Karelian Labor Commune Карельская трудовая коммуна Karjalan työkansan kommuuni | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg.webp) Area claimed and controlled by the Karelian Labor Commune | |||||||||
| Capital | Petrozavodsk | ||||||||
| Official languages | Finnish Russian | ||||||||
| Government | |||||||||
• Chairman | Edvard Gylling | ||||||||
| History | |||||||||
• Established | 8 June 1920 | ||||||||
• Disestablished | 25 July 1923 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
| Today part of | Republic of Karelia as a subject of Russian Federation | ||||||||
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The Karelian Labor Commune (Russian: Карельская трудовая коммуна, Romanized: Karel´skaia Trudovaia Kommuna, Finnish; Karjalan työkansan kommuuni) was established in 1920 as an autonomous region following the successes of the Red Army's incursion into the Republic of Uhtua on 18 May 1920 to undermine and discredit the separatist movements and to make Finland give up on attempting to liberate East Karelia.[1] Edvard Gylling and Yrjö Sirola, former members of the government of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic, met with Vladimir Lenin in the Kremlin to propose autonomy for Karelia within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.[2] The Commune was founded on 8 June 1920 and was disestablished on 25 July 1923 and succeeded by the Karelian ASSR, following the end of the Heimosodat.[3]
Government
The Government of the Karelian Labor Commune was ran by the Karelian Revolutionary Committee, which was headed by Gylling. Gylling was infavour of "Karelization" or "Karelianization", which in his words was:
Karelization means that the Karelian dialects have civil rights everywhere, that Karelians in all offices and meetings will be able to explain their business in their own dialect. But if one thinks of Karelization as meaning that one wants to use the Karelian dialects, which often are mixed up with Russian words more than half of the time, as a literary language, then Karelization is naturally irrational.
This lead to the policy of regions that spoke majority Karelian or Finnish would only have their services in the Finnish language. This was meant to make the Karelians feel at home, and to not have them support the Karelian United Government and the Finns.[4]
The Capital of the Commune was chosen to be Petrozavodsk. This was a problem as this lead to the formation of two administrative centers for the Commune, for the existence of the Executive Committee of Aunus (Olonets). The existence of two administrative centers lead to infighting and petty disputes, such as the demarcation of the border based of either ethnic or economic boundaries.[5][4]
The Commune was faced with a labor shortage, which prevented them from effectively developing the economy through timber exports and industrialization following the turmoil of the previous years. In a dispute with the Olonets Governorate, based in Petrozavodsk, Gylling attempted to gain control of the Neglinka saw mill, along with a nearby concentration camp run by the Cheka.[6]
Planned Expansion
The Karelian Labor Commune was not meant to be just limited to East Karelia or Karelia as a whole, the intentions reflecting the sometimes debated intentions of the Karelo-Finnish SSR in its expansion. It is often thought that the Commune was meant to be a runway for the expansion of the communist revolution to Finland.[7] These ideas were killed with the Socialism in One Country policy applied by Stalin, in result of the Soviet failure in the Polish–Soviet War.
References
- ↑ Soviet Russia. Russian Soviet Government Bureau. 1922.
- ↑ Nenonen, Kaisu-Maija; Teerijoki, Ilkka (1998). Historian suursanakirja. Porvoo: WSOY. ISBN 978-951-0-22044-3.
- ↑ Tägil, Sven (1995). Ethnicity and Nation Building in the Nordic World. Hurst. ISBN 978-1-85065-239-7.
- 1 2 Hodgson, John H. (2015-12-08). Communism in Finland: A History and Interpretation. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-7562-7.
- ↑ Smele, Jonathan D. (2015-11-19). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916-1926. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-5281-3.
- ↑ Baron, Nick (1 April 2001). "Conflict and complicity : The expansion of the Karelian Gulag, 1923-1933". Cahiers du monde russe. Russie - Empire russe - Union soviétique et États indépendants (in French). 42 (42/2–4): 615–648. doi:10.4000/monderusse.8471. ISSN 1252-6576.
- ↑ Brunet-Jailly, Emmanuel (2015-07-28). Border Disputes [3 volumes]: A Global Encyclopedia [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN 978-1-61069-024-9.