Head of The Terijoki Government
When the Red Army began its advance during the Winter War on November 30, 1939, Kuusinen was pronounced head of the Finnish Democratic Republic (also known as the Terijoki Government)—Joseph Stalin's puppet régime intended to rule Finland. A "Declaration of the People's Government of Finland" was issued in Terijoki on December 1, 1939, and a "Treaty of Mutual Assistance and Friendship Between the Soviet Union and the Democratic Republic of Finland" signed by Molotov and Kuusinen in Moscow on December 2, 1939 However, the war did not go as planned, and the Soviet leadership decided to negotiate a peace with the Finnish government; Kuusinen's government was quietly disbanded and he was made chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish SSR (1940–1956).
From the very outset of the war, working-class Finns stood behind the legal government in Helsinki. Finnish national unity against the Soviet invasion was later called the spirit of the Winter War.
Read more about this topic: Otto Wille Kuusinen
Famous quotes containing the words head of the, head and/or government:
“Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“A man whose mind feels that it is captive would prefer to blind himself to the fact. But if he hates falsehood, he will not do so; and in that case he will have to suffer a lot. He will beat his head against the wall until he faints. He will come to again and look with terror at the wall, until one day he begins afresh to beat his head against it; and once again he will faint. And so on endlessly and without hope. One day he will wake up on the other side of the wall.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)