On May 18, 1944, while Kalinin was serving as Commander of the Kharkov Military District, riots broke out at the Krasnoarmeyskaya station, leading to several deaths, robberies, and beatings of officers. Kalinin was charged with dereliction of duty and was removed from his post of Commander of the Kharkov Military District. Kalinin was arrested on June 13, 1944. The
NKVD's dossier concerning him noted: “In conversations with his colleagues and in public speeches, he declared the unprofitability and low productivity of labor on collective farms, took repressed kulaks under his protection, and expressed dissatisfaction with the punitive policies of the Soviet government. During the Patriotic War, he expressed doubts about the correctness of the war, accusing the Supreme High Command of the Red Army of not caring about preserving human reserves and allowing large losses in certain operations”. The investigation added other charges of “anti-Soviet propaganda” based on his conversations with other prisoners in his prison cell, as well as his close connection with
Ivan Semenovich Kutyakov (
ru), an “enemy of the people” who had been executed in 1937 and with whom Kalinin “had criminal conversations” since 1932. During a search of Kalinin's apartment, his diaries with sharply critical reviews of the Soviet leadership were discovered. During a search of Kalinin's apartment, his diaries with sharply critical reviews of the Soviet leadership were discovered. In December 1946, he was discharged from the Armed Forces. Kalinin was kept in prison in Moscow, but was not interrogated from 1945 to 1950. When interrogation resumed in 1950 the original charges were enhanced. On October 25, 1951, seven years after his arrest, Kalinin was found guilty under Article 58-10, part 2 and under Article 193-17, paragraph “a” of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR and sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 25 years, with confiscation of property, as well as deprivation of state awards and loss of political rights for five years. He was deprived of the military rank of “lieutenant General” by the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of January 10, 1952. The term of his sentence commenced retroactively, beginning on June 14, 1944. Kalinin was sent to the “AG” forced labor camp of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs in the city of
Mariinsk,
Kemerovo oblast to serve his sentence. While serving his sentence, the camp court convicted him again on March 11, 1953 under Article 58-10, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for the crime of carrying out anti-Soviet agitation among prisoners and slandering the leaders of the Soviet government and the Communist Party. He was sentenced to another ten years in prison loss of political rights for another five years. Kalinin's original sentence of October 25, 1951 was overturned shortly after the death of
Joseph Stalin by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on July 28, 1953, which reduced his sentence of 25 years to time served, without loss of rights. Kalinin was not released, however, until his second 1953 conviction was overturned. Kalinin was finally released on November 17, 1953. Kalinin was reinstated in the Soviet Army, restored to his previous military rank, and immediately transferred to the reserve due to age with the pension due to generals, in January 1954. Kalinin was completely rehabilitated on November 2, 1956, when, by a resolution of the plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR, all court decisions against him were voided and his case was dismissed due to the lack of evidence to support the charges against him. Kalinin lived the remainder of his life in Moscow. He wrote his memoirs, but, because of censorship, did not mention his arrest and imprisonment. He died on September 11, 1975 in Moscow and was buried in the
Khimki cemetery. ==Sources and external links==