Career
He was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet (head of state) from 1978 to 1983. Initially a hardline Stalinist, he gradually became more moderate in the post-Stalin era but nevertheless remained devoted to the consolidation of Soviet rule in Estonia. Käbin was an ethnic Estonian but had been raised in Russia, as his family had moved to Saint St. Petersburg in 1910.
He worked as a teacher in Moscow before moving to Estonia after the Second World War.