People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Political and party leadership 4 Government and administration 8 Legislature and state representation 2 Military command 5 Diplomacy and international organization 3 Economy, finance and planning 2 Industry and production 1 Agriculture and land policy 1 Social movements and organizing 2 Scholarship and theory 2 Law and justice 1
Affiliation

Most people

Any Finland state institutions 1 National Progressive Party (Finland) 1

All 2 affiliations

Finland

Finland state institutions 1 National Progressive Party (Finland) 1
Position
Any Non-Bolshevik socialists 1
Citizenship(set)
Any Soviet Union 112 China 5 East Germany 4 Russia 4 Hungary 3 Czechoslovakia 2 Finland 2 Poland 2 United Kingdom 2 United States 2 Albania 1 Angola 1 Argentina 1 Belarus 1 France 1 Germany 1 Moldova 1 Sweden 1 Yugoslavia 1
Background
Any Finland 2
Era
Any

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 2
Economy, finance and planning Citizenship: Finland Clear all

Oskari Tokoi

Oskari Tokoi
Finland state institutions Non-Bolshevik socialists Finland Finland 1873–1963 ○ Natural causes

Finnish labour leader who became the world’s first Social Democratic head of government and then joined the Red government

Born in Kannus in Central Ostrobothnia in 1873, he emigrated to America at 17, worked in the mines and joined the radical Western Federation of Miners. Back in Finland from 1900, he entered Parliament for the Social Democrats in 1907, chaired the Finnish Trade Union Federation in 1912–1917 and was Speaker in 1913. In 1917 he became vice-chairman of the Senate’s economic department, the world’s first social democratic prime minister. In the civil war he was commissar for supply in the People’s Delegation, signed the 1 March treaty with Soviet Russia and fled to Russia after the defeat. In 1919–1920 he advised the British-organised Murmansk Legion, for which the Communist Party of Finland sentenced him to death. From 1922 to 1949 he edited the social democratic paper Raivaaja in the United States, and the 1944 Lex Tokoi cleared him of the civil war charges.

Career timeline
  • 1907–1918Social Democratic member of the Parliament of Finland
  • 1912–1917Chairman of the Finnish Trade Union Federation
  • 1913Speaker of the Parliament of Finland
  • 1917Vice-chairman of the Senate’s economic department (head of government)
  • 1918Commissar for supply, Finnish People’s Delegation
  • 1919–1920Political adviser to the Murmansk Legion
  • 1922–1949Editor of Raivaaja in the United States

Jukka Rangell

Jukka Rangell
Finland state institutions Finland Finland 1894–1982 ○ War-responsibility trial 1946, pardoned 1949

Prime minister who declared Finland at war in 1941 and was later convicted in the war-responsibility trials

On the evening of 25 June 1941, Rangell told parliament: 'Finland has become the object of an attack by the Soviet Union, which has started acts of war against Finland.'

A Bank of Finland executive and close associate of Risto Ryti, Rangell was elevated to prime minister when Ryti became president in 1940. During his tenure Finland fought the Continuation War alongside Germany and occupied East Karelia, though foreign policy and military power rested with Mannerheim, Ryti, and Foreign Minister Witting rather than with Rangell. When Himmler visited in August 1942, Rangell famously silenced talk of Finland's Jewish minority with the words 'Wir haben keine Judenfrage.' Convicted to six years in the 1946 war-responsibility trials and pardoned in 1949, he left politics and served as an IOC member until 1967.

Career timeline
  • 1912–1913Two-time Finnish triple jump champion and national record holder
  • 1925–1933Legal department head and managing director, OKO cooperative bank
  • 1937–1945Board member, Bank of Finland
  • 1939–1940Acting governor, Bank of Finland
  • 1943–1944Governor, Bank of Finland
  • 1941–1943Prime Minister of Finland (Continuation War)
  • 1938–1967IOC member; president, Finnish Olympic Committee (1961–1963)