Yrjö Sirola

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yrjö Elias Sirola (originally Sirén, born November 8, 1876 - died November 18, 1936) was a Finnish writer and socialist politician, originally a primary school teacher. He worked as an editor of the Kansan Lehti ("Newspaper of the people") from 1904 to 1906 and as an editor of the Työmies ("Workman") from 1906. Sirola also wrote several books, primarily about society and politics. He also translated works by August Strindberg and Karl Kautsky to Finnish.

Sirola was elected as a member of the parliament from the Social Democratic Party from 1907 to 1909 and in 1919. He represented the radical leftist wing of the party and supported the Reds during the revolution. Sirola worked in charge of foreign relations of the parliament of the people during the Finnish Civil War in 1918. After the socialist republic was defeated, he escaped into Soviet Russia. Sirola was involved in founding the Finnish Communist Party in Moscow. He worked as a member of the central committee of the Comintern and as a people's educational commissary in the Soviet Republic of Karelia, close to the Finnish border.

Sirola was Comintern emissary to the US Communist Party 1925 - 1927.

Yrjö Sirola was killed during the Great Purge.

An educational institution of the Finnish Communist party, named the Sirola institution after Sirola, worked in Vanajanlinna after the end of the war until the end of the 1980s.