A member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), he represented Uusimaa Province between October 1930 and April 1945.

Turkia was born on 26 February 1871 in Viipuri municipality in the south-east of the Grand Duchy of Finland.

[3] The family moved to Halla near Kotka where Esaias Turkia worked in the local sawmill.

[3][4] After attending public school, Turkia, aged 12, started working at the Halla sawmill in 1883.

[3][4] Turkia became attracted to socialism after witnessing the poor working conditions at the Halla sawmill.

[3][5] The mill owners fired the strike organisers and conspired with other employers in the Kotka region to blacklist them.

[3] The group had 5,000 members by 1905 and was credited with the assassination of Russian gendarmerie Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Kramarenko.

[1][3] He came under pressure at the 1909 SDP conference following the embezzlement of party funds by treasurer Emil Perttilä, who had fled to Cape Town.

[3] At the 1911 SDP conference, Otto Wille Kuusinen criticised Turkia for the declining party membership.

[3][12][13] He was also appointed to the Supreme Leading Committee of the Red Guards (the army of the revolutionary government).

[3] In March/April 1918 revolutionary government chairman Kullervo Manner sent Turkia to Petrograd to seek assistance for the Red Guards.

[3] Following the Red defeat in May 1918 Turkia stayed in Soviet Russia where he was a member of the Finnish Labor Executive Committee.

[1][16] He received a presidential pardon on 10 February 1928 and had his citizenship and civic rights restored despite the opposition of the Supreme Court.

[1][3] He was on the executive committee of the SDP and was president of the party's local branch in Uusimaa Province.