v.
born Oct. 4, 1881, Laukaa, Fin.
died May 17, 1964, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.
Finnish-born Soviet politician.
He joined the Social Democratic Party in Finland in 1905 and held various party posts. After Finland's short-lived socialist regime was overthrown in 1918, he fled to Russia, where he cofounded the Finnish Communist Party. He remained in exile to become secretary of the Comintern . In the Soviet-Finnish "Winter War" (193940) he was head of the pro-Soviet puppet Finnish government, and he later became president of the supreme soviet of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (194056). He was secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee (194653, 195764).