same age as I am, offsprings of American Finns, born in Karelia in the post-war period, cannot but feel this way. Many families have not only found out the cause of death of their ancestors but also, which was later discovered, the place where they were shot, that is the place where they were buried. The families have got even access to archives where one can search for answers to questions still pending. Sometimes unforeseen, almost miraculous things happen, as it happened to me and my brother. In 2003 a number of letters written by our father Milton Sevander in the period of 1943-1944 in the central prison of Helsinki and in the prison of Riihimki, Finland, reached us. They had been carefully stored and preserved by the addressee and left over to us 60 years after they were written.
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I heard a lot about the Karelian fever from my parents and from their friends. I read about it. Anyway, something that I came to experience last fall seemed incredible. I got a chance to watch it happening! Erkki Mttnen, a Finish producer, has found a documentary footage made in NewYork harbour in 1931-1933. I saw thousands of glad faces of children and adults full of joy and optimism. Among those faces I recognized the face of my teenager-father and his parents, Kuuno and Lily Sevander. They all held red flags in their hands. They were leaving America in a state of euphoria, in a fever of enthusiasm. To watch this film now resembles watching a film of absurd horror. One is thrilled and terrified at the same time. Those people did not know what they had coming. But now we know. Those who changed their mind in time and returned back home turned out to be the lucky ones. Those who stayed shared the tragic fate of their new home country, perished or had to suffer severely in Stalins purges, wars, famine, captivity and labour camps. The purpose of this short article is to reconstruct the vital moments of life of American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1940s, 1950s using their own recollections as a basis. Unfortunately, there is little reading matter available. Additional, invaluable source present the interviews made by Alexei Golubev (Takala, Golubev 2007:52-158) with American Finns and their descendents still living in Petrozavodsk. Fortunately, the reading material can be complemented by cinematographic one. Film documentaries made in the second half of the 1990s and in the first decade of the present century is a valuable source of information. Within the limit of the present article it is hardly possible to reconstruct the complete and objective picture of the events. To do that one needs recollections of every single person who survived the Stalins terror, since the story of every individual, every family is unique. Nevertheless, a study of the precious material available gives us a chance to look into the main routes of the odyssey of
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American Finns in Soviet Karelia, which might be interesting not only to historians but to the general audience as well. The years of the Stalins terror behind them, the generation of children of enemies of the people, who were in their twenties by then, had to carry on with their lives in Soviet Karelia. There were very few left from their fathers generation, those who miraculously had survived the purges. My fathers family was the lucky one. My grandfather Kuuno Sevander chose to leave Petrozavodsk for Kosalma, a place some 30 kilometres away from the city. Kuuno decided to wait until the troublesome times were over and took his family to the islands of the Lake Konchozero where they lived in tents. Kuuno also told how on their return to Petrozavodsk they found their apartment sealed by NKVD and how he went to the NKVD local office on Karl Marx Street to get the key which was returned to him without further ado. In the film of Anita Hokkanen Middleton The Survivors, made in the middle 1990s, former Americans living in Petrozavodsk recollect similar stories. Even other families resorted to the same way to save themselves. Sometimes the exact circumstances of their survival are unknown. Thus, Viola Metsl-Jaskelinen tells in the film that her father disappeared in 1937 and survived, she does not how. She came in touch with him after that first in 1963 when she received his letter from Finland. Kuuno Sevander lived a long life completely devoted to the Karelian National Theatre which was founded in the early 1930s. He was its director, producer, actor and, after retirement, teacher of vocal and the Finnish language, tutor to young actors. Kuuno has not left any written memoirs, but in an interview given to Kaarina Honkonen, a Swedish Radio journalist, in 1989 he told the story. The interview was given in the early spring, and in the summer Kuuno died at the age of 91. Kaarina Honkonen used the interview in her programme for the Swedish Radio in March 2008. She even managed to get Columbia gramophone records of Kuuno
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singing Finnish folk songs and used them in her broadcast. It was great that Karelian mass media did not forget Kuuno at his 110-year anniversary in February this year. He was remembered as the founder of Karelian National Theatre. Back home to America The above mentioned film The Survivors is made in the form of interview with twenty emigrants to Russia who has lived in that country for over half a century. To the question What was it like first? they recalled that some American Finns who came in the early 1930s went back right away without even unpacking their suitcases. Others returned a year after. According to some accounts, over 1500 people left Soviet Karelia by 1935 (Takala 2004:112). To be able to return one had to have a foreign passport. Those under 16 years of age had trouble with that, since they were forced to take the Soviet passport which meant the Soviet citizenship, or in case they applied for a foreign passport they were prosecuted by the authorities (Sevander 1992:118-120; Sihvola 2000: 51). Nevertheless, people kept returning even later in 1940s and 1950s. That meant that some emigrants had managed to keep their American passports during all those years in Soviet Karelia. Representative in this regard is the destiny of a married couple of Lawrence and Sylvia Hokkanen who had spent seven long years in Soviet Karelia, from 1934 till 1941, before returning to the US. Having been granted permission by the Supreme Soviet to return to their home country, the couple set off from Petrozavodsk on the 8th of February 1941 to arrive to San Francisco on the 12th of April 1941. About the hardships of that journey to the US via Japan we learn from the book the couple has written together with their daughter Anita Middleton (Hokkonen 1991:110-122). In the US the couple met with distrust, suspicion in espionage for the Soviet Union. Under Senator Joe McCarthy times in the fifties it became simply dangerous to have anything to
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do with the communists (Ibid.: 2-3) and they decided to keep mum about their whereabouts between 1934 and 1941. They kept it that way until 1984 and Gorbachevs glasnost, and told even their own daughter, who was born a year after they came back, that those were the times of their somewhat prolonged honeymoon. For some emigrants their way back to America went through Sweden, first of all for those who in the early forties were prisoners of war in Finland. Seeking refuge some managed to make it to Sweden as in the case of Allan Janhunen and Uhto Kaino (Sevander 1996:104-111). The fortune of Alan Janhunen turned out tragic. After some time in Sweden Alan, his wife and children left for the US at the time when McCarthys purges were in full swing. He found himself arrested and accused of false identity and espionage for the Soviet Union. Despite acquittal in court neither himself, nor his family wanted to stay in the USA and went back to Sweden. Alans mental and physical health was undermined and to the rest of his days he suffered from prosecution mania. The next wave of returns, perhaps obscure, came in the fifties after Stalins death. Kaarlo Tuomi, one of the interviewees in the film Survivors, left Soviet Karelia in 1959. Signe and Wilhelm Koskela applied for permission to leave the Soviet Union in 1956. They headed for Sweden, because Signe was Swedish married to Wilhelm Kaskela from Michigan, USA. They were both Soviet citizens and had to apply in full accordance with the absurd bureaucratic regulations of the day (Kaskela 1990:195-202). In the mid-fifties the iron curtain was raised a bit, so it was not by chance that already in Helsinki the couple was personally greeted by the Swedish ambassador there. So great was the interest to these people.
