Otto Wilhelm "Wille" Kuusinen (4 October 1881 – 17 May 1964) was a Finnish-born Soviet politician, literary historian, and poet.
Biography[]
When the Red Army launched the Winter War on November 30, 1939, Kuusinen was placed at the head of the new Democratic Republic of Finland, founded in an attempt by Stalin to take control of the country after his intervention. However, when the Soviets were forced to give up occupying all of Finland, Kuusinen's government was dissolved and he was made secretary of the Supreme Soviet of the Carel-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic until 1956, when it was annexed to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, in a territory equivalent to the present-day Republic of Karelia of the Russian Federation. Kuusinen's collaboration with the Soviets during the war definitively sealed the negative public opinion of the Finns towards him. Moreover, the socialists of his country themselves turned their backs on him and considered him a traitor. After fleeing to the USSR for the second time, Kuusinen became an influential official in the state administration. He was a member of the Politburo, as well as an ideological advisor to Stalin, and wrote several articles for Stalin, attributing them to him with his consent. Kuusinen continued to work when Nikita Khrushchev came to power. He was a member of the CPSU Central Committee between 1946 and 1953, and then between 1957 and 1964. Kuusinen died in Moscow on May 17, 1964. His ashes were buried in the Necropolis of the Moscow Kremlin Wall.