Kustaa Adolf Simonpoika Rovio (23 January 1887 in

Saint Petersburg 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 ...

– 21 April 1938) also known as Gustav Ravelin, was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician who fled to the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...

after the

Finnish Civil War The Finnish Civil War; . Other designations: Brethren War, Citizen War, Class War, Freedom War, Red Rebellion and Revolution, . According to 1,005 interviews done by the newspaper ''Aamulehti'', the most popular names were as follows: Civil W ...

. Rovio was executed 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 ...

. Considerable material on the activity and eventual destruction of Rovio may be found in "The Bells of the Kremlin" (University Press of New England, 1983) by

Arvo Tuominen Arvo “Poika” Tuominen (5 September 1894 – 27 May 1981) was a Finnish communist revolutionary and later a social democratic journalist, politician and author. Tuominen was given his nickname, "Poika", in 1920 because of his boyish look; ''po ...

, a member of the Presidium of 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 ...

, and a miraculous survivor of the purges, who escaped by becoming a representative of the Comintern in Sweden in 1938, then refused a summons to return to Moscow in 1939.

External links

Letter from Lenin to Rovio
1887 births 1938 deaths Politicians from Saint Petersburg People from Sankt-Peterburgsky Uyezd Old Bolsheviks Social Democratic Party of Finland politicians Communist Party of Finland politicians People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side) Finnish emigrants to the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Finland Finnish people executed by the Soviet Union Residents of the Benois House Executed communists {{Finland-bio-stub