He was born into a peasant family, then left an orphan at an early age to work as a shepherd from the age of seven. He studied at a
parochial school, where he began to participate in a literary circle during his school years. He was an organizer for the
Komsomol movement in his
volost, creating a Komsomol cell in his native village in 1920. He actively participated in eliminating illiteracy among the adult population by organizing clubs and reading rooms. Together with other Komsomol members, he delivered newspapers from
Babruysk. He became a village correspondent for the district newspaper “Kamunist”, writing articles about the life of the village Komsomol cell. In conditions when rural activists were killed in the volost by
Stanisław Bułak-Bałachowicz's forces, Halavach worked in the most critical areas. The
Babruysk district committee noticed him and sent him to study at the Minsk Party School. In 1926 he graduated from the Communist University of Belarus. In 1922 to 1923 he worked as an instructor in the
Barysaw district committee of the Komsomol. Then in 1923 he joined the
Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), later renamed the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). Beginning in 1926 he became the head of the organizational department of the Komsomol of Belarus, two years later in 1928 he became the first secretary of the
Central Committee of the Komsomol in Belarus. He edited the newspaper “Chyrvonaya Zmena” (English: "Red Successors") and the literary magazines “Maladnyak” and “Polymya”, while carrying out extensive social, educational and educational work. From 1923 to 1928 he headed the literary organization
Maladnyak. In November 1928, the association was reorganized into the Belarusian Association of Proletarian Writers. He was elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (1927-1930) and the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR (1927–1935). In 1934 he was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. ==Purge and rehabilitation==