National History Day Reasearch on Finland in World War II

[Pursuivant]

Reading wikipedia through first would be a good start

Unfortunataly, Wikipedia makes for a very bad bibliography and judges tend to dislike the website because anyone can put anything on it and it may not always be exact, so we only use it to link us to more trustworthy sources.

I meant - read it so you have some basic understanding so you do not rely on hollywood history.

[Pursuivant]

Though I think modern Finns are a little too critical of Kekkonen....

You mean us who lived their youth in Kekkoslovakia, or the ones who saw his actions as an aspiring politician in the 30's?

[Pursuivant]

As for the "debates" issue, you can always drag the whites vs. reds. After all, Finnish volunteers participated both in the Estonian civil war as well as the sorry "East Karelia" expedition. The "academic Karelia Society" had its pan-finnic ideas that some felt were fulfilled in the occupation of soviet karelia 41-43. Meanwhile you must remember Jack Reed an all the Finns, 1and 2 gen. Immigrants who left from USA and Canada to "build socialism" in the recession 30's and ended up purged as in shot 35-38. Theres a lot of material on that. Finns were pretty far polarized any significant emigrant community like in the USA had two "halls" temperance society and workers union. After the wars in Finland the split continued in sports there was the socialist union and the olympic union. Of course then the "Greater Finland" ideology was buried so deep even whispering about returning Karelia was high treason.

[Pursuivant]

Or then you could dig up Larry Thorne.

[abare]

As for the "debates" issue, you can always drag the whites vs. reds. After all, Finnish volunteers participated both in the Estonian civil war as well as the sorry "East Karelia" expedition. The "academic Karelia Society" had its pan-finnic ideas that some felt were fulfilled in the occupation of soviet karelia 41-43. Meanwhile you must remember Jack Reed an all the Finns, 1and 2 gen. Immigrants who left from USA and Canada to "build socialism" in the recession 30's and ended up purged as in shot 35-38. Theres a lot of material on that. Finns were pretty far polarized any significant emigrant community like in the USA had two "halls" temperance society and workers union. After the wars in Finland the split continued in sports there was the socialist union and the olympic union. Of course then the "Greater Finland" ideology was buried so deep even whispering about returning Karelia was high treason.

I have heard about the Finnish-Americans who were killed during Stalin's purges, but one thing that interested me is that there was no mention of action against the Soviets for the murderes of former American citizens or American citizens murdured. Did the United States even realize what was happening?

[Rip]

Did the United States even realize what was happening?

US must have been at least roughly aware what was happening. Perhaps they were just pleased of communists killing each other?

[abare]

Did the United States even realize what was happening?

US must have been at least roughly aware what was happening. Perhaps they were just pleased of communists killing each other?

Possibly... I'll check in with the head curator of Finland's National Military Museum on that one though.

[Rob A.]

Did the United States even realize what was happening?

US must have been at least roughly aware what was happening. Perhaps they were just pleased of communists killing each other?

This rings true....in Canada the government wasn't disappointed to see the Finnish communists leaving for the Soviet Union and the Spanish civil war and other such "leftie" causes....

[Rob A.]

Though I think modern Finns are a little too critical of Kekkonen....

You mean us who lived their youth in Kekkoslovakia, or the ones who saw his actions as an aspiring politician in the 30's?

Well...I suppose in the end the Finnish "political classes" made their feelings about Kekkonen abundantly clear. They had the last word..at least for now.... with the consitutional changes after Kekkonen had left the scene.

[To the OP: In the aftermath of Kekkonen's authoritarian "regime", the Finnish constitution was changed, increasing the limits on the powers of the President's office..... I guess no one wanted to have to deal with another personality as "loveable" as was Kekkonen's...]

[abare]

The guys to ask would probably be these ones: Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu, Sotahistorian laitos (the url is ridiculously long, so dunno if it will work, but http://www.puolustusvoimat.fi > Maanpuolustuskorkeakoulu > Laitokset > Sotahistorian laitos).

