Aleksander Aben studied at the Kaarma primary school and in 1922 entered the Saaremaa Ühisgymnasium, from which he was expelled at the beginning of 1925 on charges of anti-state activities.
From April 1934 to July 1939, he worked at the Tallinn Joint Health Insurance Fund, first as an auditor of facilities and later as deputy head of the inspection department.
On July 4, 1939, he was sentenced by the Military High Court to five years of hard labor for distributing a leaflet disparaging the president and the government.
After returning from Sweden in 1940, Aben was appointed chairman of the Central Council of Trade Unions, and after being accepted as a member of Communist Party of Estonia (bolsheviks) ("EK(b)P"), state auditor of Johannes Vares' government.
In May 1944, Aben was enrolled in the courses organized by the Higher Diplomatic School of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the USSR by the decision of the EK(b)P Central Committee office in May 1944.
At the hearing of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on January 17, 1952, Aben was sentenced to 25 years in a correctional labor camp.