Yrjö Leino

Yrjö Leino (28 January 1897, Helsinki, Finland - June 28, 1961, Helsinki) was a Finnish communist politician. He was imprisoned for political reasons from 1935 to 1938 and was a minister in three governments between 1944 and 1948.

Early years

Yrjö Leino was the only child of tanner Oskar Leino and factory worker Mandi Leino (née Enfors). Leino studied at the Helsinki Normal School, but never graduated. After working in Helsinki and in casual agricultural jobs, in 1921, Leino completed a farming trades diploma. Around 1924, Leino bought his own farm called Lövkulla Kirkkonummi, but the farm soon led him to financial difficulties. Leino was forced to sell Lövkullan in the early 1930s. Around this time he also separated from his first wife, Alli Simo, and moved to Oitmäki, where his second wife Ulla Smedberg was a teacher. Again, the marriage ended in separation.

Political captivity

Leino moved towards the extreme left in the 1930s. Detectives had begun surveillance on him, after his guest Lövkullassa had visited the Communist Party of Finland (SKP) in favor of the underground work done Antti Järvinen ("United Antti") in early 1926. The same year in the summer Leinolla was also a guest Arvo Tuominen , who was just released from prison. In 1935, Leino was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment for high treason. During imprisonment, he is said to have become formally a communist. Leino was released from prison in 1938, but Valpo (formerly the Central Police Detective squad), kept him under surveillance. The newly-liberated Leino then participated in underground activities of the prohibited Communist Party of Finland.

War Years

During the Winter War Leino stayed underground, staying in a number of different communist safe-houses. At times like these Leino acquainted with his future wife Hertta Kuusinen. During the 1940 truce, Leino was detained in a secure facility. Leino's detention continued until 1941, when he escaped from a prison train in Riihimäki, which was taking imprisoned men to fight for the Finnish Army. Leino went on secret Communist Party activities in the war until the Armistice, when the Communist Party was legalized.

Parliamentary and Ministerial Years

In the 1945 parliamentary elections, Leino was elected as a Member of Parliament of the Finnish People's Democratic League (SKDL) candidate from Kuopio. Leino remained in parliament until 1950. He became Minister of the Interior in 1945. Leino's time as Minister of the Interior is often associated with Finland's "years of danger", because the Interior Ministry was held by the Communists.

Yrjö Leino was the SKDL representative in the delegation which negotiated the Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 agreement with the Soviet leadership in Moscow in the spring of 1948. Days before the delegation's departure to Moscow, Leino went to the Chief of Defence, Aarne Sihvo, and presented him with concerns about extreme right-wing and left-wing demonstrations that suggested a coup. Leino asked that the army secure order in Finland while the YYA was being negotiated.

President of the Republic Juho Kusti Paasikivi sacked Leino in 1948. Parliament had adopted a motion of censure of Leino as he returned the prisoners to the Soviet Union, who had been treated badly there. Leino still refused to resign because parliament had not sent him a formal statement in the matter. Overall, Leino was a minister for 1,283 days. After leaving parliament in the 1951 elections, Leino avoided publicity.

Memoirs

Leino returned to the public for the last time in 1958 by publishing memoirs of his time as communist interior minister. Leino had already begun to draw up a manuscript several years earlier and took part in the shaping the book. The document was prepared in secret - even most of the staff of the company were kept in ignorance - but the project was revealed by Leino because of an indiscretion just before the planned publication of a book. A book intended for public consumption hit a sore point as Finnish-Soviet relations had become extremely sensitive. Also the SKDL newspaper Kansan Uutiset attacked Leino's publication of the memoirs. The magazine claimed that the book ghost writer, Arvo Tuominen, hated the Communists who were completely unaware of the whole book project.

Chargé d'Affaires of the Soviet Union Ivan Filippov (Ambassador Viktor Lebedev had suddenly departed from Finland a few weeks earlier on 21 October 1958) demanded that Prime Minister Karl-August Fagerholm's government prevent the release of Leino's memoirs. Fagerholm said that the government could legally do nothing, because the work had not yet been released nor was there censorship in Finland. Filippov, advised that if Leino's was published, the Soviet Union would draw "serious conclusions". Yet during the same day Fagerholm called the publisher, Untamo Her, and this conference has decided to withdraw the January launch of the book. Eventually, the entire book edition was destroyed at the Soviet Union's request. Almost all the books - some 12,500 copies - were burned ast Roihuvuoren in August 1962 with the exception of a few volumes which were secretly sent to political activists. Deputy director of Jarl Helle Mann said that the sections of Leino's memoirs that brought about the fuss were completely disproportionate to the substance of the book, became the first victim of Finnish foreign policy of self-censorship. The book was published in 1991 , when it had already been largely lost its interest.

Private Life

Leino's personal life was often stormy. Leino was first married to Alli Simolan, who later gained fame as radio journalist Lieko Zachovalova. Leino's second marriage, to Ulla Smedberg, produced a son, journalist and author Olle Leino (born 1932 ) now resident in Sweden. Olle in 1973 published a biography of his father, "Who was Yrjö Leino" (Vem tackar Yrjö Leino), and in 1990, the book "Just one more letter (Annu ett brev), where he describes his father and Kuusisen's relationship. His third marriage, from 1945–1950, was to Hertta Kuusinen.

Leino, died on 28 June 1961, almost entirely forgotten, marked by ever-worsening problems of alcohol abuse and hysterical fear of assassination attempts. Leino is buried in the Honkanummen cemetery.

References

• Template:Edustajamatrikkeli
• Yrjö Leino Valtioneuvoston ministeritietojärjestelmässä
• Olle Leino: Who was Yrjö Leino ('Kuka oli Yrjö Leino / Vem tackar Yrjö Leino), January 1973, Helsinki, Finland.
• Olle Leino: Just one more letter (Annu ett brev), WSOY 1990, Porvoo.