Order of The Red Banner Signed By Soviet President Mikhail Kalinin, 1921

Mikhail Kalinin was known as Stalin's "pet peasant". He was a factional ally of Stalin during the bitter struggle for power which erupted following the death of Lenin in 1924. Kalinin was one of comparatively few members of Stalin's inner circle springing from peasant origins. By the 1930s his role as a decision-maker in the Soviet Government was nominal. Under Stalin he was the nominal signatory of all decrees. He kept a low profile during the Great Purge of 1937 although he was well aware of the repression. Kalinin's own wife was arrested by the NKVD in 1938, forced under torture to confess to "counterrevolutionary Trotskist activities, and sent to a labor camp. Kalinin became the first President of the Soviet Union The Order of The Red Banner was the Soviet Union's highest award until the Order of Lenin was introduced in 1930.  Kalinin signed this order o March 16, 1921 as President of the Executive Committee. The text states: "The All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Workers, Peasants, Cossacks, and Red Army Soviets in commemoration of civil duty in fighting enemies of the Socialist Motherlan in 1920-1921 in the mountains of Dagestan hereby awards Citizen Rabidan Nurove with the Order of The Red Banner, symbol of the Global Socialist Revolution." Signed by Kalinin and Avel Enukidze, Secretary of the Executive Committee, later executed by Stalin in 1937.

Kalinin with Stalin's Personal Secretary Alexander Poskrybychev