Eino Abramovich Rahja (20 June 1885 – 26 April 1936) was a Finnish-Russian revolutionary who joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903, becoming aligned with the party's

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

faction. Rahja organized

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

's temporary escape to Finland in the summer of 1917. During 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 ...

, Rahja was one of the most capable military leaders of the

Reds Reds may refer to: General * Red (political adjective), supporters of Communism or socialism * Reds (January Uprising), a faction of the Polish insurrectionists during the January Uprising in 1863 * USSR (or, to a lesser extent, China) during th ...

. After the Reds lost the war, he 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 ...

where he lived for the rest of his life and became, for example, a commander of the army corps (

komkor (russian: комкор) is the abbreviation for Corps commander (russian: командир корпуса, komandir korpusa; ), and was a military rank in the Soviet Armed Forces of the USSR in the period from 1935 to 1940. It was also the d ...

) in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

.Jukka Paastela: Finnish Communism under Soviet Totalitarianism (Kikimora 2003). Eino Rahja was expelled from the Central Committee of 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 ...

in 1927. In the early 1920s he was politically close to Grigory Zinoviev. Eino was a brother of Jukka Rahja and Jaakko Rahja. His brother, Jaakko, was wounded during the Kuusinen Club Incident on 31 August 1920. Rahja was expelled from the army in 1935 for his alcoholism and later sentenced to death in 1936, however, he died in April 1936 from tuberculosis and alcohol abuse, before he could be executed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rahja, Eino 1885 births 1936 deaths People from Kronstadt People from Petergofsky Uyezd Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Old Bolsheviks Finnish communists People of the Finnish Civil War (Red side) Burials at Kazachye Cemetery Residents of the Benois House

See also

References