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Each fought his own war Two names of Finnish Americans are eternalised on memorial plaques to War Heroes in Petrozavodsk, that of Raymond Niskanen and of Walter Kent. There were many others who died at the front fighting the Nazis. My fathers letters he wrote in 1943-1944 from Finnish prison reached me 60 years after they were written. They made me look at the war in a different perspective. My fathers name was Milton Sevander and all the letters were addressed to his cousin Salme Sevander in Oulu, whom he met ten years before when he with his mother went from Petrozavodsk to Finland to visit relatives there. There lived a big clan of the Sevanders in Oulu, since my grandfather Kuuno Sevander was one of ten brothers in the family, two of which emigrated first to Canada, then to the US and later to Soviet Karelia. My father had met Salme only once and in his first letter he apologized for writing to her, hers was the only address in Finland he had. In that letter my father tells that he was sent on a scout mission over the front line and was taken prisoner by the Finnish military. On the 12th of December 1942 he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Finnish military court in Medvezhyegorsk (Karhumki), a small town in Soviet Karelia occupied by Finland at the time. In that letter he also writes that the war had ruined his life at its very start. My father was only 22 years old then. Today we know that it was only that part of the truth which prison censors let through. The full truth was more terrific. Milton was sentenced to death together with his friend. Both were captured having spent a long time out in the Karelian woods, in bitter frost and starvation. They had to be shot at dawn, but a few hours before a Finnish officer came by for a midnight inspection and accidentally discovered that Milton was born in Eveleth, Minnesota, USA (Sevander 1992:159-161). The death sentence was changed to life in prison. But his friend born in Finland, which meant a traitor fighting against his motherland, was shot as planned. It was only
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natural for a twenty-year-old boy who was taken prisoner to want to get in touch with his relatives. That is why he begs Salme, if possible, to find his parents who had been evacuated from Petrozavodsk and inform them about where he was and, most important, that he was alive. In his last letter dated October 8th 1944 one hears almost a joyful voice of the author: I have a little surprise for you or may be you have already heard about that. The thing is that I am no longer prisoner, they set me free and at the moment I am waiting to be sent to the great Soviet Union. The order for my release was given on the 28th and on the next day I had my clothes changed, so I feel much as a free man, although I am still in the jail. They can send us away any time now and I do not know if it is my last letter from that side of the bars. Naturally, we shall continue our correspondence even when I am at the other side of the border. The borders are not the obstacles for correspondence, are they? In that letter he also tells that from that day they were given war rations. Milton finishes his last letter as follows: I cannot express on paper my gratitude for your help and with veneration wait for the moment when I can personally tell you that. Well, I can only wish that we meet if we are alive. Sure you understand what I mean, the war is not over yet, and at my age I still can be dragged into that skirmish with Germany. Farewell to all of you and good luck! In 1944 exchange of prisoners of war began, and Milton Sevander found himself in a repatriation camp, where he spent four long years. His
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family was completely unaware of where or how he was. Even today we know little about those years of his life. The story of Yrj Mykknen (Takala, Golubev 2007:93-97) throws light upon the activities of scout schools where many American Finns were trained during the war. Yrj was an NKVD special squad soldier. Having been taken prisoner by the Germans, he escaped later to be accused of high treason, sentenced to hard labour and to do his time first in Petrozavodsk and later, from 1948, in Norilsk. For him the war ended in 1954 when he finally returned home. The fates of those three, Allan Janhunen, Milton Sevander and Yrj Mykknen, trained scouts who were captured, are similarly tragic, despite the fact that one was destined to return to his motherland the United States, while the other two stayed alive and got back to Karelia. The intelligence branch in the early forties recruited even Finnish American women into their work. Among other places those women took special training in the north of the republic, in the Belomorsk region (Sevander 1992:134-139). In the 1990s, M. Sevander working on her project and through her publications got in touch with Viola Sandros born in Detroit in 1922 and living in Germany where her children with their families also lived. Violas work for the Soviet intelligence, which started in Leningrad in 1940, is a separate story (Sevander 1996:90-96). According to the scenario elaborated by the intelligence, Viola was trained to be radioman to a scout by the name of Emil Kammler, German by birth. After their training the couple was sent to Czechoslovakia occupied by the Nazis where they got married. In 1942 they got a son. Soon after Emil was sent to the eastern front, and there he was killed. The war ended, Viola turned to the Soviet embassy in Prague. She hoped that the embassy would help her to find her relatives left in Karelia. She was arrested there and then, sent from one repatriation camp to another in the area liberated by the Soviet Army finally to be sentenced to five years in prison for
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high treason. Years from 1946 till 1951 she spent in a prison camp in Norilsk and four more years in a prison settlement in Dudinka. Labour camps became places where these emigrants virtually settled down in the 1940s. The ways which brought them there were different. Elmer Nousiainens eight years in Gulag started already in 1938 when he decided to get back to his home country and applied for the passport at the American Embassy in Moscow. There in Moscow he was arrested and spent several months in infamous Butyrki prison to be later sent to a labour camp near Chelyabinsk. He was released only in 1954, after Stalins death. In a documentary Life-Saver made in 2005, Elmar, 91 years old then, recalls what artistic talents they had in their labour brigade in the camp. There were professionals from The Bolshoy and the Kievsky Opera Theatre, a singer from Georgia, actors from Latvia. In that brigade they spoke 13 languages and had one life-saver in common which was music. In the same documentary Allan Sihvola and Aatos Korpa also share their experiences of life in the camp. They also survived thanks to music, but their ways to that labour camp in the Urals were different. In his memoirs Elmni Polkuja, Allan tells that when they were waiting to be sent to the front it was suddenly announced to them that their status had been changed and they were no longer soldiers of the army. It all happened not far from a city of Slantsy where their long journey started, first to Sverdlovsk, then further to Chelyabinsk, this time under NKVD convoy. Nobody bothered to explain why and where they were heading (Sihvola:89-93). In his book, Allan gives a detailed description of the labour camp as a system, which was little different from the prison camp with its barbed wire and trenches, starvation, hard diseases, including malaria, resulting in a high mortality rate (Sihvola:97-104). It is worth to mention that the labour camp system was not equally severe everywhere. Paavo Alalatalo remembers that in Sysert, in Sverdlovsk region, he felt
