While slavery was abolished in England in 1833 and in America in 1865, it was introduced into the Soviet Union in 1928 - by Stalin. Labour shortages were no problem for Stalin who arrested people and sent them to work camps and mixed in with them criminal elements that preyed on them day and night. The state was infinitely more cruel to slaves than any private slave owner, without compensating benefits to society. The whole Soviet system suffered because of this - there was no net gain - which begs the question: why was it established? There was no benefit to the state using unpaid slaves as opposed to letting the slaves go and hiring them back under private contractors. How efficient is it to use sledge hammers to break rock as opposed to jaw and cone crushers? It makes no sense unless they were extermination camps, which means that Stalin murdered many more people than we think. Slavery just grew and grew until in 1941, 25% of Soviet economy was dependent on this (inefficient and cruel) slavery system. United States executive order No. 11,000 (+11,002) allows the government to organize people into work forces, or slave labour gangs.

From the first page of the linked document that follows, the author begins to reveal the list of Karelians and Finns who were murdered by Stalin between 1937 - 1938 and were buried secretly at Sandormohi which was described in a previous article (Carelia 1/1998). My friend Sonja's father was murdered in Karelia during these years. Many mass-murderers are very intelligent, and Stalin was no exception. The fact that the Russian people could admire such a murderer is a clue to why Russia cannot join the the civilized world of the second millennium yet. The list has been compiled by the Memorial Club member Juri Dmitrijev, who has spent many hours in the Karelian Defence Committee archives studying records from Stalin's purges.

Preliminary information reveals that in Sandormohi, there were over 7000 people shot, of which we have 6432 names already and the list is growing. The blood of the victims cry out from the ground, and it is up to us to do these people justice by telling the world what Bolsheviks did did in secret. The list contains 766 Karelian and 930 Finnish names. The names given in the following order: family name, first name and father's name, birth date and place, profession, last place of work and domicile, and the date shot. ("ammuttu")

As a final humiliation to the Karlians and Finns, their names would be recorded as Russian names.

The Finnish first, father's and family names and place-names contain many errors, which is the result of the Russian written language, and the NKVD's record keepers' lack of knowledge of the place of work or domicile - sometimes they are missing totally. Some Finnish names were changed to Russian for "ease of pronounciation." In such cases it is impossible to determine the person's correct name. The name Ivan could have actually been Johannes, Juhani, Jussi, Jukka, Juha, Juhana, Janne, Hannes, Hannu etc. A few examples:
Pjotr Petrovits — Pekka Pekanpoika (Peter Peter's son)
Emil — Eemeli, Eemil
Matvei — Matti
Martyn — Martti
Nikolai — Niilo
Karl — Kaarlo, Kalle, Kaarle
Genrih — Henrikki, Heikki, Henri
Jakov — Jaakko, Jaakob, Jaakoppi
Andrei — Antti, Antero
Iosif — Jooseppi, Juuso
Gustav — Kustaa, Kyösti, Kustavi etc.

For Yrjö, the Russians had 3 choices: Jegor, Georgi or Juri. In brackets are the changes from the Finnish first, father's and family and place names. Some names have been corrected. The list has been compiled by Eila Argutin and Mayme Sevanderi.

Many people will probably find a relative or friend who has disappeared in this list, and come to know what happened and where they are buried.

Juri Dmitrijev continues his search. Sandormohi does not appear to be the only place where Stalin's victims are buried in Karelia.