Akseli Anttila was born to a family of pesants in Ruovesi. After graduating from an agricultural college, Anttila worked in the railroads. He fought for the Red Guards in the 1918 Finnish Civil War and was captured by the Whites after the Battle of Tampere in 6 April in Pispala. Anttila was detained at the Tampere camp but managed to escape in August. He fled to Sweden and moved to the Soviet Russia in 1919. Anttila joined the exile Communist Party of Finland in Saint Petersburg and took an officer course in the international class of the Bolshevik military academy. He fought in the Russian Civil War, took part of the repression of the 1921 Kronstadt Rebellion and was wounded in East Karelia in January 1922.