Otto Wilhelm "Wille" Kuusinen (; russian: О́тто Вильге́льмович Ку́усинен, Otto Vilgelmovich Kuusinen; 4 October 1881 – 17 May 1964) was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

-born Soviet

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

and, later,

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

politician, literary historian, and poet who, after the defeat of the Reds in the

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

, fled to the Soviet Union, where he worked until his death.

Early life and education

Kuusinen was born on 4 October 1881, to the family of village tailor Wilhelm Juhonpoika Kuusinen in

Laukaa Laukaa (; sv, Laukas) is a municipality of Finland. It is located next to Jyväskylä and is part of the Central Finland region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density is . ...

Grand Duchy of Finland The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecess ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...

. Otto's mother died when he was two years old, and the family then moved to

Jyväskylä Jyväskylä () is a city and municipality in Finland in the western part of the Finnish Lakeland. It is located about 150 km north-east from Tampere, the third largest city in Finland; and about 270 km north from Helsinki, the capital of ...

. In May 1900, Kuusinen graduated from the Jyväskylä

Lyceum The lyceum is a category of educational institution defined within the education system of many countries, mainly in Europe. The definition varies among countries; usually it is a type of secondary school. Generally in that type of school the t ...

and entered

Helsinki University The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

the same year. His main subjects were

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

, and

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today, ...

. Kuusinen was an active member of the students' union, and during this period he was interested in Fennoman conservatism and Alkioism. In 1902, Kuusinen graduated as a

candidate of philosophy Candidate of Philosophy can refer to the US degree or status of Candidate in Philosophy (C.Phil. or Ph.C.) granted to Ph.D. students who have been accepted as candidates for that degree, or (as a direct translation) to degrees or former degrees at b ...

Career

Civil War and flight to the Soviet Union

In 1906, after toppling the more moderate party chairman J. K. Kari, Kuusinen came to dominate Finland's Social Democratic Party. He was a member of Finland's Parliament from 1908 to 1910, from 1911 to 1913 and again from 1916 to 1918 as well as the party's chairman from 1911 to 1917. He was a leader of the January 1918 revolution in Finland that created the short-lived

Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic The Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (FSWR), more commonly referred to as Red Finland, was a self-proclaimed Finland, Finnish socialist state that ruled parts of the country during the Finnish Civil War of 1918. It was outlined on 29 January 1 ...

, of which he was appointed People's Commissar of Education. After the republic was defeated in the

in 1918, Kuusinen fled to

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

and helped form the

Finnish Communist Party The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by ...

. Kuusinen continued his work as a prominent leader of the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

in Bolshevist Russia, that soon became the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

. Kuusinen also became a leader in

Soviet military intelligence The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, rus, Гла́вное управле́ние Генера́льного шта́ба Вооружённых сил Росси́йской Федера́ци ...

, establishing an intelligence network against the Scandinavian countries. In Finland, a more moderate faction rehabilitated the Social Democrats under

Väinö Tanner Väinö Alfred Tanner (; 12 March 1881 – 19 April 1966; surname until 1895 ''Thomasson'') was a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party of Finland, and a pioneer and leader of the cooperative movement in Finland. He was Prime Minister ...

's leadership. Meanwhile, Kuusinen and other radicals were increasingly seen as responsible for the Civil War and its aftermath. Animosity towards socialists in Finland in the decades after the civil war prompted many Finns to emigrate to Russia to "build socialism." However, the Soviet

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

was a hard blow to Finns in the Soviet Union. Many Finnish communists sympathetic to Trotskyism or social democracy were purged and Kuusinen's reputation in Finland was damaged when he turned out to be one of the very few not targeted by Stalinist

show trial A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...

s, deportations, and executions.

Head of the Terijoki Government

When the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian language, Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist R ...

began its advance during the

Winter War The Winter War,, sv, Vinterkriget, rus, Зи́мняя война́, r=Zimnyaya voyna. The names Soviet–Finnish War 1939–1940 (russian: link=no, Сове́тско-финская война́ 1939–1940) and Soviet–Finland War 1 ...

on November 30, 1939, Kuusinen was pronounced head of the Finnish Democratic Republic (also known as the Terijoki Government)—

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...

puppet regime A puppet state, puppet régime, puppet government or dummy government, is a state that is ''de jure'' independent but ''de facto'' completely dependent upon an outside power and subject to its orders.Compare: Puppet states have nominal sover ...

through which Finland would be transformed into a socialist state. A "Declaration of the People's Government of Finland" was issued in Terijoki on December 1, 1939, and a "Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship Between the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Finland" signed by Molotov and Kuusinen in Moscow on December 2, 1939. However, the war did not go as planned, and the Soviet leadership decided to negotiate a peace with the Finnish government; Kuusinen's government disbanded and he was made chairman of the presidium of the

Supreme Soviet The Supreme Soviet (russian: Верховный Совет, Verkhovny Sovet, Supreme Council) was the common name for the legislative bodies (parliaments) of the Soviet socialist republics (SSR) in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USS ...

of the

Karelo-Finnish SSR The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (Karelo-Finnish SSR; fi, ; rus, Каре́ло-Фи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респу́блика, r=Karelo-Finskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialisticheskaya Resp ...

