Ryömä, Mauri

Born Nov. 20, 1911; died Nov. 28, 1958, in Helsinki. Finnish labor leader. Physician by profession.

Ryömä joined the Social Democratic Party of Finland in the early 1930’s and was editor of the radical sociopolitical journal Soihtu from 1936 to 1939. A founder (early 1940) of the Society for Peace and Friendship With the Soviet Union and its first chairman, Ryömä was arrested when the society was outlawed in late 1940; he was released in 1944, however, after Finland withdrew from World War II. He joined the Communist Party of Finland in 1944 and was a member of its Central Committee and Politburo from 1945 to 1958. He was a deputy to parliament in 1936–37 and from 1945 to 1958. Ryömä was vice-president of the Finland-Soviet Union Society from 1944 to 1958.