Otto Wille Kuusinen

Otto Wille Kuusinen  [ ˈɔtːɔ ˈvilːɛ ˈkuːsinɛn ] or Otto Wilhelmowitsch Kuusinen ( Russian Отто Вильгельмович Куусинен , born October 5, 1881 in Laukaa , Finland ; † May 17, 1964 in Moscow , Soviet Union. ) Was a Finnish and Soviet politician

Life

OW Kuusinen in the 1940s

Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen was born in Laukaa in central Finland as the son of Sofia Erika Puttonen and the tenant farmer and village tailor Wilhelm Kuusinen . Kuusinen joined the Social Democratic Party of Finland in 1904 , which he represented in the Finnish Parliament from 1908–1910, 1911–1913, and 1916–1918. In 1918 he became one of the founders of the Communist Party of Finland . He participated in the conquest of Helsinki by joint troops of the Finnish and Russian communists ( Red Guards ) and served as minister of education in the short-lived communist government. After the Finnish Civil War and the defeat of the communist troops against the government troops led by Mannerheim , he left Finland.

From 1921 to 1939 - almost until its dissolution in 1943 - he was secretary of the Executive Committee of the Communist International . He belonged to the circle of three people who effectively led the Comintern ( Grigory Zinoviev was formally chairman of the Executive Committee). In 1921, at Lenin's request, he worked out the organizational principles that were approved at the 3rd International Congress. The party cell, which elects a party secretary and maintains a party office, was established as the basis. The structure continued via district committees and area committees to the Central Committee and the Politburo, above which only the party congress stood. All communist parties were organized according to this pattern.

During the Winter War from 1939 to 1940 Otto Kuusinen was to take power for Stalin in Finland. Already on December 1st, Stalin had a Finnish counter-government ("Finnish People's Government") formed under Kuusinen in the conquered border town of Terijoki (today Selenogorsk ), which signed a fictitious peace treaty with the Soviet Union on December 2nd, 1939 on behalf of the Finnish Democratic Republic . The "exchange of territory" envisaged in it, however, increased the resistance of the Finns, who feared full incorporation into the Soviet Union . In February 1940 the Soviets broke through the Mannerheim Line in the Vyborg section ; the Finns sought an armistice. In the meantime, Stalin had refused to allow the Kuusinen government to take part in the negotiations , the war was ended in the Peace of Moscow in 1940 and Finland had to make territorial losses, e.g. B. accept in Karelia .

In return, the Finnish counter-government was dissolved by the Soviet side, and instead Kuusinen became head of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, which had been enlarged by the territorial gains and newly formed as a separate union republic . From March 1940 to July 1956 he was chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish SSR, during the Finnish-German occupation in World War II he fled to the RSFSR. From 1956 Karelia was reintegrated as the Karelian ASSR of the RSFSR (that is, Soviet Russia directly).

Kuusinen survived the Stalin purges. He never stood up for people close to him who had fallen out of favor - such as Trotsky , Nikolai Bukharin or his own wife Aino Kuusinen . She characterizes him as extremely sensitive; He has never forgotten insults.

The Finn was the highest foreigner in the Soviet party apparatus. From 1940 to 1957 he was deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR; from 1941 until his death in 1964 he was also a member of the Central Committee and from 1957 a member of the Party Presidium ( Politburo ) of the CPSU . He died on May 17, 1964 and was given a state funeral. His urn was buried on the Kremlin wall in Moscow. He was married three times: in 1902 he married Saima Pauliina Dahlström, in 1922 Aino Turtiainen and in 1936 Marina Amiragowa. His daughter Hertta Kuusinen (1904–1974) was also a communist politician and member of the Finnish parliament.

literature

• Aino Kuusinen : The god overthrows his angels. Molden, Vienna, Munich and Zurich 1972, ISBN 3-217-00448-5 .
• Munzinger , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 26/1964 from June 15, 1964
• Biographies on World History - Lexicon, edited by Heinz Tillmann; VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften; Berlin 1989

Web links

Commons : Otto Wille Kuusinen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Otto Wille Kuusinen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Otto Wille Kuusinen Eduskuntajat