[3] Karl Genrikhovich Vaino was born in 1923 and raised in the city of Tomsk, Siberia, in then Soviet Russia.

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.

[4] 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.

Being considered too conservative by the Moscow elite, after almost 10 years, Vaino was forced to resign from his post on 16 June 1988,[5] and replaced by Väljas.