[1] Karhinen, who was a housewife, joined the SDP in 1902, and a year later she was elected chairman of the women's section of the Terijoki Workers' Association.

Karhinen was also a member of the Federal Council of the Social Democratic Women 's Union and assisted in the publication Worker 's Woman.

[1] With the Civil War, which started in 1918, Karhinen worked in Helsinki as the secretary and interpreter of the Interior Department of the People's Delegation.

Karhinen was appointed a member of the People's Delegation in connection with the reorganization on 11 March, when she became the second Home Affairs Commissioner alongside Matti Airola.

The purpose of the trip remains unclear, but according to some information, Karhinen and her friend Hilja Pärssinen would have taken a large amount of the Bank of Finland's funds to St. Petersburg.

At the end of the Battle of Vyborg, April 1918, Karhinen fled again to Russia, where she joined the Finnish Communist Party in Moscow in the autumn.

[2][3] In 1920, on the initiative of Finnish politician Yrjö Sirola, Karhinen was sent to the United States[2] as a representative of the Comintern to carry out educational work among American Finns.