This work traces the evolution of Soviet Karelia in the early Soviet period, discussing amongst other things how relationships between the local communist leadership and Moscow changed over time, and how massive repression of the Karelian population was eventually imposed.

Nick Baron teaches twentieth century Russian and East European history and historical geography at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is the author of The King of Karelia. Col P.J. Woods and the British Intervention in North Russia, 1918-1919 (2007) and co-editor of Homelands. War, Population and Statehood in Eastern Europe and Russia, 1918-1924 (2004) and Sovetskaia Lesnaia Ekonomika. Moskva-Sever. 1917-1941 (2005). He is currently working on a cultural history of Soviet cartography.

Introduction 1. 'A Dark, Backward and Oppressed Periphery': Histories of Karelian Space 2. 'A Scandinavian Revolutionary Centre': Borders, Boundaries and Spatial Ambitions, 1920-1928 3. The Limits of Autonomy: Finance, Planning and Population, 1920-1928 4. 'A Question of Survival': Centralisation and Control of Regional Space, 1928-1932 5. 'The Urals-Kuznetsk Combine on a Smaller Scale': Visions and Realities of Peripheral Development, 1933-1937 6. 'The Republican NKVD Has Slaughtered All our Cadres': Terror on the Periphery, 1935-1939. Conclusion