September 22, 1920

By a resolution of June 7, 1920 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, applying Art. 11 of the Constitution of the RSFSR about the self-determination of peoples, in the view of intensification of a social emancipation of the Karelian workers issued to form a new administrative unit – Karelian Working Commune. By a resolution of August 4, 1920 the Council of People's Commissars and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee determined the borders of the Karelian Working Commune.

In close unity with the working masses of all nationalities inhabiting the RSFSR, the Karelian working people are entering a new period of its history. The future fates of the Karelian working people are in its own hands. Unlimited possibilities of national development on the basis of the self-determination of the working masses open for it. The power Federation of working peoples, united in the Russian Soviet Republic, stands as guard of the rights of the working masses of Karelia, its national self-determination and its freedom of the yoke of any kind of oppressors or exploiters. The Karelian people, for a long series of centuries having fought for its existence against the poor and hard nature, is now on the path of broad national development in the family of working peoples of different nationalities, liberated from slavery and exploitation. The Karelian working people, having preserved during its hard life its special language and the remnants of its ancient folk traditions, now, as a self-determining free people, have the opportunity to win by peaceful work and cultural development a new future. His hard-working ancestors left him monuments of their hard life in the form of folk songs and legends, making for it a connection with countless generations who worked in the same hard nature. During many centuries the Karelian working masses vegetated under the heavy pressure of the brutal tsarist regime, suffering from the wild barbaric arbitrariness of tsarist dignitaries and all sorts of agents and henchmen of tsarism. The heroic revolutionary struggle of the Russian proletariat got liberation from the painful yoke of tsarist tyranny also to the Karelian working people. But history prepared a new test: the White Guard gangs, supported or organized by exploitative elements, local or nearby predators and bloodsuckers, subjected the Karelian people to the bloody horrors of the White Guard invasion. The whole pressure of bloody repressions, under the rule of the barbarian White Guard gangs, completely fell to the broad working masses of the Karelian people, whose sons participated in the heroic struggle against the rapists, fell as victims of brutal repressions and by their death opened the ability of a better future for their working brothers. Hand in hand with the working masses of the Soviet Republic, with the support of its heroic Red Army and in alliance with the valiant sons of kindred Finland, with the Red Finnish communist detachments, the Karelian working people liberated of the violence of the White Guard gangs and the yoke of predators and exploiters. The Karelian working people, like other peoples of the Soviet Republic, finally got, in the person of their Workers' and Peasants' Soviets, the instrument of its social liberation and its peaceful, cultural and national development. The supreme authority of the Karelian Working Commune is now the Congress of Soviets of Karelia, and temporarily it functions are performed by the Karelian Revolutionary Committee. The Karelian Working Commune, in accordance with the resolution of the First All-Karelian Congress of Soviets, have close connections with the working masses of Russia and with the Russian Soviet Republic as a whole. But, as a part of the Republic, which differs from the other parts in its national and economic conditions, the Karelian Working Commune will have its own competent self-government institutions with wide freedom of action. The limits of its competence will be determined by agreement with the relevant institutions of the Soviet Republic, on the basis of the principle of close unity and solidarity of the working masses of different nationalities and the right of each to self-determination.

The government of Soviet Russia gladly welcomes the newly born Karelian Working Commune, which is joining the family of working Soviet republics, and it have a deep confidence that the Karelian Commune will develop and success as a fighter for the power of the working class in the far North-Western periphery of the Federative Soviet Republic. The Government of Soviet Russia gives the Commune a promise that it will in every possible support and defend it in its work, recognizing it as an indivisible important step in the great task of organizing the World Soviet system.

The Chairman of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
M.Kalinin

The Secretary of the All-Russia Central Executive Committee
A.Enukidze