Konni Zilliacus

Konni Zilliacus (13 September 1894 – 6 July 1967) was a left-wing Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. Of Finnish and American parentage, he spoke nine languages fluently; international issues were to absorb much of his energy, both as an official of the League of Nations between the wars, and as a Labour member of the House of Commons in the post-War period. Zilliacus's extensive contacts with figures in Eastern Europe during the Cold War era, together with his frequent support for positions promoted by the Soviet Union, periodically brought him into conflict with the Labour Party leadership and in 1949 led to his expulsion from the party. In 1950 he lost his seat in parliament, was re-admitted by Labour in 1952, and returned to the Commons in 1955. He was widely regarded as, at least, a fellow traveller. He was, however, a self-proclaimed anti-Communist who never belonged to the Communist Party, and who occasionally adopted positions opposed to Moscow's line, for example during Stalin's conflict with Tito.

Konni Zilliacus (senior)

Konrad Viktor Zilliacus (18 December 1855 in Helsinki – 19 June 1924 in Helsinki) was a Finnish independence activist involved in the Grafton Affair in 1905.

Early life

Zilliacus was born in Finland, then part of the Russian Empire. He studied law and then became a newspaper reporter, in which capacity he travelled the world, living for a period in Costa Rica, then in Chicago. He lived from 1894-1896 in Japan - when his son Konni Zilliacus was born in Kobe - followed by Egypt and Paris. He returned to Finland in 1898, and submitted a petition to Tsar Nicholas II in 1899 demanding a constitution. He subsequently relocated to Stockholm in Sweden in 1900, where he began to publish a newspaper Fria Ord ("Free Speech") which supported independence for Finland.

Revolutionary activities

As one of the early leaders of the Finnish independence movement, he cultivated relations with the Russian revolutionary movement, and smuggled his newspaper and other revolutionary literature from Sweden to Finland on his yacht, as well as weapons. In February 1904, he met with Japanese military attaché and spymaster, Colonel Akashi Motojirō, who provided large sums of money to assist him in developing subversive activities in an attempt to create domestic political instability during the Russo-Japanese War. Zilliacus met with Polish independence activist Roman Dmowski and Russian revolutionary leader Georgii Plekhanov as well as other dissidents. With Japanese assistance, Zilliacus organized a conference of Russian revolutionary organizations in Paris in September 1904, which agreed upon a program of legal and illegal means to replace the current autocracy with a democratic government.