Repatriation of Soviet Displaced Persons from Finland to the USSR 1944−1953

The article examines a little-studied problem of post-war history -the repatriation of the Soviet citizens from the territory of Finland to the USSR in 1944-1953.The research is based on materials from the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF) and other sources.This process consisted of two stages: First, from October 1944 to January 1945, when the main part of the citizens were transported; The second one is from January 1945 to 1953, associated with the residual process of repatriation of internees.The first part of article examines the problems that influenced the repatriation process, such as: identification of the Soviet civilian population in Finland; ideological work with repatriates; organization of work and interaction between repatriation bodies and the Union Control Commission (UCC).The main criteria for repatriation and the return or exchange of prisoners of war and internees were the Moscow Armistice of September 19, 1944, as well as various interpretations of this agreement made by the UCC after 1944 until the adoption of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947.The benefits and procedure for the return of Soviet citizens from the territory of Finland were established by the State Defense Committee Resolution No. 6973 of November 19, 1944.At first, the internees were taken to Vyborg, and then taken to the Pskov, Yaroslavl, Kalinin, Novgorod and Velikoluksk regions.There they were distributed to collective farms and moved in with local residents.Despite the benefits, many internees were dissatisfied with their placement in the regions, since they wanted to return to their homes in the Leningrad region and the territory of the Karelo-Finnish USSR.During the second stage of repatriation, the voluntary departure of Soviet resettled citizens from Finland to the USSR decreased every month.The Soviet authorities took a number of measures to improve the indicators, but this failed for the following reasons: many remaining Soviet citizens feared reprisals upon returning to the USSR; some citizens lost their property in the USSR (in the Leningrad region, etc.); there was also the problem of the citizenship of the relatives of those repatriated (husband/wife have citizenship of another state); most settled their lives in Finland.