Kuusinen, Otto V

Kuusinen, Otto V(ilhelm)

(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” (1939–40) 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 (1940–56). He was secretary of the Russian Communist Party's Central Committee (1946–53, 1957–64).