People of the Revolution and the USSR
Social movements and organizing
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)
Marxism and communism
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GlossaryRussian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)
- Viktor Konstantinovich Kurnatovsky Виктор Константинович Курнатовский One of Russia's first Marxists, from Narodnaya Volya to leader of the 1905 Chita Republic
- Maria Fyodorovna Andreyeva Мария Фёдоровна Андреева Actress turned Bolshevik financial agent whom Lenin called 'Comrade Phenomenon'
- Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya Надежда Константиновна Крупская She built the Soviet school and library system from the shadow of her husband
- Alexander Nikolayevich Vinokurov Александр Николаевич Винокуров The Bolshevik physician who built the USSR Supreme Court and led it for fourteen years
- Mykola Oleksiyovych Skrypnyk Микола Олексійович Скрипник Architect of Ukrainization: the cultural revolutionary who turned the gun on himself
- Gleb Maksimilianovich Krzhizhanovsky Глеб Максимилианович Кржижановский Early architect of electrification and planning
- Nikolai Ernestovich Bauman Николай Эрнестович Бауман The 'Rook' who flew across borders building the Iskra network, and the revolution's first martyr
- Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin Иван Васильевич Бабушкин The worker-organizer Iskra trusted most: archetype of the Bolshevik worker
- Yuri Mikhailovich Steklov Юрий Михайлович Стеклов First Soviet editor of Izvestia, architect of the Soviet constitution
- Semyon Ivanovich Balashov Семён Иванович Балашов Bolshevik leader of Ivanovo-Voznesensk who built the first soviet alongside Frunze during the 1905 general strike
- Sergei Ivanovich Gusev Сергей Иванович Гусев Architect of the Red Army's political apparatus, Old Bolshevik who opposed Trotsky's military line
- Rozaliya Samoilovna Zemlyachka Розалия Самойловна Землячка The 'Demon' Underground and the Only Woman Vice-Chair of Sovnarkom
- Maria Ilyinichna Ulyanova Мария Ильинична Ульянова Lenin's youngest sister who edited the revolution with a pencil: press organizer in her own right
- Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин The leader born to a poor Georgian family who came to dominate party and state
- Gleb Ivanovich Bokii Глеб Иванович Бокий Father of Soviet signals intelligence and founder of the Cheka Special Department
- Zinovy Yakovlevich Litvin-Sedoy Зиновий Яковлевич Литвин-Седой Organizer of Presnya’s workers’ fighting squads
- Vyacheslav Alekseyevich Karpinsky Вячеслав Алексеевич Карпинский Lenin's trusted Bolshevik publicist and a 68-year party veteran
- Kamo Симон Тер-Петросян The Bolsheviks' legendary expropriator, the revolutionary who feigned madness and survived four death sentences
- Abram Yakovlevich Belenky Абрам Яковлевич Беленький Cheka founding member who guarded Lenin personally
- Sofia Sigizmundovna Dzerzhinskaya Софья Сигизмундовна Дзержинская Polish Social Democrat who forged an independent revolutionary path from the SDKPiL underground to the Comintern
- Fyodor Andreyevich Sergeyev Фёдор Андреевич Сергеев Founder and head of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, close friend of Stalin and Kirov
- Ivan Dmitrievich Chugurin Иван Дмитриевич Чугурин Vyborg worker-Bolshevik who handed Lenin his party card
- Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin Евгений Иванович Замятин The architect of a forbidden future
- Eino Rahja Eino Rahja Petrograd Finnish Bolshevik who helped Lenin escape to Finland in 1917 and sat on the Red Guards’ three-man command in 1918
- Sergei Mironovich Kirov Сергей Миронович Киров The Leningrad organizer whose murder became the pretext for the Great Terror
- Grigory Yakovlevich Sokolnikov Григорий Яковлевич Сокольников The finance commissar of NEP stabilization
- Ivan Pavlovich Tovstukha Иван Павлович Товстуха Stalin's first secretary, keeper of his archive and author of his first biography
- Stanislav Vikentyevich Kosior Станислав Викентьевич Косиор The Ukrainian party boss who denied the famine, felled by Stalin's bullet
- Alexander Yakovlevich Arosev Александр Яковлевич Аросев The revolutionary who ordered the Kremlin shelled, and the proletarian writer who published thirty books
- Mendel Markovich Khataevich Мендель Маркович Хатаевич The party secretary who warned Molotov that grain seizures would leave nobody to plant, shot four years later
- Vladimir Ivanovich Polonsky Владимир Иванович Полонский Bolshevik Orgotdel chief and trade-union officer purged in 1937
- Semyon Grigoryevich Roshal Семён Григорьевич Рошаль The 21-year-old commissar who brought Kronstadt sailors to the revolution