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The Republic suffered great loses under repression of 1930. Thousands of people, the brain and sole of the nation were put to death and tortured in labor camps. The Chairman of Sovnarcom E. Gyulling, the first secretary of CPSU G. Rovio were among them.

After the Soviet-Finnish war of 1930-1940 Karelian ASSR was transformed into Karelian-Finnish SSR in March, 31, 1940. The status of the union republic was kept till 1956, when Karelia became an autonomous republic in RSFSR structure.

During the Great Patriotic war of 1941-1945 the biggest part of Karelian Republic was occupied by Finnish and German-fascist troops. More than 100 thousand of Karelian citizens struggled in the Soviet Army troops and in guerilla groups. June 21, 1944 the troops of Karelian battle-front were on the offensive and June 28 Petrozavodsk was set free. At the end of July the Soviet troops came to the state border of the USSR on Finland. Thousands of Karelian citizens were honored by the state awards for their heroic deeds on the battle fields and in the home front. 26 people were awarded by the title "The Hero of the Soviet Union". The war brought a lot of harm to Karelian economy and culture. Nearly 200 enterprises, schools, clubs were completely destroyed. By 1950 the economy had been rebuilt and achieved the pre-war level. Karelian wood supply had played an important role in rebuilding destroyed towns and settlements of the European part of the country. The logging had increased till the middle of 1960, then it was began decreasing as new branches of industry had to be developed - pulp and paper, mining, machine making, metal processing. New enterprises were built and started: Petrozavodskbummash, Radio plant, Kostomukshsky GOK- the latter was build in cooperation with Finnish firms.

From the history of Karelia | the most important historical dates and events