Предатели или жертвы войны: коллаборационизм в Карелии в годы Второй мировой войны 1939-1945 гг.

Generally evacuation of the population during the first period of the Great Patriotic War in Karelia, that at once became the frontline repuЬlic, succeeded in а very short time. All in all, according to the incomplete data, more than 530 thousands from 700 thousands of people who lived in the repuЬlic before the war were evacuated from the occupied repuЬlic regions. Working people of Karelia moved to the Vologda region, the Arkhangelsk region, the Кirov region, the Sverdlovsk region, the Gorkov region, the Novosiblrsk region, the Chelyablnsk region and others as well as to Komi, Bashkir, Chuvash, Udmurt and Tatar repuЬlics. Part of the population was evacuated to the eastern shore of the Onega Lake — the Pudozh region.

In the process of evacuation People's Commissariat for State Security of the Karelian-Finnish SSR first evacuated prisoners from Vyborg and Petrozavodsk jails as well as prisoners from cages that were part of the White-Sea-Baltic Plant (Belomorsko-Baltic Plant). In the end of 1930s the number of prisoners and special settlers worked for the White-Sea-Baltic Plant accounted for а quarter of all Karelian population[508]. Besides, special settlers (former kulaks) who had been expelled from other parts of the Soviet Union to the special settlements in Karelia in 1930s were also primarily evacuated. At the same time evacuation began even before the beginning of the military actions on the territory of the Karelian-Finnish SSR and entering of Finland in the war against the USSR in favour of Nazi Germany[509]. It can Ье assumed that the Soviet authorities were frightened that not-evacuated "doubtful element which is under consideration" could take the side of the enemy.

All of these actions carried out Ьу People's Commissariat for State Security of the Karelian-Finnish SSR in the beginning of the war were of compulsory nature. However, as it is seen from the further events during the Finnish occupation of Karelia, they significantly reduced the social base of collaborationism development.

The absence of wide development of collaborationism on the occupied Karelian territory became the main argument for the government of the repuЬlic on summer 1944 when the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party considered the issue about the Karelian-Finnish SSR liquidation and removal of Karelians, Veps and Finns to Siberia. The repuЬlic was saved and the tragic consequences of people's deportation managed to Ье avoided[510].

V. I. Boyarsky in the foregoing monograph said that after several years of the occupation 20 % from 90 % of patriots would join the Resistance movement and would actively fight against the enemy. About 70 % would take up passive and waiting position[511]. Examination of the numerous of documentary, and primarily archival sources, which were previously secret and only recently became availaЫe to researches shows that these numbers also generally correspond to Karelia. The majority of population caught in the occupation zone didn't cooperate with occupants, but took up passive position aiming primarily at surviving in the extreme conditions of the war. And it concerned party officials as well as ordinary civilians. So, from July 1944 to Мау 1945 the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Karelian-Finnish SSR repeatedly considered the cases about communists left on the occupied territory. The decisions of the issues emphasized that many of communists in the occupied regions hid or destroyed their party membership cards, worked in their personal farms. They didn't have active position in the struggle against occupants, didn't cooperate with partisans and undergrounders, which worked as elders. Such communists were excluded from the party with formulation "for passing behavior"[512].

Generally the major part of local people in spite of massive nationalistic propaganda remained loyal to their motherland and didn't want to move to alien country especially to one that was on the edge of military defeat. It should Ье taken into consideration that many people of the occupied Ьу Finns regions of Karelia waited for their fathers, husbands, brothers and sons fought in the Red Army.

However for some part of the Soviet population caught in the occupation zone, evacuation to Finland was inevitaЫe: for those who served for Finnish occupation authorities and were afraid of arraignment for treason; women married Finnish men and men gone to related battalions.

The analysis of the documentary materials shows that the national policy of Finnish occupation regime in Karelia in 1941–1944 aimed at division of population Ьу nationality {Finno-Ugrians and Russians) didn't bring expected results — Soviet Karelians, Veps, Finns failed to Ье brought to the Finnish side. Moreover, those who were to liberate from "Russian slavery'; defended independence of their country with arms in their hands along with Russians and other peoples of the Soviet Union.