1. Eero Haapalainen was a Finnish politician, trade unionist and journalist, who served as the commander-in-chief of the Red Guards from January to March 1918 during the Finnish Civil War.
27 Facts About Eero Haapalainen
1. 2.
Eero Haapalainen fled to Soviet Russia in May 1918 after the Reds' defeat where he joined the exile Communist Party of Finland and was active in Soviet Karelia.
3.
Eero Haapalainen was arrested and executed during the Great Purge in 1937.
4.
Eero Haapalainen was born on 27 October 1880 in the town of Kuopio in eastern Finland.
5.
Eero Haapalainen's father Aaro was a carpenter and the mother, Wilhelmiina Kinnunen, a housewife who earned extra income as a seamstress for the shop of the author and social activist Minna Canth.
6.
Eero Haapalainen's parents wanted him to become a priest, but after graduating from the Kuopio Lyceum, he studied for two years in a business college and entered the Helsinki University Faculty of Law in 1901.
7.
In 1904, Eero Haapalainen was not able to finish his studies due to lack of money and left the university.
8.
From 1903 to 1906, Eero Haapalainen worked in the Social Democratic newspaper Tyomies in Helsinki, and in 1907 he was the editor of Tyo in Viipuri.
9.
Eero Haapalainen was one of the leading Red Guard organizers in Helsinki during the 1905 general strike.
10.
Eero Haapalainen was expelled from the office in 1911 due to his alcoholism.
11.
Eero Haapalainen became a writer, publishing and translating several books and articles focusing in trade unionism and cooperatives.
12.
Eero Haapalainen worked as an editor for the SAJ newsletter released monthly.
13.
Eero Haapalainen was one of the most radical persons in the labour movement, openly calling for armed revolution, and organized Red Guards in southern Finland.
14.
Eero Haapalainen was elected to the Finnish People's Delegation as the delegate for "internal affairs," effectively making him the interior minister for the Red movement in Finland.
15.
Eero Haapalainen was replaced by a troika composed of Eino Rahja, Adolf Taimi and Evert Eloranta.
16.
Eero Haapalainen was charged of drunkenness, inappropriate behavior and careless use of firearm.
17.
Eero Haapalainen became one of many prominent communists who fled to Russia after the failed revolutions in Europe.
18.
Eero Haapalainen became a member of the Russian Communist Party and was one of the founders of the exile Communist Party of Finland in August 1918.
19.
Eero Haapalainen moved to Petrograd, where he worked as a lecturer in the Red Officer School and served as a political officer in the 6th Finnish Regiment of the Red Army.
20.
From March to April 1920, Eero Haapalainen fought against the Finnish White Guards in the Russian Civil War.
21.
Eero Haapalainen held several posts in the Karelian Workers' Commune but was dismissed in 1923 due to his drinking problem.
22.
Eero Haapalainen was transferred to the town of Kalevala where he worked as an interpreter.
23.
Eero Haapalainen moved back to Kalevala, where he worked as a teacher and a newspaperman.
24.
On 27 October 1937, Eero Haapalainen was arrested by the NKVD during the Great Purge on charges of being a Trotskyist and a nationalist counterrevolutionary.
25.
Eero Haapalainen was one of many foreign communists in the Soviet Union arrested on false charges due to Joseph Stalin's personal suspicion of them.
26.
Eero Haapalainen was rehabilitated in the Soviet Union during the de-Stalinization process in May 1957, four years after the death of Stalin.
27.
On 30 October 1994, Eero Haapalainen was one of 38 victims of the Great Purge who were reburied at a cemetery in the Zareka district of Petrozavodsk.