Source: Sputnik

MIKHAIL KALININ

Kalinin joined the Russian Social Democratic and Labour Party (RSDLP) at its foundation in 1898. He participated in the 1905 revolution and joined the Bolshevik wing of the RSDLP. He was in exile in Siberia at the time of the February revolution but was released after it enabling him to play an important role in the October revolution. He became Mayor of Petrograd in 1919 and was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. When Sverdlov died in 1919, Kalinin replaced him as President of Soviet Russia.