Tuomas W. Hyrskymurto

Tuomas Hyrskymurto

Tuomas Wilho Hyrskymurto (September 14, 1881 – August 31, 1920) was a Finnish Communist revolutionary and originally a merchant from Turku.

Hyrskymurto was born in Turku in 1881. He was in prison during the Hakaniemi skirmish in 1906. In 1917 he was the member of Turku social democratic city council's radical wing and one of the founders of the Turku Red Guard.

During the Finnish Civil War Hyrskymurto was in Red Guard in Northern frontier as control commissar and member of the Tampere Red Guard. At the start of the war Hyrskymurto led the Turku Red Guard with 300 cavalry and occupied Toijala railway station on January 26, 1918.

He also planned the Suinula massacre, which took place on January 31, where he ordered that the Red Guard should not take any prisoners. After the massacre he was known as the "Butcher of Suinula". When the White Guard was besieging Tampere Hyrskymurto left the city and went to Toijala Red Guard commanders Eino Rahja's deputy and tried to break the Tampere siege from south. On April 20, he ordered the murder of 23 Mustiala agriculture students in Kuurila.

After the war Hyrskymurto fled to Russia. Leaving Finland, Hyrskymurto left at the border a huge collection of Finnish and foreign Bolshevik literature which was offered to the University of Helsinki. The books were taken later to the university's library.

In Soviet Russia Hyrskymurto worked as the organizer of the Finnish Communist Party central committee. He was murdered by Finnish Communists on August 31, 1920 in Saint Petersburg during the Kuusinen Club Incident.

Hyrskymurto is buried in the Field of Mars in Saint Petersburg and his name is found on the grave of August Communists.

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