Kullervo Manner


Kullervo Achilles Manner was a Finnish journalist and politician, and later a Soviet politician. He was a member of the Finnish parliament, serving as its Speaker in 1917. He was also chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Finland between 1917 and 1918. During the Finnish Civil War, he led the Finnish People's Delegation, a leftist alternative to the established Finnish government. After the war, he escaped to the Soviet Union, where he co-founded the Finnish Communist Party. If the Red Guards had won the Civil War, Manner might have risen to the position of the "red dictator" in Finland.

Early life

Manner was born a priest's son in Kokemäki. His father Gustaf Manner worked in various parishes, including those of Lappi and Vampula. After graduating from high school in 1900, Manner worked as a journalist in Porvoo and later in Helsinki.
In 1911, Manner received a prison sentence for lèse majesté against Nicholas II. He was elected to the Finnish Parliament as a Social Democrat from Uusimaa in 1910 and 1917. He was appointed Speaker of the Parliament in 1917. Manner's brother Arvo was governor of Viipuri and Kymi provinces from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Civil War

On 28 January 1918, during the Finnish Civil War, Manner was appointed Chairman of the Finnish People's Delegation. On 10 April the same year, Manner was appointed commander-in-chief of the Red Guards as well as head of state of its short-lived government, "The People's Deputation. He was given dictatorial powers.

In the USSR

After the Civil War, Manner fled to Soviet Russia where he became the second chairman of the Finnish Communist Party after Yrjö Sirola. He also became an official of the Comintern. In the 1930s, Manner and his wife Hanna Malm fell out of favor with Otto Wille Kuusinen. Manner was dismissed from most of his duties in May 1934. He continued to work as a Comintern rapporteur on Latin American affairs until July 1935.

Imprisonment and death

In 1935, Manner was arrested and sentenced to ten years hard labor. Manner was taken to a Gulag labor camp in Ukhta-Pechora in Komi Republic, where he died on 15 January 1939. The official cause of death was tuberculosis.

Rehabilitation

Manner was rehabilitated in 1962.

Political and military offices