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himself almost a free man, the living conditions there having been in sharp contrast to those in labour camps of Chelyabisk region (Takala, Golubyev:84). M. Sevander tells a story about a long and difficult return of her brother Paul Corgan from a labour camp in Chelyabinsk. When Karelia was liberated and his family appealed for his re-evacuation, he was released only to be arrested again on desertion charges and to be sent back to far away places for six more months. Pauls return extended to more than a year and became final in 1946 after his familys intervention followed by an official acquittal and apology from the authorities (Sevander 1992:147-156). Applying for permission to return was not easy. Kalle Ranta had to turn to the Karelian Council of Ministers to get a special permission for his brother with family to return to Karelia. His brother Aaron Ranta spent the war in a labour camp mining brown coal in the Tula region (Ranta 2000:255). Not everyone was strong enough for the hard come-back. Heino Raitanen for one was not that strong. Heino was born in Canada and got into a labour camp in Central Asia. A city of Karaganda in Kazakstan remained the place of his permanent residence to the last day of his life on September 30, 1993 (Sevander 1996:85-90). Different ways brought those people to labour camps scattered all over the vast country, but the reason why they were sent there was always the same. They were denied the trust to join the Soviet Army to fight against fascism. Reading Kalle Rantas memoirs Arrpi korvassa ja sydmessa, one gets the impression that not everybody was denied that trust after all. At the end of 1930s he found himself in a very much the same situation as many other children to enemies of the people. In 1938 Kalle was expelled from the Young Communist League and later in 1939 was refused entrance to Leningrad Institute of Cinematograph Engineering (Ranta 2000:91-92). His studies at Pedagogical Institute which he entered in 1939 did not last long, because he was called up that year. From that time
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and until 1946, when he got demobilized, his whole life was devoted to the army. He began his military service as private in the Folk Army when the Winter War started, and finished it as military translator at Porkkala Navy Base headquarters. During his military service he took part in numerous important missions and was awarded Order of the Red Banner of Labour (Ibid.:107-239). There in the army he entered the Communist party, got married to an American born, they got a son. At the end of the war he was seriously considering a military career. He got all necessary recommendations for entering the Military Academy where he had a place reserved for him as a Porkkala Navy Base veteran. It soon turned out though that his place was occupied by somebody else. It was one in the series of similar refusals he had got before. In 1942 he applied for training as tank driver but was rejected. The order for his demobilization which came from Moscow and took him by surprise was just another but not the last blow of fortune, as Kalle remembers it (Ibid.:231). Home to Karelia The war was over. A new period started in the life of Soviet people and former Americans who had by then become a part of that people. In the second half of 1940s those people, emigrants in the recent past battered but not broken down by the hardships were coming back to Karelia from evacuation, the front, from prisons and labour camps. They were coming back to build up their lives from scratch, to build up their homes and families. It was a hard time to make a fresh start, hard to find a place to live, hard to get a job due to mistrust and suspicion. After a long search for a job, Allan Sihvola managed to get one at a railroad yard where he worked for ten years. 1947 was extremely hard. Shortage of housing was made worse by a big fire. Over 20 houses burned down in the city of Petrozavodsk. The city was on the verge of starvation and the authorities were
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compelled to impose hard scale ration cards. The famine threat pulled back only at the end of 1947 (Sihvola:135-139). According to Allan, a bigger trouble was forced contacts with NKVD. They could be initiated on a banal pretext like asking if one had foreign literature at home, or where one gets the money to buy American music-books. At meetings like those they tried to turn one into informer (Ibid.: 141). The political situation in the republic was tense. The First Party Secretary Gennady Kupriyanov and the Prime Minister of the Karelo-Finnish Republic Valdemar Virolainen were dismissed and arrested. Looking back at those events, Kalle Ranta cannot but see them as an echo of the infamous Leningrad case at the same time, the last eruption of Stalins terror (Ranta 2000:234). Telma Ojala born in Detroit fell victim to that wave of political terror in 1948, ten years after her father and stepfather met the same fate. Now was her turn. Her permission to live in the border zone in the city of Sortavala ran out. She was twenty and had many times refused to take the Soviet passport. Like Elmer Nuosiainen, she turned to American embassy to apply for a certificate to confirm her American citizenship. It was enough reason to get ten years in prison for anti-revolutionary activity, the term that she began to serve already in Petrozavodsk spending first seven months at NKVD detention jail in the centre of the city. Later she was sent to Inta in the Komi Republic, where her daughter was born (Sevander 1992:98-104). A documentary film by Erkki Mttnen Pako ja Palo made in 2002 tells the story of a journey in time and space which Telma, her daughter Elina and Telmas grandson Philip made from Stockholm where they live to a city of Inta in Russia. From the Forties into the Fifties Life was slowly getting back to normal. Families were being built and the first post-war generation of children was being born, also in the families
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of former emigrants. It was a surprise for me to learn that already in the early fifties some Petrozavodsk families used to travel to the Black Sea in summer to spend their holidays there. It came as a real revelation since it was out of reach for our family then. Sihvola and Ranta share their memories about those southern impressions. For the Sihvolas, hard up as they were, such travels were possible because they had friends down there, an American born from Petrozavodsk married to a war prisoner M. Zabelyan by name (Sihvola:147-151). One reads about some curious details in these memoirs. The Rantas, for instance, were dismayed to discover that in Sochi on the Black Sea, where they spent their holidays, it was totally forbidden to dance as they did in the west. Nothing but waltz! Kalle and Irma, who loved dancing, could not but compare Sochi with Karelia in that respect. In Karelia, reasons Kalle, one could dance whatever and wherever one wanted. Karelia was always a westoriented republic compared with other parts of the Soviet Union. At the same time, he admits, that absurd prohibition of dances was taken quite seriously as a reminder of the case against cosmopolitans and the first chilling breath of the Cold War (Ranta 2000:252). The last acts of discrimination American Finns experienced in 1950s were dismissals from work. Especially hard it hit those who thanks to their language skills worked at newspapers, magazines and the radio. In the summer of 1952, recollects Kalle Ranta, a representative from Central Communist Party Committee paid a visit to the editorial office of Totuus, a Finnish language newspaper, and came to conclusion that the editorial staff of the paper was contaminated by unreliable elements. As a result, Kalle Ranta lost his provisional position there. Some of his colleagues, former compatriots like Veikko Taipale and Vilho Niemi, found themselves in the same situation (Ibid.:253-255). Kalle just states with bitterness that in that situation nothing helped, neither the party membership card, nor the high order he was awarded in 1941 when he did his duty at
