People of the Revolution and the USSR
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Socialist-bloc reform leader
The last generation 1985–1991
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GlossarySoviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
- Viktor Vladimirovich Dementsev Виктор Владимирович Деменцев A fiscal realist who warned against abrupt prohibition
- Georgy Khosroevich Shakhnazarov Георгий Хосроевич Шахназаров Founder of Soviet political science and brains of perestroika's political reform
- Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya Татьяна Ивановна Заславская Founder of Soviet economic sociology; her 1983 report lit the intellectual fuse of perestroika
- Ivan Timofeyevich Frolov Иван Тимофеевич Фролов The philosopher who gave perestroika its humanist foundations: from defending genetics to founding the science of Man
- Leonid Ivanovich Abalkin Леонид Иванович Абалкин Chief economic theorist of late perestroika, architect of the 'regulated market' between radical reformers and conservative planners
- Vaino Iosipovich Väljas Vaino Väljas Recalled from Nicaragua in June 1988, he led Estonia's Communists through the sovereignty declaration, the first breach in the Soviet wall.
- Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan Абел Гезевич Аганбегян Gorbachev's chief economic adviser and the market-reform architect of perestroika
- Algirdas Brazauskas Algirdas Brazauskas The communist who split his party from Moscow and became independent Lithuania's first president
- Stanislav Sergeyevich Shatalin Станислав Сергеевич Шаталин Architect of the 500 Days programme, radical reform economist who tried to convert the Soviet planned economy to the market in one leap
- Yuri Nikolayevich Afanasyev Юрий Николаевич Афанасьев The historian who called the conservative majority 'aggressively obedient'
- Gavriil Kharitonovich Popov Гавриил Харитонович Попов Moscow's first elected mayor, who told the U.S. ambassador of the coming coup
- Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak Анатолий Александрович Собчак Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg
- Romualdas Ozolas Romualdas Ozolas The Sąjūdis philosopher who launched the 2-million-signature campaign demanding Red Army withdrawal
- Kazimiera Danutė Prunskienė Kazimira Danutė Prunskienė She tried to negotiate independence through pragmatism; her resignation removed the last obstacle to the military option
- Gennady Eduardovich Burbulis Геннадий Эдуардович Бурбулис The philosopher who proposed the one sentence that declared the Soviet Union dead at Belovezh
- Alexander Vladimirovich Rutskoy Александр Владимирович Руцкой Russia's only vice president: stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
- Grigory Alekseyevich Yavlinsky Григорий Алексеевич Явлинский Architect of the 500 Days Program: perestroika economist who drafted a rapid transition from planned economy to market
- Dainis Īvāns Dainis Īvāns The journalist who saved the Daugava River and led the Latvian Popular Front
- Yegor Timurovich Gaidar Егор Тимурович Гайдар Architect of shock therapy, the economist who dismantled the planned economy and laid the first stones of Russian capitalism