Mikhail Kalinin
Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich (1875–1946), a Soviet statesman. Kalinin was chief of state of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. His position was a ceremonial one, with no real power. Kalinin was one of the few leading revolutionaries of peasant origin. From 1898 to 1917, the year of the Bolshevik revolution, he was usually either in prison or hiding from the police. Kalinin was elected mayor of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1918 and became a member of the Communist party central committee in 1919.