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the Karelian front. Mayme Sevander had to leave her job at the TASS news agency in 1950 due to the many dark stains in her biography (Sevander 1992:165-168). Such was, perhaps, the last agony of death of Stalinist practices in Karelia as well as in the rest of the country. Ahead were the turning-point years of 1953, when Stalin died, and 1956, when Nikita Khrushchev made his famous speech at the 20th Party Congress exposing Stalins politics. The 5th of March 1953, when Stalin died, is remembered by many as a day of deep mourning. In the memoirs of our authors, though, like in Signe Koskelas description, that day is remembered as a time of great inward joy. Signe had a feeling that her joy was shared by all her colleagues at Petrozavodsk Institute of Improvement of Professional Skills for Teachers where she worked as a typist. She did not see a single one among her colleagues who was crying. If there were people at other places who did, she just could not believe in the sincerity of their feelings and thought that those were crocodile tears (Kaskela 1990:195-202). One of respondents, Veikko Lekander, says that he reacted with indifference to the news of Stalins death but admits at the same time that later when he participated in pulling down of a monument to Stalin in Chalna, in Karelia, his fear still would not let go (Takala, Golubev:139). In Khrushchevs speech, the concept of enemy of the people was characterized as a label used by Stalin to excuse the bloody repressions. To the children of enemies of the people, that speech, the bitter truth as it was, gave strength, for they did understand that their parents had fallen victim to the cruel injustice of the time. Although they never doubted their parents, they were still aware that a black cloud hang over their names, and now, after Khrushchevs speech that cloud was gone (Sevander 1992:173-174). In the second half of 1950s, words like rehabilitation, rehabilitated, unusual in spoken language before, became common speech. At the end of
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1956 and at the beginning of 1957, relatives to those disappeared started getting answers to their inquiries in the form of false death certificates. False were they for that simple reason that the cause and date of death in them were fictitious. It will take thirty more years for the true death certificates corrected by history to reach their addressees (Ibid.:184). It was not just the innocent victims of the fathers generation who were being rehabilitated. The returning sons were being rehabilitated as well. Yrj Mykknen remembers that on his return to Chalna in 1954 he turned to the General Prosecutor with a letter. He was completely rehabilitated and was even paid compensation for his ten years in prison (Takala, Golubev: 112). Leo Luoma managed to return from a filtration camp in 1956, as his daughter remembers (Ibid.:145). The desire to catch up for the lost time, to get higher education, was growing strong. University studies in Leningrad and Moscow were out of the question. Firstly, many had their families and jobs in Petrozavodsk. Secondly, Leningrad stayed closed for the Finns, it was still forbidden for them to permanently reside there. Exactly for the same reason as in 1938 Kalle Ranta was refused higher education in Leningrad, was Paul Corgan, ten years after, unable to become a student at Leningrad State University. Petrozavodsk State University refused him entrance to the department of geology on other grounds. That is why many purposeful American Finns chose accelerated correspondence courses, as for one did future teachers of English, and came off with flying colours (Sevander 1992:164-165). Music was heard more and more in Petrozavodsk. In mid-1950s, at the dancing floor in the Park of Culture and Rest an orchestra of professional and amateur musicians got together in almost full strength. Allan Sihvola, Valter Manner, Olavi Salmi, Vin Rintala, Olavi Viitasaari, Milton Sevander and later Emil Nousiainen were all there (Sihvola:159-150). The memory of my generation, children though we were then, still keeps fragments of those music parties. Robert Manner remembers that it
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was mostly the American music that was played. By then even in Petrozavodsk neither jazz nor foxtrot was allowed. The musicians had to fool the authorities in any way they could to get permission to perform (Takala, Golubev: 145). He also tells that his father has brought a number of music-books from the States, the whole two suitcases. The topic of musicbooks is constantly recurrent in many sources. My father, for one, tells in one of his letters that among his things left in Petrozavodsk were musicbooks collected with love by him and his father when they were still in America. In the film Life-Saver the main characters remember that availability of music-books was also a matter of survival, for it helped them to get a job in an orchestra. Reunion The second half of 1950s was the times when the first news from the former home country as well as from Finland started reaching the lost children. The torn up family ties started to re-establish. Robert Manner remembers that he made his first journey to Finland already in 1956 at the age of seven when he with his mother visited his grandmother there. His mother was one of the first American Finns to get permission to go abroad (Ibid.:143). The year of 1957 was a special one for our family. We moved to a new house which went down in history of Petrozavodsk as the 119-apartment house, and although we got just two rooms in an apartment we shared with another family, our joy knew no limit. The International Youth Festival held in Moscow in the summer of 1957 was the highest point of Khrushchevs thaw. In the streets of Moscow young people from different countries could freely meet the Muscovites. Kalle Ranta remembers how in the family of their American friends, the Kuosmonens, their son, then teenager, suddenly started speaking Finnish again, the language of his childhood (Ranta 2000: 96).
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Karelia used to deliver interpreters in Finnish to arrangements like that. A group of them was sent to Moscow on that occasion as well. Paul Corgan was one in the group. He struck up an acquaintance with a girl from the Swedish delegation who came from Haparanda in Sweden, where Pauls father was born. Pauls father Oscar Corgan left Sweden for the United States in 1907. It turned up that the girl was a neighbour to his fathers sister and personally knew her. Thus the first contact with relatives abroad was re-established. Later the family came in touch also with relatives in Finland and the United States. Going back to Anita Middletons documentary already mentioned I would like to quote the answers to the question put in the film to American Finns, Are you regretful that you have come here? Dagny Salo, a well-known high school teacher of mathematics in Karelia, admits that the question was put to her a number of times during her visit to the US in 1970s. She answers with a question, Can you give me another life? We are sorry but that is our life. Ernst Haapaniemi gives a different answer, We did our big thing for this country. An interview with him published in a special edition of Carelia monthly is entitled I Believe In Acknowledgement of the Life Work of American Finns (Main 1993:69-72). I allow myself to assert that here one hears the voice of people who has not only shared all the hardships of the tragic history of Karelia but has made an invaluable contribution to the development of the republic which became their home land. The sources that we used contain description of the contribution American Finns made into the economy, culture, education and sports of the republic (Sevander 2000:78-118; Vauhkanen:73-79). This subject, undoubtedly, deserves substantial research and can lay a basis for fundamental scientific studies. The life and destiny of these people leave nobody unconcerned. People with no idea about these facts of history, learning them for the first time, cannot but wonder how real events can sometimes surpass fiction. It is
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not by chance that a writer of historical novels William Durbin from Minnesota has made Karelia of the 1930s scene of action in his late novel The Darkest Evening (Durbin:2004). A film documentary Letters from Karelia made in Canada in 2004 follows the son of the Finnish-American immigrant to Karelia as he traces his lineage and discovers many of the people and places his father once knew. This film is based on a thorough historical research made by Professor Varpu Lindstrm, one of the filmmakers.
