Hertta Elina Kuusinen was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 politician. She was a member of the central committee

Central Committee

Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...

 (1944-?) and the political bureau of the Communist Party of Finland

Communist Party of Finland

The Communist Party of Finland was a communist political party in Finland. The SKP was a section of Comintern and illegal in Finland until 1944.SKP did not participate in any elections with its own name. Instead, front organisations were used...

, member of parliament (1945–1972), general secretary (1952–1958) and the leader of the parliamentary group of the Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Party...

. Kuusinen was only the second woman in Finland to serve as cabinet minister in 1948. She was the daughter of Finnish communist leader Otto Ville Kuusinen

Otto Ville Kuusinen

Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen was a Finnish-born Soviet politician, literary historian, and poet, who, after the defeat of the Reds in the Finnish Civil War, fled to the Soviet Union, where he worked until his death.- Early life :Kuusinen was born to the family of village tailor Wilhelm Juhonpoika...

.

Hertta Kuusinen moved to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 after her father in the 1920s. She worked for Comintern

Comintern

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

 since 1922, witnessed Hitler's rise in Germany 1932–1933 and teached in the International Lenin School

International Lenin School

Situated in Moscow and shrouded in secrecy, the International Lenin School was founded in 1926 as an instrument for the "Bolshevisation" of the Communist International and its national sections, following the resolutions of the fifth Congress of the Comintern. Between 1926 and 1938 the school...

 1933–1934. Kuusinen returned to Finland in 1934 to work underground for the illegal communist party. Instead she ended up in prison for over ten years.

The political climate in Finland changed after World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Kuusinen was released and in the first post-war elections in 1945

Finnish parliamentary election, 1945

Eduskunta election in 1945 was held from March 17 to 18, 1945. In Finland, the communists could for the first time since 1929 freely present their candidates. Through the Finnish People's Democratic League, they were able to win over a large section of Social Democratic voters. The Patriotic...

 Kuusinen was elected to the Eduskunta from the Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League

Finnish People's Democratic League was a Finnish political organisation with the aim of uniting those left of the Finnish Social Democratic Party...

 (SKDL) list. She was General Secretary of the SKDL from 1952 to 1958, when the SKDL became the largest party in the Eduskunta with 50 of 200 seats. She was a member of Parliament until 1972, and also held the record in personal votes (58 770 / 1948) received in parliamentary elections that stood until the 2007 election

Finnish parliamentary election, 2007

The Finnish parliamentary election of 2007 was the 35th election to the Eduskunta , held on 18 March 2007 after the termination of the previous parliamentary term. Early voting was possible from the 7–13 March. Two hundred MPs were elected from 15 constituencies.Election themes included a reduction...

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Kuusinen was married to communist politicians Tuure Lehén

Tuure Lehén

Tuure Lehén was a Finnish Communist who served as Minister of Internal affairs in the People's Provisional Government imposed by the Soviet Union in December 1939....

 (1923–1933) and Yrjö Leino

Yrjö Leino

Yrjö Leino was a Finnish communist politician. Imprisoned twice for his communist activities, and spending much of the Second World War as an underground communist activist, he served as a minister in three cabinets between 1944 and 1948.- Early years :Yrjö Leino was the only child of tanner Oskar...

(1945–1950).