Golubev, Alexey and Takala, Irina The Search for a Socialist El Dorado: Finnish Immigration to Soviet Karelia from the United States and Canada in the 1930s (review)

SEER, 93, 4, OCTOBER 2015 774 Golubev, Alexey and Takala, Irina. The Search for a Socialist El Dorado: Finnish Immigration to Soviet Karelia from the United States and Canada in the 1930s. Michigan State University Press, East Lansing, MI, 2014. xvii + 236 pp. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $29.95 (paperback). Over the last decade, scholarship on the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union has investigated many areas inhabited by non-Russian peoples. Baron, Breyfogle, Hirsch, Kerttula, Khalid, Martin, Sahadeo, Sunderland, Suny and many others have explored a variety of themes and regions and significantly increased our understanding of Russia and the USSR as multiethnic , multi-lingual and multi-confessional states. Yet much remains to be explored and written about this fascinating region and the people who have inhabited it. In this carefully written volume, Golubev and Takala explore the little-known history of approximately 6,500 Finnish-speaking people who travelled to Karelia, the region of north-western European Russia bordering on modern-day Finland, in search of a socialist paradise. In the space of nine chapters, these two Petrozavodsk State University historians investigate what led Finnish speakers who had previously emigrated from Finland to Canada and the United States to relocate once again, this time to build socialism. In the Karelian Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic (from 1923) they joined so-called ‘Red Finns’, or left-leaning Finns who fought with or supported those trying to establish a Communist government in Finland in 1918–19. When the so-called ‘White’ government took control in Finland, many ‘Red Finns’ fled across the border into socialist-controlled Russia. As Golubev and Takala relate, these Red Finns had a significant influence on the political and economic development of Soviet Karelia throughout the 1920s and first half of the 1930s. Between 1926 and 1935, the number of Finnish speakers in Soviet Karelia jumped from 2,500 to around 15,000. In part this flow of workers to Karelian factories, farms, and forests stemmed from government policies intended to attract foreign workers and foreign capital to expand the Soviet economic base. Soviet Karelia’s Red Finn leader at the time, Edvard Gylling, advocated for attracting foreign workers in the early 1930s, prior to his removal in 1935. The Search for a Socialist El Dorado describes competing visions (from the perspectives of Moscow and Petrozavodsk) of immigration policies, and the social, financial and logistical aspects of immigration to Soviet Karelia. Golubev and Takala argue that despite the initial successes in the early 1930s, the immigration programme ultimately failed due to Soviet policies, including the Great Terror. But that failure was not initially clear. In fact, thousands of American and Canadian Finns gave up their homes, businesses and livelihoods to travel thousands of miles to take part in building socialism. As REVIEWS 775 the book’s title suggests, many were motivated by the opportunity to help build a socialist utopia and workers’ paradise. Their idealism and hope drew them to invest themselves and often everything they owned to travel to the unknown. Unfortunately for them, as Golubev and Takala document, this new land was not as welcoming as had been promised. In general, these Finnish speakers found that weak infrastructure, poor living and working conditions, and limited food (in both quantity and quality) challenged their commitment to a socialist utopia. Most North American Finns did have access to special stores and better food than the local Karelian and Russian people, but nevertheless suffered substantially for the first few years. Despite these challenges, North American Finns made notable contributions to education, literature, theatre, music, dance and even sports in their region. Golubev and Takala describe in great detail the debates about language policy, with Finnish being given higher status than Karelian for several years. They also devote a chapter to the challenges of cross-cultural communication before describing the tragic end of many American and Canadian Finns in the Great Terror and World War Two. At least 739 North American Finns perished between 1937 and 1938, according to these authors, who provide significant detail on several victims and a timeline of arrests and deaths. They also assess World War Two and its impact...

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