References Letters written by Milton Sevander during 1943-1944 from the Central Prison of Helsinki and from the Rihimki prison, personal archive. Durbin, William: 2004. The Darkest Evening, Orchard Books, New York, An Imprint of Scholastic Inc. Hokkanen, Sylvia and Hokkanen Laurence: 1991 Karelia: A Finnish American Couple in Stalins Russia. St. Cloud:North Star Press. Kaskela, Signe: 1990 Under Stalins diktatur. (Under Stalins Dictatorship) Gtenborg: Tre bckers frlag. Lahti-Argutina , Eila: 2004. The fate of Canadians in Soviet Karelia. In Karelian Exodus. Finnish Communists in North America and Soviet Karelia during the Depression Era. Edited by Ronald Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin. Special Issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, Volume 8, N1, August. Main, Armas: 1993: Ernest Haapaniemi: Toivon amerikansuomalasten siirtolaisten elmntyn tunnustusta (I Believe In Acknowledgement of the Life Work of American Finns), In Carelia, nr 3.
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Ranta, Kalle: 2000: Arpi korvassa ja sydmess. (The injured ear and the wounded heart), Finland, WSOY. Sevander, Maymy: 1996. Vaeltajat (Wandereers). Turku: Institute for Migration. Sevander, Maymy: 1996. Soviet Bondage: Sequel to Red Exodus. Oscat, Duluth, MN. Sevander, Maymy: 1993. Red Exodus: Finnish American Emigration to Russia. Duluth: Oscat. Sevander, Maymy with Laurie Hertzel: 1992. TheyTook My Father! A Story of Idealism and Betrayal. Duluth: Pfeifer-Hamilton. Sihvola, Allan: 2000. Elmni Polkuja (My lifes paths), manuscript. Takala, Irina: 2004. From the Frying Pan into the Fire North American Finns in Soviet Karelia. In Karelian Exodus. Finnish Communists in North America and Soviet Karelia during the Depression Era. Edited by Ronald Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrm and Alexis Pogorelskin. Special Issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, Volume 8, N1, August. Takala, Irina and Golubev, Aleksei (eds.): 2007. Ustnaia istoria v Karelii. Vyp. II. Petrozavodsk: PetrGU. Vauhkonen, Impi: 1993 He rakensivat kulturia. (They Build Up Culture) In Carelia, nr 3. Films Hokkanen Middleton, Anita. Producer, The Survivors: North American Finns in Stalins Russia. Mttnen, Erkki. Producer, Pako ja Palo, (Escape and return) YLE, 2002. Mttnen, Erkki. Producer, In My Fathers Footsteps, YLE, 2001. Saxberg Kelly, director, Letters from Karelia, National Film Board of Canada, 2004.
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Veijalainen, Pertti. Producer, Life-saver: a documentary about musicians who survived. ILLUME LTD, 2005.
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256 Elena Usacheva
Elena Usacheva
The Documents about the North American Finns in the National Archive of Karelia
Elena Usacheva National Archive of the Republic Karelia NARK Documents about the North American Finns Elena Usacheva The National Archive of the Republic of Karelia (NARK) stores a large quantity of material on the immigration of Finns from the USA and Canada to Karelia in the early 1930s. Due to the fact that in 2007 the Karelian State Archive of Contemporary History merged with the National Archive of Karelia, the collection of documents on this subject has noticeably extended. Now the National Archive of Karelia stores documents of the Communist Party, Komsomol, and other social organizations, as well as documents concerning the staff of different Karelian companies. The issues of immigration and settlement of foreign citizens in Karelia were under the control of the Resettlement Administration formed according to resolution of the Council of Peoples Commissars of Karelia (dated by September 26, 1931) On forming a united immigration institution (f. R-685, d. 176, l. 162).8 Almost one thousand five hundred documents of The Resettlement Administration (f. R-685) were delivered to our Archive and now this collection, due to its informational content, is one of the main sources on immigration process of the first half of 1930s.
8
All references in this article apply to the National Archive of the Republic Karelia.
NARK Documents about the North American Finns
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However, we should mention, that some part of the documents is related to the activity of predecessors of the Resettlement Administration, i.e. structurally similar departments of the Peoples Commissariat of Agriculture of Karelia and of the Murmansk railway that had organized immigration before 1931. Besides, the task of the Resettlement Administration was to recruit not only foreign workers, but also workers from other areas of the Soviet Union (first of all, ethnic population, i.e. Karelians, Finns, Vepsians), and, consequently, a number of documents (for instance, most personal records) on the immigration of Soviet citizens to Karelia. However, this collection contains information mostly about the North American Finns, who immigrated to Karelia in the 1930s. These documents include various lists of foreign immigrants (those who arrived in different groups, worked at various factories, etc.), personal characteristics, job appointments, correspondence on issues of their arrival, materials concerning investigation of living conditions and accommodation of immigrants, bank-books, index cards and many other documents. There are also many letters on matters of immigration, written by North American Finns. These letters contain personal information and are usually handwritten. Questionnaires of people, who requested permission to move to Karelia, are also of great interest. The questionnaires are full of detailed information such as the precise address, the place of birth, citizenship, ethnicity, membership in party and social organizations, family members, relatives in the USSR, profession, the place of work, etc. As a rule, photos of either the whole family, or of the person, making the request, are attached to the questionnaires. Many questionnaires include a mark, denoting the refusal to allow immigration. Refusals were generally caused by insufficient need in certain occupations. Sometimes we see other reasons a large family, inappropriate age (too young or, conversely, too old), and even such reasons as doesnt speak Finnish, only Swedish or doesnt have a husband. The reason why unmarried women were re-
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fused to get a permission to immigrate is explained in one of the letters sent by the Karelian Technical Aid Committee. It says that there is no need for female professions and Karelian authorities dont have enough available apartments (f. R-685, op. 1, d. 120, l. 440). Nevertheless, we cant be absolutely sure that the people whose questionnaires have the mark didnt move to Karelia later. This question should be studied more thoroughly. The collection of the Resettlement Administration also stores documents of Finnish Socialist organizations in the USA and Canada: minutes of meetings of Finnish Socialist Organizations in Duluth and Worchester (USA) from 1908 until 1930 and a handwritten literary and socio-political magazine of Finnish socialists in Toronto titled Nyrkki (The Fist), published in 1914-1917. Since these documents are found in the collection of the Resettlement Administration, we can assume that they had been brought into Karelia by some immigrants from the staff of the Administration. The documents of Finnish Socialist Organizations (ten large files) are a valuable source on the history of the Finnish diaspora in the USA and Canada in the first third of the twentieth century. In addition, the collection of the Resettlement Administration stores other documents relating to an earlier wave of Finnish immigration from America to the Soviet Union that began in the1920s. It should be noted that apart from the collection of the Resettlement Administration, other collections of the National Archive of Karelia also store documents related to the history of Finnish immigration to Karelia. For instance, recruitment of foreign workers was controlled by the Council of Peoples Commissars of Karelia (SNK of Karelia), which adopted a number of resolutions on organization of immigration. Moreover, the collection of the SNK of Karelia (f. R-690) stores different lists of people who arrived from the USA and Canada. The collection of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Karelia (f. R-689) stores information about the
