Karl Genrikhovich Vaino (; ; alias Kirill Voinov;[Romuald J. Misuanas ja Rein Taagepera, Years of Dependence. p. 198 ("Käbin's successor Karl Vaino (born in Tomsk, Siberia) initially came to Estonia in 1947, apparently carrying the Russian name Kirill Voinov")] 28 May 1923 – 12 February 2022) was a Russian-born Soviet politician in Soviet-occupied Estonia. In 1978–1988 he was the formal leader of the Communist Party of the Estonian SSR.
Early life and career
Karl Genrikhovich Vaino was born in 1923 and raised in the city of
Tomsk,
Siberia, in then
Soviet Russia. His father Heinrich Vaino (later russified as Genrikh; 1889–1965) was an active Estonian
Bolshevik who had moved to Siberia in 1918 after the Bolshevik Russian invasion into Estonia had failed in the 1918–1920 Estonian War of Independence. His mother, Liidia
née Savi, was a daughter of Estonian immigrants who had settled in Siberia at the beginning of the 20th century.
After graduating from what is now the Omsk State Transport University in 1947, Vaino moved to then Soviet-occupied Estonia, and started working in engineering and technical jobs on the railway. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1947. He served as Secretary of the Communist Party's
Tallinn Regional Committee from 1948–1953. In the 1960s and 1970s, he also served as Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Estonian SSR. He graduated from the Correspondence Higher Party School in 1957.
Leader of the Estonian SSR
Having lived his early life in Russia, Vaino was a native speaker of
Russian language. He was not able to speak Estonian very well, and did so with a thick Russian accent. For this, he was called "
Yestonians".
[ Eesti Päevaleht = Estniska Dagbladet, August 4, 1979, p. 2 "SUUND", signed by KLA] On 26 July 1978, the incumbent First Secretary of the past 28 years, Johannes Käbin, who was considered to be too moderate for the ongoing Era of Stagnation Russification, was forced to resign from his post and was replaced by Vaino.
[ ]
As the First secretary, Vaino acquired a reputation of being an extreme Russification. With a dismissive attitude towards Estonian language and culture, he was not popular amongst Estonians. He delivered public speeches mostly in Russian language, one notable exception being at the 350th anniversary of Tartu State University, where he presented awards to university workers, speaking in Estonian with a thick Russian accent. In 1979, an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life.[ Эстонское национально-демократическое движение.]
Downfall
In early 1988, the CPE split into national communists and internationalists. Vaino was the leader of the latter, while the former was led by the Soviet ambassador to
Nicaragua Vaino Väljas. Being considered too conservative by the Moscow elite, after almost 10 years, Vaino was forced to resign from his post on 16 June 1988,
and replaced by Väljas. Vaino then moved to Moscow, where he lived from then onward. He did not visit Estonia again.
Personal life and death
His daughter Eleonora Kochetova
[ Информационный центр (ОНТИ) Химического факультета МГУ] is the daughter in law of Soviet writer Vsevolod Kochetov, and his son Eduard is the Vice President for External Relations at
AvtoVAZ. He has two grandsons, Russian politician
Anton Vaino and Russian Interior Ministry official Andrey Vaino.
On 19 February 2022, it was announced that Vaino had died on 12 February, at the age of 98. He was buried on 14 February in the Federal Military Memorial Cemetery.[ Suri endine Eesti kommunistliku partei juht Karl Vaino ]
Awards
-
2 Orders of Lenin (1981 and 1983)
-
Order of the October Revolution (1971)
-
3 Orders of the Red Banner of Labour (1959, 1965, and 1973)
-
Medal "For Labour Valour" (1950)
