Yrjö Elias Sirola (; 8 November 1876 – 18 March 1936) was a Finnish socialist politician, writer, teacher, and newspaper editor. He was prominent as an elected official in Finland, as minister of foreign affairs in the 1918 Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic, a founder of the Communist Party of Finland, and as a functionary of the Communist International.
Background
Yrjö Esias Sirén was born 8 November 1876 in Piikkiö, Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Karl Gustaf Sirén, worked as a clergyman.David Kirby, "Yrjö Esias Sirola," in A. Thomas Lane (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders: M-Z. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995; pg. 899. Yrjö attended a lycée in Viipuri and then attended Rauma teachers' training college, from which he graduated in 1902.
Career
Following completion of his studies he took a post as a teacher in Hattula.
Social Democratic Party (Finland) Yrjö joined the Social Democratic Party in 1903. After a short stint on the staff of the liberal newspaper Kotkan Sanomat (Kotka News) in 1903, Yrjö moved to the city of Tampere to assume the editorship of the Kansan Lehti, a post which he occupied from 1904 to 1906. It is apparently during this period that he adopted the pseudonym Sirola, which he retained for the rest of his life. Sirola also served as editor of the Helsinki Työmies ("Workman") from 1906.
In 1905, Sirola was appointed as Secretary of the SDP, a role which enabled him to play an active part in the general strike of that year.Branko Lazitch and Milorad M. Drachkovitch, Biographical Dictionary of the Comintern: New, Revised, and Expanded Edition. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986; pg. 431. An advocate of parliamentary methods during a revolutionary time, Sirola found himself out of step with a boisterous radical rank-and-file in the Social Democratic Party and withdrew his name from consideration in the elections for Secretary held at the party's 1906 national conference.
The Russian imperial government of Nicholas II managed to stabilize itself by 1907, defeating the radical opponents which threatened to topple it in the Revolution of 1905. Sirola remained active in the socialist movement following this defeat, gaining election to parliament and serving as deputy speaker in 1908 and 1909. Increased control by the Tsarist government over Finnish affairs in the aftermath of the revolution combined with a troubled personal financial situation moved Sirola to emigrate to the United States, however.
American years
Arriving in America in 1909, Sirola followed previous Finnish immigrants in moving to the Upper Midwest region of the United States. Sirola landed a post as the director of the Finnish Socialist Federation's Work People's College in Smithville, Minnesota in 1910. Sirola would remain in that position until 1913.
Previously very much a parliamentarian in his political orientation, while in Minnesota Sirola begun to be influenced by the radical syndicalism espoused by the Industrial Workers of the World. He would support the left wing in the bitter factional dispute which in 1912 and 1913 split the more than 10,000 member Finnish Socialist organization in America. Amidst this rancor, Sirola returned home to Finland in 1913.
Finnish Revolution
Back in Finland, Sirola resumed activity as a functionary of the Social Democratic Party, teaching in party schools and writing for the party press. In 1916 he was elected the SDP's Executive Committee and in 1917 he was returned to office as a parliamentary deputy. Within the SDP Sirola was a leader of the radical left wing of the party who supported the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in November 1917 and who sought to emulate Lenin's results in Finland.
On November 11, 1917, Sirola arrived in Petrograd with his comrade Evert Huttunen, where he met with Lenin at Smolnyi about how radicals in Finland might aid the Bolshevik uprising and about revolutionary prospects in Finland.C. Jay Smith, Jr., Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1958; pg. 26. Lenin was fearful that troops loyal to the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky would be pulled from Finland to crush the Bolshevik uprising. He urged the Finns to initiate a general strike in an effort to emulate the Bolsheviks in their seizure of power.Anthony F. Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980; pp. 146-147; Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, pg. 26. Smith emphasizes Lenin's advocacy of a general strike as a diversionary tactic, Upton indicates Lenin sought his Finnish comrades to make a direct bid for power.
Sirola and Huttunen took the opposite impression from this meeting with Lenin than the one which the Russian leader had intended, however, interpreting the Bolshevik grip on power as being extremely tenuous and believing it dangerous for the Finnish SDP to build its plans around the survival of the Bolshevik government.Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 147. This cautious perspective was shared by the SDP's parliamentary group, but radicals in the party pushed the revolution forward nonetheless, calling a general strike for November 14. Sirola was one of three SDP leaders to exercise general control over the strike arrangements.Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 150.