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admission of the American, Canadian and Finnish citizens to Soviet citizenship, as this function was for a long time a part of the functions of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Unfortunately, the lists of people in these documents often dont give sufficient information: they provide only the first and last names of people who became citizens of the Soviet Union, and that complicates the identification of people, especially those who have the same surname. However, in this collection, it is possible to find questionnaires (unfortunately, only a few of them) of people who wanted to change their citizenship. These questionnaires with photos contain rich biographical information. Before the Resettlement Administration was formed, the immigration of foreign workers had been under the control of the Peoples Commissariat of Labour of Karelia. Later this organization also managed some issues of job placement of immigrants, and the research in the subject of this paper should also involve the study of the documents of this Commissariat (f. R-841). The collection of the Regional Council of Labour Unions of Karelia stores quite a large number of documents about North American Finns in Karelia (f. P-6153). These documents are important since due to the functions of labour unions they provide a detailed account of the issues of living and other social conditions of immigrants in Karelia: documents on conditions of the work of foreigners at different factories, the investigation of living conditions and of the organization of the food supply, etc. For instance, the reports on the work of foreigners at different factories (Ski Factory, Forest Factory of Solomennoie, Stroyobyedineniye (the Building Union) of Petrozavodsk, etc) give information about the average wages of workers and specialists, about the libraries of these factories, the number of books in them, about magazines and newspapers in the foreign languages, about the publishing of wall-newspaper and the organization of red corners, about various free time activities (groups of political lit-
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eracy, of voluntary military preparation, classes on the history of the Communist Party and Leninism, on the Russian language, on the Labour Movement), about the number of people who visited rest houses and sanatoriums, and even about the number of innovative proposals submitted by foreign workers. The collection stores documents of the first and the second All-Karelian Conferences of Foreign Workers that were held in September 1931 and January 1933 (f. P-6153, op. 2, d. 788, d. 938). The programs of these conferences were almost similar: first of all, participants listened to the report of Gustav Rovio, then to the paper on condition of public and cultural services. This was followed by the discussion. It should be mentioned that the people were mostly interested in the organization of working process, food supply, the lack of equipment and the improvement of living conditions. The documents of industrial enterprises and organizations are an almost inexhaustible source of biographical information. The National Archive of Karelia stores the documents of most enterprises where foreigners worked with rich biographical information, such as personal records, orders on their employment and dismissal, salary records, and lists of workers. For instance, the collections of the Ski factory and the logging works of Pai keep index cards, personal records (with photos), and work books. However, a successful search among these documents is possible only if information is available about the first and last names of people who worked at certain factories. Such documents (lists of foreign workers and their families, correspondence concerning accommodation of workers, materials on the study of the phenomenon of Canadian lumberjacks, etc.) can be found in the collections of higher organization state trusts of Kareldrev, which subordinated forest factories (f. R-1960), Karelles, a system of logging enterprises (f. R-286) and Karsovkhostrest, a system of state farms (f. R-676).
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The collections of the Communist Party and Komsomol organizations also store a large number of documents related to the immigration of North American Finns to Karelia. Because all important decisions in this period were made with a regard to the opinions of the Communist Party or under its direct influence, these collections are a valuable source for the study of the subject. For instance, the collections of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party (f. P-3) contain correspondence on various issues of arrival and accommodation of foreign workers, investigation of their living and working conditions, on activities of the Resettlement Administration, and lists of foreign workers. For the study of biographies of the Communist Party and Komsomol members, the collections of the Communist Party and Komsomol organizations at regional and district level, as well as of primary Communist Party organizations, that were based on an industrial and territorial principle, can provide rather detailed information about them. Personal records of the Communist Party members (including former citizens of other countries) constitute a large separate complex of documents. The records are stored in alphabetic order. Immigration of several thousands Finns from relatively safe countries (the USA and Canada) to Soviet Karelia in the early 1930s was an unusual event. Who were these people and what forced them to make such a difficult decision: to change their lives so suddenly, to move to the USSR, which was at a difficult stage of its development? It should be mentioned that these documents don't provide us with an exact number of people who immigrated to Karelia. On the one hand, there are many statistical reports. For instance, one of them states that 2598 people (including members of their families) came from the USA and Canada to Karelia in 1931, 2093 people in 1932, and 525 in 1933. During that time 80 people died and 806 left Karelia (f. R-685, op. 1, d. 75, l. 3). But other reports, even official and reliable, give slightly different numbers. What caused
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such differences? It is obvious (and mentioned in explanatory notes of the Resettlement Administration) that no precise records were kept at that time. North American Finns were often mixed with illegal Finnish immigrants and with foreigners from other countries, and common rules for distinguishing between these categories of people did not exist. The reimmigration of workers was significant: there were people who went back to their countries (some of them officially broke their labour agreements and claimed that were leaving Karelia temporarily, promising to come back, but never returning), there were those who left Karelia, but later decided to return, as well as those who obtained a visa and an entry permission, but never used them. Some people arrived in Karelia and then left for other regions of the USSR. Documents state that about six thousand workers moved to Karelia from the USA and Canada (including members of families) in the early 1930s, but there are no exact figures in documents, and it is impossible to calculate how many of them stayed in Karelia. Archival documents allow us feel the atmosphere of waiting for changes to occur, the resolve of Canadian and American Finns to help the young socialist republic to establish socialism. Of course, just a small portion of the people were communists (10 per cent according to one report), but almost all of them (especially, the heads of families) were members of various labour socialist organizations (and this fact is supported by documents), and they understood and accepted the idea of establishment of socialism. The collection of the Resettlement Administration stores interesting minutes of meetings that were recorded on board the ships transporting immigrants across the ocean. These documents reveal the feelings and moods of people who had enough courage to move to Soviet Karelia. How did these people spend their free time during the long trip? Immigrants organized meetings almost every day. They discussed the following subjects: the position of workers in the USA and
