He held little power or influence beyond receiving diplomatic letters from abroad . Recalling him , future Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said , " I do n't know what practical work Kalinin carried out under Lenin . But under Stalin he was the nominal signatory of all decrees , while in reality he rarely took part in government business . Sometimes he was made a member of a commission , but people did n't take his opinion into account very much . It was embarrassing for us to see this ; one simply felt sorry for Mikhail Ivanovich . " On 5 March 1940 , six members of the Soviet Politburo — Stalin , Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , Kliment Voroshilov , Anastas Mikoyan , and Mikhail Kalinin — signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish " nationalists and counterrevolutionaries " kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus , part of the Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Katyn massacre
Mikhail Kalinin