World War II Database

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was born in Verkhnyaya Troitsa village, Tverskaya Gubernia, Russia to a peasant. As a metal worker, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party in 1898 and became an union executive in 1919. In 1925, he became a member of the Politburo and would remain so until his death in 1946. During Joseph Stalin's brutal Great Purge, Kalinin exercised his influence to pardon many who were condemned to work camps or death, but at the same time he authorized brutal massacres such as what had taken place at Katyn in 1940; 22,000 Polish died as a result of the Katyn massacre. Kalinin retired in 1946 and died in the same year in Moscow. The former German city of Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in his honor.

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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Tim Toftekaer says:
   27 Dec 2006 03:42:44 AM
   
   Katyn is not situated in Poland. It is some 20 kilometers west of Smolensk in Russia.

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