Translated material
"As for the Soviet government - yes, it first called on foreigners, and then destroyed." How Western emigrants in the USSR turned into a fifth column
Typically, Podkast "Foreign Comrade" on Republic talks about foreigners in Russia in modern Russia. In this issue, the leading Nastya Sedukhina and Olga Proskornin decided to transfer to the USSR of the 1930s, when many foreign migrants came to the Soviet Union-and talked with people who know the stories of Soviet foreigners from the first lips. This is Irina Takala, assistant professor of the Department of Foreign History of Petrozavodsk University - she has been exploring the migration of the Finns in the Soviet Union for many years, and journalist Natalia Falcon, the granddaughter of the Spanish emigrant in the USSR.
The podcast itself, as always, can listen to everyone. Decryption (with minor reductions for the convenience of reading) is available to Republic subscribers.
Olga: I would probably have started with Natasha’s history, because she is very unusual - Natasha even writes a book about the history of her family. How did your grandfather end up in the Soviet Union?
Natalia: In Spain there is a stable expression “children of war”, and in Russia it is also known - these are Spanish children who fell into the Soviet Union in 1937 during the civil war. In 1936-1937, in Spain against supporters of the republic, the Left Liberal Movement "Popular Front" was the right-wing nationalists-conservatives, whose main force was the party of "phalanx". And during the war, Falanga was headed by Francisco Franco, who was a supporter of Hitler. We know about this revolution from Hemingway’s novel “For whom the bell calls”, photographs of Robert Capa. So, my great -grandfather is Christobal Falcon, a peasant, a farmer from Saragos (Saragos is a city in the oldest Spanish province of Aragon) - he was a republican. The Francists shot him right at the house, in front of the whole family, in front of six children. The youngest of these six children was my grandfather Antonio, he was 12 then. He fled to France with his mother and his older brothers and sisters at the very height of the war. And then the Soviet Union sent ships to France and Spain, on which 3 thousand Spanish children took out from the horrors of war to Soviet orphanages, which were specially arranged for this. The children were from 2 to 14 years old. On which ships they were taken out and what was happening there was a very difficult story, because the children were taken away from their parents. Parents themselves sent them, simply because in the midst of the war everyone believed that in the Soviet Union it would be easier and calmer for them. This can be read about this in the book of Manuel Arsa “Memories of Russia” - there he tells how all the children hung cardboard [with names] on the neck and they later changed with these cardboard.
Accordingly, all these children remained in the Soviet Union, because Franco came to power, and not everyone as a result met with their parents. Grandfather grew up in the Obninsky House of the child with other Spaniards, then entered the Timiryazev Academy, there he met my grandmother, she was Russian, and remained to live in the Soviet Union.
Olga: I have a lot of questions at once, but I want to listen to Irina, too, who has his own large layer of the history of the Finns emigration into the Soviet Union.
Nastya: Yes, Irina, you work at the University of Petrozavodsk, communicate a lot with Finnish colleagues. What is generally known about the migration of Finns in the USSR at the beginning of the last century?
Irina: This story is different from what Natalia said, because first of all we are talking about political and labor migration. In fact, it begins immediately after Soviet Russia arises. The Russian revolution at first inspired a lot of people in Europe and America, who also wanted to join this noble, as it seemed to them, to build socialism with their own hands, live in a fair socialist society. Therefore, already at the very beginning of the 1920s there was a rather large flow of emigrants, primarily from Germany and the USA to Soviet Russia.
At first, Soviet Russia was very interested in working hands and, most importantly, in the money that labor migrants brought with them. Laws on the organization of agricultural foreign communes are adopted, on the attraction of industrial workers. But there is a civil war in the country, hunger, devastation, industry continues, and there are nowhere to put new working hands - it is impossible to arrange their own. Already in 1923, reverse decisions were being adopted, and by 1927 this external emigration is folding. But by this time, say, the Americans managed to establish several agricultural communes in the Soviet Union. And then, when the first five -year plan begins, working hands are again needed for industrialization, mainly specialists, qualified workers, who are still very few in a poor peasant country. At the XVI Congress of the CPSU in 1930, a special decision was made to attract 40 thousand foreign workers to the country to industrialize the country. And above all, it is, again, about Germany and the United States of America.
At this time, an interesting experiment took place in the north-west of the country-in 1920, the Karelian labor commune was formed there, and the so-called red Finns played a significant role in this. In 1918, in Finland, what was called the Civil War (the most common name) happened in Finland, the country split into the whites and red, the whites won, and the Reds left the country massively with their families, simply escaping from persecution and repressions. And about 10 thousand red Finns in 1918 moved to Soviet Russia. They stood at the origins of the Karelian autonomy, they created and headed it for the first 15 years - this is the so -called Finnish period in the history of Karelia. Well, of course, they attracted compatriots to help themselves. This is the first wave - political emigrants, red Finns. And after the decision of the 16th Party Congress, a large stream of Finnish emigrants from America is already going on.
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