Introduction

What is Karelian Fever?

Karelian fever was the recruitment of members of North American Finnish communities to go to the Karelian region of the Soviet Union. Recruitment took place in the period 1931-1934. Those recruited, approximately 10,000 men, women, and children, were to settle in Karelia, bordering on Finland, and contribute to the building of communism.

Why is Karelian Fever important?

Karelian fever is a significant but little known phenomenon in the history of

American communism
American radicalism
The Depression era in the U.S. and Canada
The Soviet Union
Soviet-American relations
The Finnish-American experience.

It also serves as a cautionary tale. The idealism and political enthusiasm that motivated so many North American Finns to go to Karelia made them vulnerable to circumstances which they could neither control nor evade. In the end a foreign culture and a political system very different from the one under which they had hoped to live betrayed their ideals.

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