(1940–1956). Finnish Communist

Arvo Tuominen Arvo “Poika” Tuominen (5 September 1894 – 27 May 1981) was a Finnish communist revolutionary and later a social democratic journalist, politician and author. Tuominen was given his nickname, "Poika", in 1920 because of his boyish look; ''po ...

expressed the opinion that the war was not Kuusinen's idea. According to him, Kuusinen would have known that the underground Finnish Communist Party was in shambles due to police terror and could not incite a mass revolt in Finland or mutiny in the ranks of the army. The number of soldiers who joined Kuusinen's Finnish People's Army was small, estimated to be in the thousands. According to Tuominen the main architect of the war was

Andrei Zhdanov Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов, p=ɐnˈdrej ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐdanəf, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War ...

. Kuusinen was a natural choice as the head of the Finnish People's Government. The Finnish Communist Party had little influence during the 1930s and most

working class The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...

Finns stood behind the legal government in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. Trotter (2002). p. 61. Finnish national unity against the Soviet invasion was later called the Spirit of the Winter War.

Politburo member

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-B0628-0015-035, Nikita S

Kuusinen became an influential official in the Soviet state administration. He was a member of the

Politburo A politburo () or political bureau is the executive committee for communist parties. It is present in most former and existing communist states. Names The term "politburo" in English comes from the Russian ''Politbyuro'' (), itself a contracti ...

, the highest state organ. Despite his close work with Stalin, Kuusinen was able to continue to work during the administration of

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...

(1953–1964) and "

de-Stalinization De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...

". He was Secretary of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee direct ...

1957–1964. In 1952 and again in 1957 he was also elected to the Presidium of the Central Committee. In the 1950s, Kuusinen was also one of the editors of '' The Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism,'' a textbook considered to be one of the fundamental works on

dialectical materialism Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world co ...

and

Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...

communism. In 1958, Kuusinen was elected a member of the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

. After learning that he was terminally ill, Kuusinen requested (via the Helsinki Embassy of the Soviet Union) permission to visit

and

as a private person. The government of Finland denied this request.

Personal life and death

Kuusinen married several times, and had numerous children: ''Aino'' Elina (born 1901), ''Hertta'' Elina (born 1904), Esa Otto Wille (born 1906), Riikka-Sisko (born 1908), Heikki (born 1911) and Taneli (born 1913). Most of his offspring remained with his first wife Saima Dahlström. In early 1920s Kuusinen married Aino Sarola. In 1936, he fell in love with an Armenian, Marina Amiragova, who was 30 years younger than him. They stayed together until Kuusinen's death and never married. They had a daughter in 1937 who died at the age of eleven months. Kuusinen died age 82 on 17 May 1964 in Moscow. His ashes were buried in the

Kremlin Wall Necropolis The Kremlin Wall Necropolis was the national cemetery for the Soviet Union. Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik individuals who died during the Moscow Bolshevik Uprising were buried in ma ...

. He was succeeded by his daughter Hertta Kuusinen, a leading communist politician in Finland during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

Legacy

Under Kuusinen's name came the Comintern concept of a politically organized "solar system" in an influential piece called "Report of the Commission for Work among the Masses" (1926):

The first of our task is to build up, not only communist organisations, but other organisations as well, above all mass organisations sympathising with our aims, and able to aid us for special purposes. We have already such organisations in some countries, for instance the
International Red Aid International Red Aid (also commonly known by its Russian acronym MOPR ( ru , МОПР, for: ''Междунаро́дная организа́ция по́мощи борца́м револю́ции'' - Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya pomoshchi bor ...
, the Workers' International Relief, etc. Comrade
Zinoviev Zinoviev, Zinovyev, Zinovieff (russian: Зино́вьев), or Zinovieva (feminine; Зино́вьева), as a Russian surname, derives from the personal name Zinovi, from Greek '' Zenobios''. Notable people with the surname include: * Alexand ...
has expressly emphasised the importance of this task in his closing speech. Besides this we require a number of more or less firmly established organisatory fulcrums, which we can utilise for our further work, ensuring that we are not condemned to the
Sisyphus In Greek mythology, Sisyphus or Sisyphos (; Ancient Greek: Σίσυφος ''Sísyphos'') was the founder and king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). Hades punished him for cheating death twice by forcing him to roll an immense boulder up a hill ...
-like task of only influencing the masses politically, only to see this mass influence constantly slip through our hands. We must create a whole solar system of organisations and smaller committees around the Communist Party, so to speak, smaller organisations working actually under the influence of our Party (not under mechanical leadership).

The quote "solar system of organizations" is often wrongly ascribed to Lenin by red-hunting American anti-communists including

HUAC The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

chief investigator Robert E. Stripling and U.S. Attorney General

Francis Biddle Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg Trials as well a ...

Works

Books by Kuusinen include: *''Finland unmasked: 25 years of anti-Soviet policy'' (1944) *'' Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism'' (1960) Articles by Kuusinen include: * "Under the Leadership of Russia" (1924) * "A Misleading Description of the 'German October" (1925) * "Report of the Commission for Work among the Masses" (1926) * "A Warmongers' International" (1951)