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Canada, struggle for peace, what is peoples rule and rule of workers and peasants in the USSR (f. R-685, op. 1, d. 72). One of the groups even organized a meeting named: How we, women, will adapt to the conditions of Soviet Karelia (but the participants of the meeting were mostly men). To amuse themselves during the long trip, one of the groups organized a choir that sang the Internationale (they also had songs in Russian in their repertoire). They also read revolutionary poems. Immigrants also resolved everyday chores (they were systematically recorded). For instance, they organized nursering for ill people, made photographs of their group, decided to use English as the primary language for communication (because everybody understands it). Some groups raised the issue of drinking alcohol during the trip. One group decided to to prohibit drinking. The opinions in another group divided (some suggested prohibition; others said that as nobodys been seen drunk, strict measures are unnecessary. If we see somebody who drinks well forbid it), and finally, the second opinion was approved (Ibid.). Even when Finns had to face the problems of living conditions, many of them sincerely thought that these difficulties were caused by temporary problems connected with establishing socialism. But undoubtedly, the idea of miserable poverty and bad living conditions that people used to normal conditions had to face runs through all the documents of this period. Almost every report on the investigation of households emphasizes a very unsatisfactory state of living conditions. Reports pointed out that the situation with housing was very poor almost everywhere, especially in Petrozavodsk, Olonets and Kondopoga four or five people in a room, two to six square meters of living space per person, electrical lighting often unavailable, the state of apartments unsanitary, firewood in short supply; there were no stoves in the houses of Karelles in November 1932, and people couldnt wash themselves in the morning as the water was
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frozen (f. P-6153, op. 2, d. 761, d. 788, f. R-685, op. 1, d. 74, l. 63-66.). The problem of bad food was also mentioned in almost every report. The standards of rations for foreigners were not always kept. For instance, one of the participants of the first All-Karelian conference of foreign workers said: Last month 700 people were given food enough only for 350 people, we lack bread, we have problems with water supply, and water is not regularly brought (f. P-6153, op. 2, d. 788). The conditions of life were not much better in the remote regions of Karelia. The manager of the state trust Karelles wrote to the director of the Logging Enterprise of Tunguda on January 5, 1932: According to the information that I have, the position of foreign workers at your enterprise is quite difficult. The building given to them have not been yet equipped with even simple furniture (no boards for couches), the problem of bedding is also unsolved, and now the problems with food supply have added to all that (f. R-286,op.7,d.25). The documents of the Resettlement Administration contain a lot of correspondence, related to the cancellation of special rations for foreigners (which was insufficient, but still better than ration for other workers): foreign workers and their employers struggled to keep these standards for foreigners. Immigrants were anxious not only about their living conditions. The organization of work provoked questions: why we dont have enough materials, why the equipment is in poor condition while the equipment we brought in is not used, and why Russians who dont understand the language of their subordinates manage the production (f. P-6153, op. 2, d. 788). Many were surprised by the fact that they couldnt change a place of employment without having a special permission. However, studying the transactions of the committee that managed the is-
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sues of changing a place of employment (the transactions are stored in the collection of the Resettlement Administration), it is east to find out that there were few refusals, and foreign workers was usually allowed to change a place of employment. Obviously, faced with such problems, many immigrants left Karelia, disappointed with the Soviet way of life. The reports indicated that the main reasons for this decision were bad living conditions or impossibility to work in ones field of profession. Sometimes more unusual explanations were offered, such as religious incompatibility. An even more eccentric explanation for the departure of one family in 1932: both spouses were spiritists; they came and left according to instructions of Lenins spirit, from whom they learned about the outbreak of a war in August. It should be mentioned that not only Finnish immigrants had to face such difficulties. Documents demonstrate that similar problems were familiar to the workers who arrived from other parts of the Soviet Union. It is obvious that Karelian organizations were simply not prepared for such a significant inflow of work force, and all instructions concerning the improvement of the situation (there were a plenty of them) came to nothing. The wave of Finnish immigration of the early 1930s had a very significant impact on the history of our republic, and that is reflected in documents. Thats why the informational resources of the archive related to the exploration of this phenomenon are almost innumerable: this paper provides information only about the most informative collections of the National Archive of Karelia. The large amount of documents and inconsistency of information concerning certain people complicate the research work, as information should be looked for through a large number of documents in the Finnish, Russian, English languages. Meanwhile, the interest in the study of such a unique phenomenon as immigration of several thousand Finns from the USA and Canada is evident. Apart from researchers, this subject is very
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interesting for the descendants of the immigrants, who live nowadays in different countries. The documents stored in the archive are not only a source for studying the phenomenon of mass immigration of North American Finns into Soviet Karelia in the early 1930s. The documents keep the fates of particular people, their joys and grieves, their faith in a bright future, and their disappointments. It is impossible to stay indifferent turning the pages of the documents, where the death of the wife and the just-born son of Finnish immigrant A. Haavisto is described, or reading the letter of R. Niskanen, who was killed in the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. We will remember these people as long as the priceless evidence of their lives is preserved. The task of the Archives staff and researchers is to reveal and popularize these documents and give the descendants of the immigrants a chance to get familiar with the history of their family and with their own history. Translated from Russian by Aleksandra Nikulina.
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. , , , , . , , , .
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Contributors
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Contributors
Evgeny Efremkin Doctoral student in History, York University in Toronto Alexei Goluvev Ph.D., Senior Lecturer, Department of History of Northern Europe, Petrozavodsk State University Peter Kivisto Ph.D., Richard Swanson Professor of Social Thought and Professor and Chair of Sociology, Augustana College Auvo Kostiainen Ph.D., Professor, University of Turku Varpu Lindsrtm Ph.D., Professor, York University in Toronto Alexis Pogorelskin Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of Minnesota-Duluth William Pratt Ph.D., Professor of History, University of Nebraska at Omaha Mika Roinila Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Geography, Bethel College in Mishawaka Samiro Saramo Doctoral student in History, York University in Toronto Stella Sevander lecturer, University of Ume Ilya Solomeshch Ph.D., Associate Professor, Head of the Unit for Nordic Studies, Petrozavodsk State University
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Contributors
Irina Takala Ph.D., Associate Professor, Head of the Department of History of Northern Europe, Petrozavodsk State University Elena Usacheva Head of the section, National Archive of Republic of Karelia Brje Vhmki Ph.D., Professor of Finnish Studies, University of Toronto Timo Vihavainen Professor of Russian Studies, Renvall Institute, University of Helsinki
Contributors
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Contributors
North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s
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09.07.08. 6084 1/16 . .-. . 17 250 . . 174
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North American Finns in Soviet Karelia, Ed. by Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

