August Hansen (also Augustin Hansen; 23 April 1895 in

Kaansoo Kaansoo is a village in Põhja-Pärnumaa Parish, Pärnu County in western-central Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland ...

– 12 March 1952) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n politician. He was a member of

I Riigikogu I Riigikogu was the first legislature of the Estonian Parliament (Riigikogu). The legislature was elected after 1920 elections (held on 27–29 November 1920). It sat between 20 December 1920 and 30 May 1923, before the next round of elections w ...

Early years

August Hansen was born into a peasant family in Kaansoo,

Vastemõisa Parish Vastemõisa Parish ( et, Vastemõisa vald) was a rural municipality of Estonia, in Viljandi County Viljandi County ( et, Viljandi maakond or ''Viljandimaa''; german: Kreis Fellin) is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It is located in southern Est ...

, Viljandi County on April 23, 1895. He graduated from the Vastemõisa ministry school in 1910 and then worked as a student salesman at the consumers' association store in

Viljandi Viljandi (, german: Fellin, sv, Fellin) is a town and municipality in southern Estonia with a population of 17,407 in 2019. It is the capital of Viljandi County and is geographically located between two major Estonian cities, Pärnu and Tartu ...

. In 1913, he moved to

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

, where he continued the political activities he started in Viljandi with the

Socialist Revolutionary Party The Socialist Revolutionary Party, or the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (the SRs, , or Esers, russian: эсеры, translit=esery, label=none; russian: Партия социалистов-революционеров, ), was a major politi ...

(SRP). He was elected as a member of the SRP to the Tallinn Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies and later also a member of the TTSN Executive Committee.

Revolutionary career

After the February Revolution of 1917, he and the left-wing members separated from the main part of the SRP and joined the movement aimed at seizing exclusive power led by the Tallinn Committee of the Estonian Section of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks). He nonetheless remained a member of the SRP. In 1918, after the occupation of Estonia by the forces of the German Empire, Hansen hid from the authorities. After the departure of the occupying forces in November 1918 and the restoration of Estonian self-governing bodies, he was invited to be the administrator of the Tallinn City Government. In 1919, he worked on the Estonian Socialist Revolutionary Party newspaper Võitlus and also served as the representative of the Estonian Socialist Revolutionary Party in the Tallinn city government, where he worked as the head of the social welfare department. In 1920 he joined the

Estonian Independent Socialist Workers' Party The Estonian Independent Socialist Workers' Party ( et, Eesti Iseseisev Sotsialistlik Tööliste Partei, EISTP) was a political party in Estonia. History The party was formed in 1920 as a split in 1919 from the Estonian Socialist Revolutionary ...

(EISTP) and was elected a member of the EISTP Central Committee. He was a member of the First Riigikogu from 1920 to 1923. After communist organizations in Estonia were banned at the beginning of the

Estonian War of Independence The Estonian War of Independence ( et, Vabadussõda, literally "Freedom War"), also known as the Estonian Liberation War, was a defensive campaign of the Estonian Army and its allies, most notably the United Kingdom, against the Bolshevik westwa ...

in December 1918, the communist party took advantage of legally operating socialist-oriented parties and trade unions to continue their activities through them. In 1922, Hansen became a member of the illegal Estonian Communist Party. The legal left-wing organization of workers, the Estonian Union of Trade Unions, was reactivated in 1922, and the Temporary National Central Council of Workers' Unions was formed to convene it. Hansen was also a member of the board. Hansen opened the II Congress of Estonian Trade Unions in November 1922;

Jaan Tomp Jaan Tomp (10 September 1894 in Tuhalaane Parish (now Mulgi Parish), Kreis Fellin – 14 November 1924 in Tallinn) was an Estonian communist, politician, and member of Parliament. The chairman of the Central Council of the Workers' Unions of Est ...

was elected chairman of the central council of trade unions and Hansen was elected deputy chairman. In the 1923 election of Tallinn city councilors, he was elected as a Tallinn city councilor from the list of the United Labor Union. On January 21, 1924, Hansen was arrested and convicted as part of the

Trial of the 149 ''Trial of the 149'' () is the name given to the legal proceedings against 149 Estonian Communist Party, communists in Estonia that lasted from 10 to 27 November 1924. Many defendants were accused of high treason. One of them – Jaan Tomp – was ...

for anti-state activities. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, from which he was released on the basis of the Amnesty Act of 1938.

Activities after release from prison

After his release, he worked in construction and as a salesman in the Leisi rural cooperative in Saaremaa. In the years 1939–1940, he worked as a store manager of the Tallinn Trade Union Consumers' Union. After the

Occupation of the Baltic states The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were invaded and occupied in June 1940 by the Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin and auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that had been signed between Nazi Germany and the Soviet ...

in 1940, he worked for a short time as the director of the Rahva Hääl and Kommunist publishing houses. In the years 1940-1943, he was the director of the Estonian National Shipping Company, operating from the Soviet Union. In the years 1943-1950 he served as the People's Commissar of Trade and Minister of Trade of the Estonian SSR, and then the chairman of the Central Union of Estonian Agricultural Cooperatives.

Purge and rehabilitation

August Hansen was arrested in 1950 on charges of "treason to the (Soviet) fatherland" and executed on March 12, 1952. He was posthumously rehabilitated by the Soviets.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, August 1895 births 1952 deaths People from Põhja-Pärnumaa Parish People from Kreis Fellin Estonian Socialist Revolutionary Party politicians Estonian Independent Socialist Workers' Party politicians Communist Party of Estonia politicians Members of the Riigikogu, 1920–1923 Members of the Supreme Soviet of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, 1947–1951 Estonian people executed by the Soviet Union Soviet rehabilitations