Allan Wallenius (13 December 1890 – 15 September 1942) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish leftist figure and journalist from

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

. He was active in leftist circles in Finland, Sweden and the United States before settling in the Soviet Union in 1930. Wallenius was the editor of ''

Ny Tid ''Ny Tid'' (English: ''Modern Times Review'') is Norway's largest international quarterly review of non-fiction books – up to 50 in each issue. It is currently owned by Ny Tid & Orientering AS. ''Ny Tid'' is headed by the newspaper founder Tr ...

'', paper of the American Communist Party between 1925 and 1929. He served as the director of the Communist International Library in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. He was arrested during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...

in 1938 and died in a prison in 1942.

Early life

Wallenius was born in

Dragsfjärd Dragsfjärd is a former municipality of Finland. On 1 January 2009 it was consolidated with Kimito and Västanfjärd to form the new municipality of Kimitoön. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southwest Finla ...

on 13 December 1890 into a Finnish Swede middle class family. He was raised in Turku. He had a brother, Paul, who would participate in the

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

in Finland being part of the

Whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as " ...

and died in

Tampere Tampere ( , , ; sv, Tammerfors, ) is a city in the Pirkanmaa region, located in the western part of Finland. Tampere is the most populous inland city in the Nordic countries. It has a population of 244,029; the urban area has a population o ...

in March 1918.

Career and activities

Allan went to the United States in 1915 to receive training on librarianship at

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

. He was working as a librarian in Turku when he joined the

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland ( fi, Suomen Kommunistinen Puolue, SKP; sv, Finlands Kommunistiska Parti) was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944. The SKP was banned by ...

in 1918. Next he worked as a commissar of the postal services in Turku. He participated in the civil war in Finland. Following the end of the war he fled to Switzerland and then to

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. During his stay in Petrograd he contributed to a revolutionary magazine entitled ''Budkavlen''. Due to the arrest warrant he could not return to his hometown, Turku, but he settled in Stockholm on 22 February 1919. He was given a residence permit and became a political refugee. He was not allowed to involve in political activities in Sweden, but he illegally took part in such activities. He published articles concerning his escape and illegal entry to Sweden in the leftist youth magazine ''

Stormklockan ''Stormklockan'' (Swedish: ''The storm clock'') was a political youth magazine published in Stockholm, Sweden, between 1908 and 1985. History and profile ''Stormklockan'' was launched in December 1908 in Stockholm. Zeth Höglund was instrumenta ...

'' based in Stockholm and in the newspaper '' Folkets Dagblad Politiken''. In 1921 he joined the Communist Party of Sweden. He was arrested by the Swedish police on 9 June 1921 and was deported to Russia where he worked for the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

. He also acted as the secretary of the Finnish communist leader Otto Wille Kuusinen. In the summer of 1925 Wallenius was sent by the Communist Party of Sweden to the United States to edit the Communist Party publication ''Ny Tid''. He edited the paper under the name Ellis Peterson until 1929. In 1930, he settled in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. There he headed the Swedish section of the Communist University for National Minorities of the West in Leningrad. When the university was attached to the Lenin School he continued to serve in the post. He was later appointed director of the Communist International Library in Moscow. He was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

(People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) on 16 February 1938 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He died in the NKVD prison in Kuybyshev on 15 September 1942. He was pardoned posthumously after the death of

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

in 1953.

Personal life

Wallenius married his long-term fiancée Alice Rosenblad in March 1919, and in December of the same year their son, Aiwest, was born. She left Sweden in 1921 and joined Wallenius in Moscow. They sent Aiwest to Wallenius's parents in Finland. They divorced in 1925, and Alice Rosenblad became a Soviet citizen and a member of the Soviet Communist Party. She died in Moscow in 1966. His second wife was Edith Rudquist, a daughter of the Swedish parents migrated to the USA in 1902. She was a Chicago-based lawyer and Communist politician who served as the secretary of the

Friends of the Soviet Union The International Association of Friends of the Soviet Union was an organization formed on the initiative of the Communist International in 1927, with the purpose of coordinating solidarity efforts with the Soviet Union around the world. It grew out ...

. They settled in the Soviet Union following the end of Wallenius's term as the editor of ''Ny Tid''. Edith Rudquist contributed to the activities of the Scandinavian Workers League and died in the Soviet Union in 1943.

Legacy

Annvi Gardberg and Matias Kaihovirta published Wallenius's biography in Swedish language in October 2022.

References

External links

*
Wallenius, Allan
at ''

Uppslagsverket Finland ''Uppslagsverket Finland'' ('Encyclopedia Finland') is a Swedish-language encyclopedia with a focus on Finland and in particular Finland-Swedish subjects. The encyclopedia is published by initiative of an association dedicated to this task, ( ...