Otto Wille Kuusinen
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Otto Wilhelm "Wille" Kuusinen was a Finnish-born Soviet communist and, later, Soviet politician, literary historian, and poet who, after the defeat of the Reds in the Finnish Civil War, fled to the Soviet Union, where he worked until his death. He briefly led the so-called Finnish Democratic Republic before serving as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish SSR.
Portrait, c. 1940s
The Soviet leadership signed a treaty with the Finnish Democratic Republic. Standing, from left to right are Andrei Zhdanov, Kliment Voroshilov, Stalin, and Kuusinen. Seated is Vyacheslav Molotov.
Kuusinen served both under the Stalin era and under Nikita Khrushchev.
Daughter Hertta Kuusinen in East Berlin for 3rd congress of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (1950)
Red Guards (Finland)
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The Red Guards were the paramilitary units of the labour movement in Finland during the early 1900s. The Red Guards formed the army of Red Finland and were one of the main belligerents of the Finnish Civil War in 1918.
A Red Guard fighter (right) and a nurse (left) in 1918
Arrested Reds are taken in custody after the 1906 Sveaborg rebellion.
Worker's Militia in the Turku suburb of Maaria during the general strike of May 1917.
A demonstration in Turku in March 1917.