Eino Abramovich Rahja (20 June 1885 – 26 April 1936) was a Finnish-Russian revolutionary who joined the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), also known as the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP) or the Russian Social Democratic Party (RSDP), was a socialist political party founded in 1898 in Minsk, Russian Empire. The ...

in 1903, becoming aligned with the party's

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

faction. Rahja organized

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's temporary escape to Finland in the summer of 1917. During the

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War was a civil war in Finland in 1918 fought for the leadership and control of the country between Whites (Finland), White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Red Finland) during the country's transition fr ...

, Rahja was one of the most capable military leaders of the Reds. After the Reds lost the war, he fled to the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

where he lived for the rest of his life and became, for example, a commander of the army corps (

komkor () is the syllabic abbreviation for corps commander (; ). It was a Military ranks of the Soviet Union, military rank in the Red Army and Red Army Air Force of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the period from 1935 to 1940. It was als ...

) in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

. Eino Rahja was expelled from the Central Committee of the

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland (, SKP; ) 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 the state from its founding and did not participate in any elec ...

in 1927. In the early 1920s he was politically close to

Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky; – 25 August 1936) was a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician. A prominent Old Bolsheviks, Old Bolshevik, Zinoviev was a close associate of Vladimir Lenin prior to ...

. Eino was a brother of Jukka Rahja and Jaakko Rahja. His brother, Jukka, was killed during the Kuusinen Club Incident on 31 August 1920. Rahja was expelled from the army in 1935 for his alcoholism and later sentenced to death in 1936, however, he died in April 1936 from tuberculosis and alcohol abuse, before he could be executed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahja, Eino 1885 births 1936 deaths People from Kronstadt People from Petergofsky Uyezd Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Old Bolsheviks Finnish communists People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side) Finnish people who died in prison custody Burials at Kazachye Cemetery Residents of the Benois House Soviet komkors

See also

References