SUMMARY:

Russian (eastern) Karelia was for the first time in its history united into a single administrative unit on 7 June 1920. The resolution which the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued the following day stated simply that “to fight for the social emancipation of the Karelian workers,” a “regional unit” to be named the Karelian Labour Commune should be formed in the areas of Olonets and Arkhangelsk gubernii populated by Karelians. The lack of precise directives, as to the new region’s purpose, administrative status and territory, was a measure of the contradictions, conflicting aspirations and countervailing tensions of ideology and exigency inherent in Soviet policy-making in the early 1920’s. This paper considers debates and conflicts over Karelia’s spatial construction in relation to the development of Soviet foreign, national and economic policy in this period.