As one historian has noted: The instructions for the conduct of the strike required that in each community a revolutionary council would be set up with full authority over all workers' organizations, above all the Red Guard, which was to be the executive arm of the workers' power. The Red Guard would work with the militia in keeping order, mount guards and patrols, arrest dangerous enemies of the workers, confiscate liquor stocks, and stop the spread of rumors. The instruction ended with the standard injunction that "during the general strike, order and discipline must be preserved irreproachably. It must be remember that revolution is not the same as outrage and anarchy."Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pp. 150-151. Each community experienced the general strike that launched the Finnish Revolutionary Government in a different way, ranging from complete inaction to Red Guards nailing shut the doors of stubborn businessmen who defied the strike.Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 151. The success of the action generated pressure among the working class to move to a full seizure of power in emulation of the Bolshevik seizure of power a week earlier.Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 155. Sirola still held that the armed seizure of power was premature, however. He argued at a meeting of the SDP's Revolutionary Council convened in the early morning hours of November 16 that "the position in Russian and the eventual attack of the Germans" was decisive and that the prudent course of action was to pressure parliament into making concessions, guaranteeing action on food and granting and back wages to those who participated in the general strike action.Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 157. The parliamentary delegates taking such a cautious position were in a minority, however, and at 5:00 am the Revolutionary Council voted 14–11 in favor of seizing power. The Revolutionary Council was reorganized, with Sirola and the parliamentary group (the minority) refusing to take part. Two hours later their nerve of the majority failed them, however, and the newly reorganized Revolutionary Council backed away from armed insurrection, in favor of an aggressive push for concessions from the bourgeois parties.
As Anthony Upton notes: In effect Sirola had won and emerged as the leading figure on the morning of 16 November; his policy, that of stepping up the pressure until they got a government that would satisfy the basic demands on food and guarantee immunity from reprisal, was adopted. On his suggestion, they decided to take over the railways, close the law courts, and compel all the agencies of central and local government to cease activity... There was also an attempt to satisfy the restlessness of the Red Guard by assigning to it a new task: It was to begin systematic searches for hidden stocks of food, if possible with the authorization of local Food Boards, but if necessary without...Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pp. 157-158. On their own authority the Red Guard began arresting and jailing bourgeois notables, however, and the drive towards revolution careened forwards. On November 18, a group of angry railway workers came to see the SDP leaders, telling party leader Kullervo Manner to his face "you have betrayed the workers, the strike must go on until a socialist government is established."Upton, The Finnish Revolution, 1917-1918, pg. 162. The Strike Committee met that same night and declared in favor of a socialist government and that the Red Guard must stay armed until this was achieved and "all power is taken into the workers' hands." The conservative government headed by P. E. Svinhufvud refused to make concessions to the socialist opposition, with parliament voting down proposals to lower the voting age and to grant the vote immediately to tenant farmers. A new cabinet was put together by Svinhufvud which did not include a single socialist, a body confirmed by parliament on November 24 by a vote of 100 to 80.Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922, pg. 28. Parliamentary maneuvering was met with spontaneous armed actions by Red Guard in various localities in which some 34 people were killed, mostly victims of Red Guard violence. This increasing hostility created an impenetrable barrier between the two sides. With the conservative parliamentary majority intent upon disarming the Red Guards and establishing a monarchical form of government, the nation descended into civil war.
On January 19, 1918, a pitched battle broke out between Red Guards and the conservative Protective Corps of Viipuri, which Russian troops coming to the aid of their allies in the fight. Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922, pg. 34. Fighting spread with the Red Guards beginning the seizure of Helsinki on the night of January 27/28.Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922, pg. 36. White forces headed by General Mannerheim controlled the northernmost five-sixths of Finland, while the Reds controlled the southernmost region, containing approximately half of the country's population and including the cities of Pori, Turku, Tampere, Riihimäki, Helsinki, Kotka, and Viipuri.Smith, Finland and the Russian Revolution, 1917-1922, pg. 38. A Finnish Revolutionary Government was declared, in which Sirola served as Commissar of Foreign Affairs.