Mikhail Kalinin

Mikhail Kalinin
Михаил Калинин
Kalinin in 1920
Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union
In office 17 January 1938 – 19 March 1946
Premier	Vyacheslav Molotov Joseph Stalin
Deputy	Nikolai Shvernik
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Nikolai Shvernik
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union (shared)
In office 1922–1938
Premier	Vladimir Lenin Alexei Rykov Vyacheslav Molotov
Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
In office 30 March 1919 – 15 July 1938
Preceded by	Mikhail Vladimirsky (acting) Yakov Sverdlov
Succeeded by	Position Abolished Aleksei Badayev as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR
Full member of the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th Politburo
In office 1 January 1926 – 3 June 1946
Member of the Orgburo
In office 16 March 1921 – 2 June 1924
Candidate member of the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th Politburo
In office 25 March 1919 – 1 January 1926
Personal details
Born	Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (1875-11-19)19 November 1875 Verkhnyaya Troitsa, Tver Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	3 June 1946(1946-06-03) (aged 70) Moscow, RSFSR, USSR
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	RSDLP (1898–1903) RSDLP (Bolsheviks) (1903–1918) VKP(b) (1918–1946)
Spouse	Ekaterina Ivanovna Lorberg-Kalinina
Occupation	Civil servant
Signature

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Михаи́л Ива́нович Кали́нин, IPA: [kɐˈlʲinʲɪn] ^ⓘ; 19 November [O.S. 7 November] 1875 – 3 June 1946)^[1][2][3] was a Soviet politician and Russian Old Bolshevik revolutionary. He served as head of state of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later of the Soviet Union from 1919 to 1946. From 1926, he was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Born to a peasant family, Kalinin worked as a metal worker in Saint Petersburg and took part in the 1905 Russian Revolution as an early member of the Bolsheviks. During and after the October Revolution, he served as mayor of Petrograd (St. Petersburg). After the revolution, Kalinin became the head of the new Soviet state, as well as a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Politburo.

Kalinin remained the titular head of state of the Soviet Union after the rise of Joseph Stalin, with whom he enjoyed a privileged relationship, but held little real power or influence. He retired in 1946 and died in the same year. The former East Prussian city of Königsberg, annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945, was renamed Kaliningrad after him a year later. The city of Tver was also known as Kalinin until 1990 when its historic name was restored, one year before the fall of the Soviet Union.