People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Christian Georgievich Rakovsky Христиан Георгиевич Раковский From Balkan revolutionary to head of Soviet Ukraine: the diplomat who became an opposition theorist
- Vladimir Dmitrievich Bonch-Bruevich Владимир Дмитриевич Бонч-Бруевич He built the Soviet government apparatus and studied the religious dissenters of the empire
- Pyotr Germogenovich Smidovich Пётр Гермогенович Смидович Iskra agent across three revolutions, KOMZET chairman who shaped Soviet nationality policy and the Birobidzhan Jewish experiment
- Evgenia Bogdanovna Bosch Евгения Богдановна Бош First woman to lead a Soviet government, between revolution and terminal illness
- Eero Haapalainen Eero Haapalainen Trade union leader who commanded the Finnish Red Guards from January to March 1918
- Alexei Ivanovich Rykov Алексей Иванович Рыков Lenin’s successor as premier, destroyed as the Right Opposition
- Edvard Gylling Edvard Gylling Finnish socialist who was Red Finland’s commissar of finance and later headed the government of Soviet Karelia
- Prosh Perchevich Proshian Прош Перчевич Прошьян Left SR People's Commissar in the first Soviet coalition: 'the core of the party'
- Pavel Dmitrievich Vasiliev Павел Дмитриевич Васильев A local Soviet official caught in the revolution's backlash
- Alexander Fyodorovich Myasnikov Александр Фёдорович Мясников Lenin's periphery-builder who brought Soviet power to Belarus and Armenia
- Zmicier Zhylunovich Зміцер Жылуновіч Worker-poet known as Tsishka Hartny who headed the first Soviet government of Byelorussia
- Veli Ibraimov Вели Ибраимов Crimean Tatar national communist who pressed Crimean Tatar interests as head of the Crimean ASSR and was executed
- Daniil Yegorovich Sulimov Даниил Егорович Сулимов Worker-Bolshevik premier of the Russian Republic destroyed by the state he helped industrialize
- Vlas Yakovlevich Chubar Влас Яковлевич Чубарь The economic administrator who led Ukraine's government for 11 years, caught between Stalin's demands and the famine
- Fyodor Kolesov Фёдор Колесов Bolshevik chairman of the Turkestan Sovnarkom in 1917–1918 who crushed the Kokand Autonomy and attacked Bukhara
- Nikolai Petrovich Gorbunov Николай Петрович Горбунов Architect of Soviet science administration, from Lenin's personal secretary to Academy permanent secretary
- Nestor Apollonovich Lakoba Нестор Аполлонович Лакоба Stalin's closest friend turned Beria's first victim: the red prince of Abkhazia
- Nikolai Matveyevich Goloded Николай Матвеевич Голодед The decade-long head of Byelorussia's government who signed the Academy purge, then stood in the same dock
- Turar Ryskulovich Ryskulov Турар Рыскулович Рыскулов The Kazakh Bolshevik strategist who argued for a unified Turkestan against Stalin's national delimitation
- Demyan Sergeyevich Korotchenko Демьян Сергеевич Коротченко Khrushchev's loyal executor: a peasant-born apparatchik who twice led Soviet Ukraine's government
- Ivan Sergeyevich Khokhlov Иван Сергеевич Хохлов The weaver who became wartime premier of the Russian republic
- Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin Николай Александрович Булганин The uniformed premier pushed aside by Khrushchev
- Faizulla Gubaidullayevich Khodzhayev Файзулла Губайдуллаевич Ходжаев Son of a Bukharan merchant who rose from the Jadid reform movement to become the first head of government of Soviet Uzbekistan
- Serafima Alexandrovna Ryzhova Серафима Александровна Рыжова Yezhov’s longtime secretary, source of the first deposition against him
- Konstantin Dmitriyevich Pamfilov Константин Дмитриевич Памфилов Wartime RSFSR acting premier who oversaw civilian evacuation amid the Moscow panic
- Pyotr Georgievich Lazutin Пётр Георгиевич Лазутин Chairman of the Leningrad City Executive Committee and one of the six executed in the Leningrad Affair
- Nikolai Alexandrovich Tikhonov Николай Александрович Тихонов The conservative premier of late Brezhnevism
- Boris Nikolayevich Chernousov Борис Николаевич Черноусов The RSFSR premier who rose in the Leningrad Affair's wake and fell at the 19th Party Congress
- Mikhail Sergeyevich Smirtyukov Михаил Сергеевич Смиртюков The non-Politburo power who was the institutional memory of the Soviet government for 25 years
- Mikhail Sergeyevich Solomentsev Михаил Сергеевич Соломенцев Brezhnev-era industrial technocrat who ran the Russian republic for 12 years
- Kirill Trofimovich Mazurov Кирилл Трофимович Мазуров Belarusian partisan leader who rose to Brezhnev's Politburo and served as USSR First Deputy Premier for thirteen years
- Alexander Pavlovich Lyashko Александр Павлович Ляшко The Donetsk-born Soviet economic manager who led Ukraine's government for 15 years through the Brezhnev era
- Tikhon Yakovlevich Kiselyov Тихон Яковлевич Киселёв Belarus's premier for nearly 20 years who rose to First Secretary and candidate Politburo member, then died of cancer two years later
- Vitaly Ivanovich Vorotnikov Виталий Иванович Воротников The last RSFSR premier who tried not to break Russia away
- Andrei Serafimovich Grachev Андрей Серафимович Грачёв An insider witness to the collapse of reform
- Alexander Mitrofanovich Obolensky Александр Митрофанович Оболенский The engineer who became the first person in Soviet history to run against a sitting General Secretary