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North American Finns in Soviet Karelia, Ed. by Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

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Federal Agency of Education State Educational Institution of Higher Education PETROZAVODSK STATE UNIVERSITY

North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in the 1930s

Proceedings of International Research Seminar Petrozavodsk, 22-23 May 2008

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk State University Press 2008

Proceedings of International Research Seminar

63.3(2P-6)6 + 63.3(7)6 + 63.3(7)6

6 Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

Irina Takala and Ilya Solomeshch

Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev

North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s

Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev

North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s

Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev

North American Finns in Soviet Karelia in 1920s 1950s

References Missing in Karelia http://missinginkarelia.org Oral History Centre of Petrozavodsk http://oralhist.karelia.ru

Irina Takala and Alexei Golubev

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Reaction to Departure Reaction to Departure

Reaction to Departure: The Finnish American Community Responds to Karelian Fever

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Peter Kivisto and Mika Roinila

Background on Karelia Fever Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever, as Viewed from Communist Party USA Records

Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever

Background on Karelia Fever

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever? Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

Karelian Project or Karelian Fever?

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Heaven or Hell on Earth? Heaven or Hell on Earth?

Heaven or Hell on Earth?

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Heaven or Hell on Earth?

Heaven or Hell on Earth?

Heaven or Hell on Earth?

Heaven or Hell on Earth?

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Controversy over the Piatiletka Controversy over the Piatiletka

Controversy over the Piatiletka