What it says in the title. Would a Finland that is turned into a republic of the USSR see enough Russian settlement to create the kind of entrenched Russian minority we still see in some OTL post-Soviet states?
Finland as a Soviet republic: would it accumulate a significant Russian minority?
- Thread starter saint polype
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WanderingProfessor
Banned
As Finland borders Russia, it's reasonable to say that it would have a much larger Russian minority like Ukraine or Estonia like in OTL.
kham_coc
Banned
A lot of those Russians have been there before the USSR though.
That being said, if we are talking full Finland (that is, nothing is transferred to Russia) there should be a lot of border areas with a lot interaction so probably.
Surely. Most of soviet republics bordering Russia have even currently massive Russian minority. Yes, some have been there already before Russain revolutions but during Soviet years there would come more Russians.
Would this version of Finland still include the lands that OTL Finland lost due to the Winter War? The main section of those lands, Inner Karelia in the south-east, had been under Russian rule before WW1 for almost twice as long as the rest, so quite possibly already had more Russians among its inhabitants than did the rest.
If the Soviet policy is do a Kalingrad on the Fins then in the 1940's and 50's under Stalin there will be quite occupation of Finland by State sponsored immigration. The Soviets and Russians have quite a history of doing this to their Niegbours.
Are we assuming a Finland where the Reds won the Finnish Civil War, and thus became an SSR right from the start?
Or are we assuming a Finland that became independent, and later reconquered by the Soviets?
In the former case, I don't see why Finland doesn't just maintain its original borders from the Grand Duchy. Heck, it might even gain a bit more land.
In the latter case, well, that depends on what the soviet leadership thinks.
Or are we assuming a Finland that became independent, and later reconquered by the Soviets?
In the former case, I don't see why Finland doesn't just maintain its original borders from the Grand Duchy. Heck, it might even gain a bit more land.
In the latter case, well, that depends on what the soviet leadership thinks.
Why Helsinki? Hanko would be a more likely candidate, per the Moscow peace treaty of 1940 it was to be leased by Finland to the USSR until 1970 after all.
If Reds win Finnish Civil War, Finland can definitely keep Karelia. It might be possible that Finland gets that what would be Republic of Karelia too.
If Finland just acepts Stalin's demands before Winter War and Stalin occupies Finland without war same way as Baltics, Finland probably can keep Karelia and gets at least some more regions on Russian Karelia like was planned.
If Finland just lost Winter War, it is possible that Finland is allowed to keep Karelia.
If Finland is annexed after Continuation War (pretty unlikely since it would bring Soviets more problems than they would prefer) not sure can Finland get any parts of Karelia back.
If Finland just acepts Stalin's demands before Winter War and Stalin occupies Finland without war same way as Baltics, Finland probably can keep Karelia and gets at least some more regions on Russian Karelia like was planned.
If Finland just lost Winter War, it is possible that Finland is allowed to keep Karelia.
If Finland is annexed after Continuation War (pretty unlikely since it would bring Soviets more problems than they would prefer) not sure can Finland get any parts of Karelia back.
See the Soviet-made map above for the most likely postwar borders of a Finland under Kuusinen - a border change in Isthmus compensated with areas of Eastern Karelia west of the Murmansk railway.
Yes. The Western SSRs and ASSRs in general saw a significant increase in the number of ethnic Russians during the Soviet period, due to different policies by Moscow. In fact I think that we should understand the years between 1922 and 1991 as a time of a major ethnic Russian demographic expansion due west within the confines of the USSR.
I find it very unlikely that a Soviet Finland would have been an exception. I personally believe that by the 1990s, from 10% to 30% of the Finnish SSR's population would have been made of ethnic Russians, with a further addition of lesser numbers of Ukrainians and Belarusians in the mix. The exact numbers depend on various decisions by the Soviet leadership.
In the 1934 census, ethnic Russians made up 8,2% of the Estonian population, with Ukrainians and Belarusians making up 0,1%. In 1989, Russians represented 30,3% of the population of the Estonian SSR, with Ukrainians and Belarusians making up a further 3,4%.
So, while there was a significant Russian minority in Estonia before the war, the Soviet period saw a huge expansion in the number of people from the other parts of the USSR in the SSR. By the 1990s, the number of native Slavic-speakers had grown over *four-fold* since before WWII. The Finnish SSR would be subject to similar policies as Estonia was, and thus the creation of a large Russian/Slavic minority would be pretty much assured.
You have it backwards. The Karelo-Finnish SSR was a "placeholder republic" that was created when the USSR failed to conquer all of Finland in the Winter War. An ersatz Finland, if you may, among the great family of Soviet peoples. Without this Soviet failure, the Finland annexed to the USSR would be obviously majority Finnish (even if given more Karelian areas like in the map posted by @Karelian above). It would then be called the Finnish SSR, or at a stretch, the Finno-Karelian SSR.
As for Helsinki, I can't agree with what you are saying there. The Baltic SSR's capitals didn't become closed military cities, so why should Helsinki? There are several better options for major Soviet bases on the southern coast, like, say, Hanko and Porkkala.
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I am kinda morbidly curious about the dynamics of settler colonialism.
Do people actually reproduce more if there is simply more land given to them?
Would, say, a Finnish SSR be that much more attractive to start a family in?
Or was it more like, because of economic development, there was just a population boom that coincided with Soviet expansion?
That last part is kinda hard to believe after the massacres of WWII making it a challenge to even repopulate the motherland, but then again, populations DO bounce back, and it may be more attractive to *ahaem* do that bounce in a new blank slate territory.
There will certainly be a Russian minority but how large it will be depends on whether it is merged with some or all of the Karelian ASSR. (By the time of the 1939 Soviet census, 296,529 of the 468,898 inhabitants of the Karelian ASSR were listed as Russian. http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_nac_39.php?reg=66)
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