Juho Sylvester Perälä (24 August 1887 in

Teuva Teuva () is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the South Ostrobothnia region. The population of Teuva is () and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water (). The population density is . The municipality is unilingua ...

– 20 January 1938 in

Medvezhyegorsk Medvezhyegorsk (; ; ) is a town and the administrative center of Medvezhyegorsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. Population: 15,800 (1959). History Between 1703–1710 and 1766–1769, a factory was operating in the village. ...

; also known as ''Sylvester Perälä''; named as Soviet citizen ''Иван Иванович Перяля'') was a Finnish farmer and politician. Originally a member of the

Social Democratic Party of Finland The Social Democratic Party of Finland ( , SDP, nicknamed: ''demarit'' in Finnish; , SD) is a social democratic political party in Finland. It is the third-largest party in the Parliament of Finland with a total of 43 seats. Founded in 1899 as ...

(SDP), he later joined the

Socialist Workers' Party of Finland Socialist Workers' Party of Finland () was a Finnish political party in the early 1920s. The SSTP consisted of radical leftists who split from the Social Democratic Party of Finland after the Finnish Civil War of 1918. The banned Communist Party ...

(SSTP), which was banned in 1923. In 1925 Perälä joined the still illegal

Communist Party of Finland The Communist Party of Finland (, SKP; ) 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 the state from its founding and did not participate in any elec ...

(SKP). He was a member of the

Parliament of Finland The Parliament of Finland ( ; ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral and Parliamentary sovereignty, supreme legislature of Finland, founded on 9 May 1906. In accordance with the Constitution of Finland, sovereignty belongs to the people, and that ...

from 1928 to 1930, representing the pro-communist but till then legal

Socialist Electoral Organisation of Workers and Smallholders The Communist Party of Finland (, SKP; ) 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 the state from its founding and did not participate in any elec ...

(STPV), which was banned in 1930. In July 1930, Perälä was abducted by activists of the anti-communist

Lapua Movement The Lapua Movement (, ) was a radical Finnish nationalist, fascist, pro- German and anti-communist political movement founded in and named after the town of Lapua. Led by Vihtori Kosola, it turned towards far-right politics after its founding ...

, which forced him to cross the border to the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. In 1931 Perälä became a Soviet citizen. He joined the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

and was active as a party functionary in the

Karelian ASSR The Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, Karelian ASSR for short, sometimes referred to as Soviet Karelia, East Karelia or simply Karelia, was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union, with its capital in Petr ...

. On 14 November 1935 he was expelled from the Communist Party. As one of the victims of the

Great Purge The Great Purge, or the Great Terror (), also known as the Year of '37 () and the Yezhovshchina ( , ), was a political purge in the Soviet Union that took place from 1936 to 1938. After the Assassination of Sergei Kirov, assassination of ...

, he was arrested by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

on 10 December 1937, sentenced to death and shot in

on 20 January 1938. He was posthumously rehabilitated by Soviet authorities in 1956.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perala, Juho 1887 births 1938 deaths People from Teuva Politicians from Vaasa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Social Democratic Party of Finland politicians Socialist Workers Party of Finland politicians Socialist Electoral Organisation of Workers and Smallholders politicians Communist Party of Finland politicians Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Members of the Parliament of Finland (1927–1929) Members of the Parliament of Finland (1929–1930) Finnish emigrants to the Soviet Union People granted political asylum in the Soviet Union Great Purge victims from Finland Soviet rehabilitations Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union executed by the Soviet Union Naturalized citizens of the Soviet Union