Mikhail Kalinin
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| In office 1919 – 1946 |
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| Preceded by | Mikhail Vladimirsky (acting) |
| Succeeded by | Nikolay Shvernik |
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| Born | November 19, 1875 Verkhnyaya Troitsa, Russian Empire |
| Died | June 3, 1946 (aged 70) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Political party | Communist Party of the Soviet Union |
Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин) (November 19 [O.S. November 7] 1875 – June 3, 1946) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and the titular head of state of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. Though only four years older than Joseph Stalin, Kalinin was celebrated as Dedushka ("Grandpa") by the Young Pioneers.[1] Two large cities, Tver and Königsberg, were renamed in his honor; the latter has retained the name Kaliningrad after the fall of the USSR.
[edit] Biography
Born to a peasant family in the village of Verkhnyaya Troitsa (Верхняя Троица), Tverskaya Gubernia, Russia, he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1889 as a servant of a rich neighbour and became a metal worker in 1895. In 1898 he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. In 1906 he married the ethnic Estonian Katarina Loоrberg (Russian: Yekaterina Ivanovna Lorberg)(1882–1960), who was arrested in October 1938, forced under torture to confess to "counterrevolutionary Trotskyist activities"[2] and sent to a labor camp (released in 1945 a few days before her husband's death)[3].
Kalinin was a candidate member of the Politburo from 1919 until 1925 when he became a full member. He remained on the body until 1946.
In 1925 Kalinin was strongly opposed to naming a county after him, suggesting that the assessment of politicians belonged to posterity. But in 1931 he signed a decree that renamed the city of Tver Kalinin. In 1932 Kalinin signed the Law of Spikelets.
From March 1919 to 1938 he was Chairman of the All-Union Executive Committee, i.e. titular Soviet head of state, informally known as "the all-Union Elder" (всесоюзный староста vsesoyuznyi starosta). The title was then changed to Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, which he assumed and held until 1946.
Kalinin kept a low-profile during the Great Purge. He was well aware of the repression; between 1937 and 1941 hundreds of people went to his dacha or sent petitions to him about asking help against the arrests[4]. Although he opposed the executions of personal friends like Avel Yenukidze and Shotman he remained submissive to Stalin, who under the pretext of protecting him had his apartment always watched by NKVD officers[5].
He retired in 1946 and died shortly afterward in Moscow. Kalinin was honoured with a major state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
[edit] Gallery
 Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Kalinin (right) in 1919 |
 Kalinin followed by Grigoriy Ordzhonikidze opening the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station: 1953 mosaic in Moscow Metro's Kievskaya-Koltsevaya station |
 Monument to Kalinin in Minsk |
 Mikhail Kalinin or "What you see is what you get", cartoon by Nikolai Bukharin |
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Mikhail Vladimirsky |
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 1919–1946 |
Succeeded by Nikolay Shvernik |
[edit] References
- ^ Current Biography 1942, pp. 435-37
- ^ http://books.google.ee/books?id=cFxBIYW4AMMC&pg=PA116&lpg=PA116&dq=kalinin+lorberg&source=bl&ots=fmIXWEaPnj&sig=0VNKJhEHL6Vd8LTV78by0DTAqUk&hl=et&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA128,M1
- ^ Екатерина Йогановна (Ивановна) Лорберг - Калинина (Russian)
- ^ Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge, 1971
- ^ Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge, 1971
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