deep unemployment. Haapalainen was one of the most radical persons in the labour movement, he was openly speaking for armed revolution and organized Red Guards in southern Finland. In October, he became the commander of the Kymi Paper Mill Red Guard in Kuusankoski. A month later, Haapalainen was elected to the five-men committee which was in charge of all Finnish Red Guards. As the Civil War broke out in late January 1918, Haapalainen replaced Ali Aaltonen as the Red Guards commander-in-chief, even though he did not have any military training. He was also elected as the delegate for internal affairs (″internal minister″) of the Red governing body Finnish People's Delegation. As a Red Guard commander, he issued a manifesto proclaiming the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. In February, he guaranteed the safe removal for the composer Jean Sibelius from his home Ainola to the capital Helsinki. After series of defeats, Haapalainen was replaced in 20 March by the troika Eino Rahja, Adolf Taimi and Evert Eloranta. He remained a member of the Red Government, but was dismissed in late April when the government had fled to Vyborg. Haapalainen was charged of drunkenness, inappropriate behavior and careless use of firearm. The Vyborg court martial ordered him to the front, but the decision was not implemented as the Red Government and most of the Red Guard staff fled to the Soviet Russia in 25 April. Haapalainen and Edvard Gylling were one of the few leading Reds who stayed in Vyborg. They organized the city's defense, but finally the Reds surrendered in 29 April. Haapalainen and Gylling avoided being caught. In May Haapalainen fled to Petrograd with a motor boat. Life in the Soviet Union Haapalainen became a member of the Russian Communist Party, he was also one of the founders of the exile Communist Party of Finland in August 1918. Later in the fall of 1918, Haapalainen fought in the Russian Civil War in Perm in a unit organized by the Finnish worker Felix Ravelin. In the summer of 1919, Haapalainen was establishing a nursing home for disabled Finnish Red Guard veterans near Kiev, but the idea never realized. Haapalainen moved to Petrograd, where he worked as a lecturer in the Red Officer School and served as a political officer in the 6th Finnish Regiment of the Red Army. In March–April 1920, Haapalainen fought against the Finnish White Guards in the Estonian War