People of the Revolution and the USSR

Hungary Socialist-bloc reform leader 1917–1958 ✕ Executed

A soldier caught between negotiation and armed resistance

“I have to go there, even if it costs me my life, because the country expects my assistance.”

Pál Maléter was a Hungarian officer who became a prisoner of war in the Second World War, joined the anti-German struggle, and entered the Communist Party after 1945. During the 1956 Revolution, he was sent to the Kilián Barracks, agreed to a ceasefire with insurgents, and joined their defense while helping negotiate between soldiers and civilian armed groups. As defense minister in Imre Nagy's government, he went to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet forces, was arrested, and was executed with Nagy in 1958. Rehabilitated in 1989, he was reburied as one of the revolution's martyrs.

Romania Socialist-bloc reform leader 1928–2016 ○ Convicted: 15 yrs for manslaughter; paroled 2014

The Romanian general who switched sides on the morning of the revolution and brought down a dictator

On the morning of 22 December, he asked a trusted doctor to put a plaster cast on his perfectly healthy left leg, hoping to avoid being sent back to crush the revolution.

A Romanian communist artillery officer, he rose to deputy defense minister by 1986. On 22 December 1989, moments after Ceaușescu appointed him defense minister, he issued the order withdrawing troops to barracks, then organized the dictator's helicopter escape before defecting to the revolution. On 25 December he organized and oversaw the drumhead trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu. After the revolution he served as defense minister and national economy minister, but in 2008 was convicted of aggravated manslaughter for the Timișoara crackdown and sentenced to fifteen years.

Soviet Union Socialist-bloc reform leader 1947–

Russia's only vice president: stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks

During the shelling of the White House on 4 October 1993, Rutskoy shouted live on radio: "If the pilots can hear me, get your combat machines up! This gang has settled in the Kremlin.… Save the perishing democracy!"

One of the last Heroes of the Soviet Union and the only vice president Russia ever had. A combat pilot who flew 485 sorties in the Su-25 over Afghanistan, was shot down twice and captured, and received the Hero of the Soviet Union title in 1988. Elected RSFSR vice president in 1991 as Yeltsin's running mate, he helped organize the White House defense during the August coup, delivered a letter to Lukyanov demanding a medical examination of Gorbachev, and persuaded Patriarch Alexy II to declare the Church's support for Yeltsin. He later broke with Yeltsin over economic policy and power concentration, sided with the parliament, and was proclaimed acting president during the 1993 constitutional crisis before being arrested when tanks shelled the White House.