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People of the Revolution and the USSR
Activity(set)
Affiliation
Position(set)
Citizenship
Background
Era
People of the Soviet Union
People of the Chinese revolution and the People’s Republic
People of the wider world
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Karl Marx Karl Marx
Author of Capital and leader of the First International
Scholarship and theory
1818–1883
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Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels
Marx's co-author and patron; author of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Scholarship and theory
1820–1895
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Franz Erdmann Mehring Franz Mehring
The elder theoretician of German Marxism: historian, literary critic, and Spartacus League co-founder
Scholarship and theory · Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)
1846–1919
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Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky Михаил Иванович Туган-Барановский
From Legal Marxism to ethical socialism: the economist who pioneered business cycle theory
Scholarship and theory · Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets)
1865–1919
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Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr Николай Яковлевич Марр
Creator of the Japhetic theory who, as the sole Imperial academician to join the Communist Party, dominated Soviet linguistics for decades
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1865–1934
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W. E. B. Du Bois W. E. B. Du Bois
"Capitalism cannot reform itself": father of the modern Negro liberation movement who joined the Communist Party at 93
Scholarship and theory · Communist Party USA (CPUSA)
1868–1963
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David Borisovich Riazanov Давид Борисович Рязанов
Founder of the Marx-Engels Institute and independent Marxist who never stopped disagreeing
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1870–1938
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Yuri Mikhailovich Steklov Юрий Михайлович Стеклов
First Soviet editor of Izvestia, architect of the Soviet constitution
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1873–1941
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Yevgeny Viktorovich Tarle Евгений Викторович Тарле
Historian of Napoleon who won world renown, survived Academic Case exile, and returned under Stalin's personal protection
Scholarship and theory
1874–1955
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Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky Владимир Иванович Невский
The revolutionary-historian who seized the railways in October and wrote the party's history
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Union
1876–1937
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Alexander Andreyevich Svechin Александр Андреевич Свечин
“The Russian Clausewitz”. Theorist of strategy and operational art
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1878–1938
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Emelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky Емельян Михайлович Ярославский
The Party's Chief Atheist, Called 'the Soviet Priest'
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1878–1943
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Vladimir Viktorovich Adoratsky Владимир Викторович Адоратский
IMEL director and the first Marxist philosopher to publicly anoint Stalin as a theorist
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1878–1945
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Evgeny Samuilovich Varga Varga Jenő
The Marxist economist who predicted the Great Depression, and was punished for arguing capitalism could adapt
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Union
1879–1964
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Eero Haapalainen Eero Haapalainen
Trade union leader who commanded the Finnish Red Guards from January to March 1918
Military command · Communist Party of Finland (SKP)
1880–1937
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Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev Платон Михайлович Керженцев
Proletkult theorist who became architect of Stalin-era arts censorship
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1881–1940
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Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev Алексей Капитонович Гастев
From proletarian poetry to the science of labour: founder of Soviet social engineering who trained half a million workers
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1882–1939
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Nikolai Kakurin Николай Какурин
Red Army commander who was chief of staff of the Tambov suppression and became a historian of the Civil War
Military command · Soviet Union
1883–1936
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Sofia Aleksandrovna Yanovskaya Софья Александровна Яновская
Bolshevik mathematician who resurrected mathematical logic in the Soviet Union
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1896–1966
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Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova Анна Михайловна Панкратова
Leading historian of the working class who drove destalinization in scholarship: first woman full academician in Soviet historical studies
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1897–1957
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Jan Ernestovich Sten Ян Эрнестович Стэн
Marxist philosopher who went from Stalin's Hegel tutor to Right Opposition conspirator
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1899–1937
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Boris Aleksandrovich Chagin Борис Александрович Чагин
The doyen of Soviet Marxist history of philosophy who alone survived his institute's purge
Scholarship and theory
1899–1987
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Nikolai Karotamm Nikolai Karotamm
First Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party in 1944–1950, removed in 1950 for allegedly shielding “bourgeois nationalists”
Political and party leadership · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1901–1969
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Sergei Ivanovich Tiulpanov Сергей Иванович Тюльпанов
Head of SMAD’s Propaganda Administration who drove the founding of the SED and the Sovietisation of eastern Germany
Ideology and propaganda · Soviet Union
1901–1984
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Fred Oelßner Fred Oelßner
Economist and the SED’s chief ideologue until 1958, when he was expelled from the Politburo in the Schirdewan affair
Ideology and propaganda · Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED)
1903–1977
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Alexei Nikolayevich Leontiev Алексей Николаевич Леонтьев
Founder of activity theory who laid the institutional foundations of Marxist psychology
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1903–1979
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Mikhail Alexandrovich Lifshitz Михаил Александрович Лифшиц
Builder of Marxist aesthetics who defended absolute truth and beauty against relativism
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1905–1983
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Isaac Deutscher Isaac Deutscher
Marxist historian of Trotsky's definitive biography, who coined the 'non-Jewish Jew'
Scholarship and theory · Communist Party of Poland (KPP)
1907–1967
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Wu Han 吴晗
Ming historian and Beijing vice-mayor whose play Hai Rui Dismissed from Office became the fuse of the Cultural Revolution
Scholarship and theory · Communist Party of China
1909–1969
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Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov Александр Михайлович Прохоров
Nobel-winning laser co-inventor who helmed the Great Soviet Encyclopedia for three decades
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1916–2002
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Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg Виталий Лазаревич Гинзбург
From the H-bomb's 'second idea' to the Nobel Prize: a century-spanning theoretical physicist
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1916–2009
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Eric Hobsbawm Eric Hobsbawm
Historian of revolution’s social foundations and later memory
Scholarship and theory · Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)
1917–2012
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Nikolai Nikolayevich Inozemtsev Николай Николаевич Иноземцев
Intellectual architect of Brezhnev-era détente
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1921–1982
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Robert W. Davies Robert W. Davies
The British economic historian who built the seven-volume chronicle of Soviet industrialisation
Scholarship and theory · Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB)
1925–2021
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Fyodor Mikhailovich Burlatsky Фёдор Михайлович Бурлацкий
Architect of Khrushchev's reforms and pioneer of Soviet political science
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1927–2014
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Oleg Timofeyevich Bogomolov Олег Тимофеевич Богомолов
An economist of socialist economic integration and reform
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1927–2015
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Sergo Anastasi Mikoyan Серго Анастасович Микоян
A historian who reconstructed the Cold War’s hidden record
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1929–2010
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Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili Мераб Константинович Мамардашвили
The philosopher who spoke consciousness aloud
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1930–1990
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Alexander Yevgenyevich Bovin Александр Евгеньевич Бовин
Brezhnev's foreign-affairs speechwriter who put détente into prose, then became its sharpest television commentator
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1930–2004
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Nikolai Yakovlevich Petrakov Николай Яковлевич Петраков
An economist who carried price theory into the transition to a market economy
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1937–2014
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Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva Нина Александровна Андреева
The Leningrad chemistry lecturer whose 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' became the manifesto of anti-perestroika forces
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1938–2020
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Walter Rodney Walter Rodney
Guyanese Marxist historian who demonstrated how Europe underdeveloped Africa, scholar-activist of the Pan-African revolution
Scholarship and theory
1942–1980
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David Kotz David M. Kotz
A political economist of Soviet system change
Scholarship and theory
1946–
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Aleksandr Vladimirovich Pyzhikov Александр Владимирович Пыжиков
A historian of the 1950s-60s USSR and the Russian church schism
Scholarship and theory · Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
1965–2019