Arvo "Poika" Tuominen (1894-1981) was a Finnish Communist revolutionary and later a social democratic editor and politician. Poika means "boy" in Finnish. Tuominen was given the nickname in 1920 because of his boyish looks. 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Communism - Wikipedia /**/ @import /w/skins-1. ... Social democracy is a political ideology emerging in the late 19th and early 20th centuries from supporters of Marxism who believed that the transition to a socialist society could be achieved through democratic evolutionary rather than revolutionary means. ...

Tuominen was born in 1894 in Kuotila near Hämeenkyrö to the family of a rural carpenter. In 1912 he moved to Tampere to become a carpenter's apprentice and soon joined the Social Democratic Party of Finland. During the Finnish Civil War in early 1918, Tuominen sided with the Finnish Red Guards and edited Kansan lehti, a radical social democratic newspaper in Tampere. After the Red Guards were defeated in May 1918, Tuominen and other radical social democratic leaders went to Russia, where they split from the mainstream Social Democratic Party and founded the Communist Party of Finland in Petrograd in August-September 1918. 1894 (MDCCCXCIV) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Hämeenkyrö (Tavastkyro in Swedish) is a municipality of Finland. ... Location within Finland Tampere (Swedish name Tammerfors) is a city in southern Finland located between two lakes: Näsijärvi and Pyhäjärvi. ... The Social Democratic Party of Finland (SDP) is one of the most influential political parties in Finland, along with the Centre Party and the Coalition Party. ... The Civil War in Finland was fought from January to May 1918, between the Reds (punaiset), i. ... During the Civil War in Finland, 1918, the Red Guards were the supporters of revolution who were defeated by the White Guards and German forces. ... The Communist Party of Finland (Finnish: Suomen kommunistinen puolue, Swedish: Finlands kommunistiska parti, abbreviated SKP) is a former political party endorsing communism in Finland. ... Saint Petersburg  listen (Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, English transliteration: Sankt-Peterburg), colloquially known as Питер (transliterated Piter), formerly known as Leningrad (Ленингра́д, 1924–1991) and Petrograd (Петрогра́д, 1914–1924), is a city located in Northwestern Russia on the delta of the river Neva at the east end of the Gulf of...

Tuominen returned to Finland and became a supporter of Otto Wille Kuusinen's faction within the party. In 1921 he traveled to Petrograd, where Kuusinen's adherents, supported by the Comintern leadership, successfully challenged Kullervo Manner's supporters at the next party congress. Tuominen was elected to the party's Central Committee and was put in charge of its Finnish bureau. He returned to Finland, where he was arrested on January 26, 1922 for publishing a proclamation urging Finnish workers to fight on the Soviet side during the Soviet-Finnish conflict over Karelia. He was released in the spring of 1926 and was elected secretary of the Finnish Federation of Trade Unions. The Finnish government arrested him again in April 1928 for maintaining contacts with the Soviet Union and the banned Communist Party. Otto Ville (Wilhelm) Kuusinen (Russian: Отто Вильгельмович Куусинен) (Laukaa, Finland, 1881 – 17 May 1964, Moscow) was a Finnish and Soviet politician, literature historian, and poet, who after the defeat in the Finnish Civil War fled to Bolshevist Russia, where he worked until his death. ... The Comintern (from Russian Коммунистический Интернационал (Kommunisticheskiy Internatsional) – Communist International), also known as the Third International, was an independent international Communist organization founded in March 1919 by Vladmir Lenin, Leon Trotsky and the Russian Communist Party (bolshevik), which intended to fight by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of... Kullervo Manner Kullervo Manner (1880 – 1939) was a Finnish Communist leader. ... Map showing the parts Karelia is traditionally divided into. ...

In late 1932 Tuominen was paroled and received a letter from Kuusinen, who was then one of the Comintern's secretaries and Joseph Stalin's speechwriter, urging him to move to the Soviet Union. Tuominen secretly went to Sweden and then, in April 1933, to the Soviet Union, where he moved into Kuusinen's apartment. He was given a crash course at the Lenin Party School and was appointed General Secretary of the Finnish Communist Party, also becoming a member of the Comintern Executive Committee Presidium. (Russian, in full: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин [Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin]; December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a... The Presidium or Praesidium (from Latin praesidium meaning protection or defense so plural presidia or praesidia) is the name for the executive committee of various legislative and organizational bodies. ...

Tuominen witnessed the Great Purge first hand until he was able to leave Moscow for Stockholm in early 1938. On November 13, 1939, he was ordered to return to Moscow. Tuominen later claimed that he was being recalled in order to become the head of the Communist government of the Finnish Democratic Republic which Stalin planned to install in Finland. However, according to Tuominen, he refused to obey the order, broke with the Soviet Union and ordered the Communist Party of Finland not to assist the Red Army during the Winter War and to fight on the Finnish side instead. Research by Finnish historian Kimmo Rentola has exposed a somewhat different story. When the Winter War started, Tuominen was initially enthusiastic of the war in expectation of quick Soviet victory. But as the Soviet advance halted and international opinion rallied to Finland's support, Tuominen's doubts started. He began to avoid contacting Moscow, and sent feelers to Finnish social-democrats. It wasn't until after the end of the Winter War when Tuominen took the step of severing his ties with the Soviet Union and started writing anti-communist pamphlets which were given wide-spread publicity in Finland. Tuominen had gone underground in Sweden, and it took some time for Moscow to find out what had happened. The Great Purge (Russian: ) is the name given to campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. ... The Old town in Stockholm from the air is the capital of Sweden, located on the south east coast of Sweden. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: ) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ... The Finnish Democratic Republic (Finnish: Suomen Kansanvaltainen Tasavalta) was a short-lived Communist regime in those minor parts of Finland that were occupied by the Soviet Union during the Winter War. ... Molotov signs the German-Soviet non-aggression pact. ... Combatants Finland Soviet Union Commanders Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Kliment Voroshilov, later Semyon Timoshenko Strength 180,000 450,000 Casualties 22,830 dead 43,557 wounded c. ... Combatants Finland Soviet Union Commanders Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Kliment Voroshilov, later Semyon Timoshenko Strength 180,000 450,000 Casualties 22,830 dead 43,557 wounded c. ...

Tuominen remained in Sweden until 1956, when he returned to Finland. He joined the Social Democratic Party and edited its newspaper in Tampere, becoming a member of parliament and publishing five volumes of bestselling memoirs.

Tuominen died in Tampere in 1981. 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

• Tuominen, Arvo (1983): The Bells of the Kremlin, Hanover and London, University Press of New England, ISBN 0874512492
• Rentola, Kimmo (1994): Kenen joukoissa seisot? Suomalainen kommunismi ja sota 1937-1945