Found this link with lots of links to further information: http://personal.inet.fi/koti/mplinkit/suomi.htm

Thank you soooooo much! This more i get into the different links on 'personal.inet.fi' the more great information there is!
We already contacted the people at the first link you gave, they were really helpful answering our questions.

[tuulen]

Did the United States even realize what was happening?

US must have been at least roughly aware what was happening. Perhaps they were just pleased of communists killing each other?

This rings true....in Canada the government wasn't disappointed to see the Finnish communists leaving for the Soviet Union and the Spanish civil war and other such "leftie" causes....

I am not a Communist and perhaps you are not a Communist, but the Finnish Reds were supporters of Communism and perhaps it could be worthwhile to consider their point of view. For instance, many of the Reds emigrated to North America, far away from their home in Finland, yet that was way back in the 1930s and Communism was still quite new at that time. Then, plans were made to develop a "Worker's Paradise" in Russia, not far from Finland, and apparently many of the North American Reds thought that was a good idea and so returned to Europe. Unfortunately, their plans then became a disaster and completely failed. Perhaps some of them returned to Finland while others were killed, but it seems quite likely that their horrible experience soon became well known throughout Finland. And, moreover, perhaps that bad experience could have helped to reunite the Reds and the Whites during the Finnish war years, to unite in their fight against Russia.

[abare]

US must have been at least roughly aware what was happening. Perhaps they were just pleased of communists killing each other?

This rings true....in Canada the government wasn't disappointed to see the Finnish communists leaving for the Soviet Union and the Spanish civil war and other such "leftie" causes....

I am not a Communist and perhaps you are not a Communist, but the Finnish Reds were supporters of Communism and perhaps it could be worthwhile to consider their point of view. For instance, many of the Reds emigrated to North America, far away from their home in Finland, yet that was way back in the 1930s and Communism was still quite new at that time. Then, plans were made to develop a "Worker's Paradise" in Russia, not far from Finland, and apparently many of the North American Reds thought that was a good idea and so returned to Europe. Unfortunately, their plans then became a disaster and completely failed. Perhaps some of them returned to Finland while others were killed, but it seems quite likely that their horrible experience soon became well known throughout Finland. And, moreover, perhaps that bad experience could have helped to reunite the Reds and the Whites during the Finnish war years, to unite in their fight against Russia.

I've been looking at some really interesting books that i'm sure are available in finland by Mayme Sevander where she talks about how her family immigrated to America, then back to Russia. She talks about how in 1937 her father was beaten and dragged away to be murdered by the Soviets. She has written several books about it, i'm sure they would explain the view of the Finnish-American Communists.

[Rip]

I did once just for personal interest try to calculate what happened to the 93 person strong party group of social democrats (of which many would have been later considered communists) in the Finnish parliament of the beginning of 1918. (Great majority of which supported (with varying degree of zeal) the attempted revolution.

If I added up the figures right 16 of them were either killed or died in captivity in Finland during or after the civil war. 37 went to Russia, of which 7 later returned to Finland or left to other countries (none of them stayed in Russia very long). One was murdered in a inter-Finnish(communist) conflict and another one was executed for that killing. 11 died of probable natural causes (first one by tuberculosis or some other decease in spring of 1918, a few survived until 1960's) and 17 or so apparently died in Stalin's purges (executed or died in captivity). Of the 38 who stayed in Finland (or from the few others who returned here from Russia) almost all were in prison at least briefly but many also returned to parliament later.

[Pursuivant]

They actually was only one (Matti Paasivuori) from the original contingent, who was not arrested and continued in the "stub parliament" of 1918

[onkko]

I am wondering if there is any Finnish historian or some one who majored in Finnish history or is in any other way reliable (for bibliographical purposes)

Well if you ask from me ill say that fking thief...

You should probably check this guy's credentials before quoting him.

My "credentials " for my opion is 1 dead, 2 wounded, 1 homecity burned, 1 home burned, 1 time of fleeing from home, 1 working for common good as underaged lotta, few fears from bombing and attacks and that was only from my granmas, whats your credentials?