Edward Otto Wilhelm Gylling

Born Nov. 30, 1881; died Aug. 19, 1944. Figure of the Finnish workers’ movement. After 1920 he held important posts in Soviet Russia and in Soviet Union bodies.

In 1905, Gylling joined the Social Democratic Party of Finland and allied himself with its Marxist, left wing. From 1908 to 1918 he was a deputy of the Finnish seim. From 1910 to 1918 he was a docent of Helsinki University. From 1913 to 1917 he was a member of the Executive Committee and from 1917 to 1918 president of the Social Democratic Party of Finland. During the Finnish Revolution of 1918 he was a member of the revolutionary government and was head of the main staff of the Red Guard. After the defeat of the Revolution he emigrated to Sweden, where he worked in the foreign bureau of the Central Committee of the Finnish Communist Party. In 1920 he came to Soviet Russia and entered the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). From 1923 to 1935 he was chairman of the Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars) of the Karelian ASSR. From 1935 to 1937 he worked in the International Economic Institute in Moscow. He was a member of all convocations of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR.