The last generation 226

Socialist-bloc leader 1933–2004 ○ Natural death

Party leader of late Soviet Kyrgyzstan

In the 1990 presidential selection, the legislature chose Askar Akayev over Masaliyev as the republic's first president.

Absamat Masaliyev was a Kyrgyz Soviet politician who rose from mining engineering to lead the Communist Party of Kirghizia. He directed the republic's party and state institutions amid late-Soviet political opening and ethnic conflict, seeking to preserve the existing socialist order. After losing the 1990 presidential selection to Askar Akayev, he continued in communist politics and parliamentary work.

Writers and artists 1933–2012 ○ Natural causes

First professional Koryak writer and USSR People's Deputy

After his 1989 election as a USSR People's Deputy, he refused a Moscow apartment and returned to his native Palana. 'Each of my books is a Confession for me,' he said.

The first professional Koryak writer, widely known by his pen name Koyanto (Коянто, 'Reindeer Man'), he was a foundational figure of Koryak literature. After graduating from the Northern Faculty of the Herzen Pedagogical Institute in Leningrad and the Higher Literary Courses at the Gorky Literary Institute, he devoted his life to rendering the lives, myths, and identity of the Koryak and other northern indigenous peoples in poetry and prose, beginning with his first collection Songs of Alney (1969). His prose work The Upper People Can Wait (1976) stirred controversy with its sharp critique of Soviet bureaucratic policies toward the North. In 1989 he was elected a USSR People's Deputy from the Koryak Autonomous Okrug, championing indigenous rights, and after the Soviet dissolution he continued to serve his homeland as chair of the human rights commission and adviser to the governor.

Socialist-bloc leader 1933–2014 ○ Natural death

The last Communist Party first secretary of Soviet Armenia

He left the CPSU Politburo because the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved.

Vladimir Movsisyan was a politician who rose through the agricultural and party administration of Soviet Armenia. In 1990 he became first secretary of the republic’s Communist Party and a member of the CPSU Politburo, but left the Politburo after the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved. After the Soviet collapse, he remained involved in refugee administration, defence, and agricultural policy, helping shape the institutions of independent Armenia.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1933–2016 ○ Died

The reformist Politburo member who called 1956 a 'popular uprising' and dismantled his own party's orthodoxy

In West Berlin he said the East German 'anti-fascist protective rampart' was a 'disgrace' that had to come down.

A reformist member of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party (MSZMP) Politburo and the ideological patron of the reformers. On 28 January 1989 he told radio listeners that the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was a 'popular uprising,' demolishing the party's foundational lie; in May that year, in West Berlin, he called the Berlin Wall a 'disgrace.' Together with Otto von Habsburg he sponsored the Pan-European Picnic in August 1989, opening the first crack in the Iron Curtain, and later stood as the Socialist Party's presidential candidate but was defeated.

Military and defence 1933–2017 ○ Natural death

An intelligence officer whose restraint mattered at the nuclear brink

Seeing unusual Soviet nuclear readiness, he advised against raising NATO's alert level.

Leonard H. Perroots was a U.S. Air Force general and military intelligence specialist whose career intersected with the management of nuclear danger late in the Cold War. As assistant chief of staff for intelligence, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, during Able Archer 83 in 1983, he observed unusual Soviet nuclear readiness but advised against raising NATO alert levels, avoiding a potentially dangerous escalation. He later directed the Defense Intelligence Agency and left a significant retrospective account of the war scare, illustrating how intelligence judgment can shape decisions at the nuclear brink.

Socialist-bloc leader 1933–2022 ○ Natural death

A Belarusian party organizer who sought continuity as the Union dissolved

After the 1991 coup failed, he called the State Committee's formation “a crime against the party.”

Anatoly Malofeyev was a Soviet and Belarusian politician who rose from industrial work through party administration to republican leadership. In the final years of perestroika, he led Belarus's Communist Party with a record of regional administration and a union-preserving party line, and supported the State Committee on the State of Emergency in 1991. After the coup's defeat, he sought to preserve the party organization and later worked in the parliamentary politics of independent Belarus.

Nationalities and federal management 1934–1993 ○ Natural death

A Soviet republican leader who asserted institutional authority in crisis

“A state of emergency was declared and troops were sent in without the republic’s consent.”

Elmira Kafarova was an Azerbaijani Soviet politician and diplomat who moved through education and foreign-affairs administration before leading the republic’s Supreme Soviet. In January 1990, she publicly protested the declaration of emergency in Baku and the entry of Soviet troops, stating that the decision had been taken while she was in Moscow and without her knowledge. Her institutional dissent, unusual within the Soviet republican leadership, illuminates how the nationalities crisis became a collision among republican institutions, a mass movement, and Union power.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1934–1997 ○ Natural causes

Architect of the 500 Days programme, radical reform economist who tried to convert the Soviet planned economy to the market in one leap

It is not a question now of saving socialism, communism or any other -ism, it is a question of saving our country, our people — at a Party Central Committee plenum, 1990

Born near Leningrad. A student of Kantorovich, he advanced input-output modelling and optimal planning theory, became a full academician (1987), and Academician-Secretary of the Economics Department (1989). In 1990, under Gorbachev and Yeltsin's joint mandate, he led the working group that drafted the '500 Days' programme for market transition, a radical plan directly opposing Abalkin's gradualism. Not adopted at Union level but partially implemented in Russia, it became the intellectual foundation for his student Gaidar's 1992 shock therapy. After the collapse he headed the 'Reforma' foundation, helped found the United Democratic Party, and served as honorary president of Spartak Moscow.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1934–2015 ○ Natural causes

The historian who called the conservative majority 'aggressively obedient'

27 May 1989, at the First Congress of People's Deputies, to the conservative deputies: "You here make up an aggressively obedient majority. … We are creating a Stalinist-Brezhnevite Supreme Soviet."

A historian who coined the phrase 'aggressively obedient majority' to describe the conservative bloc at the First Congress of People's Deputies in 1989. A scholar of the French Annales school, he led the de-Stalinization of Soviet historiography as rector of the Moscow State Institute of History and Archives (1986–1991) and served as co-chair of the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Sakharov and Yeltsin, driving democratic reform. In 1991 he founded the Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH), carving an independent intellectual space out of a former Party school, and spent his final decades openly criticizing the authoritarian drift of both Yeltsin and Putin.

Formal heads of state 1934–2022 ○ Died in Munich

The communist propagandist who became Ukraine's first president and signed the Soviet Union out of existence

It was a long road we walked to Belavezha. It was not by accident; it was our deliberate choice because we had no other option.

A party man who spent three decades climbing the propaganda and ideology apparatus of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Kravchuk pivoted to 'national communism' after becoming chairman of the Supreme Soviet in 1990. At the Novo-Ogaryovo negotiations he insisted on a confederation, not a federation, and delayed the signing of the new Union Treaty until September; after the August 1991 coup collapsed, he presided over Ukraine's Declaration of Independence on 24 August. Elected Ukraine's first president on 1 December 1991, he signed the Belavezha Accords with Yeltsin and Shushkevich a week later, formally ending the Soviet Union. His presidency saw the surrender of Ukraine's nuclear arsenal and a deep economic slump, but he stepped down after a peaceful electoral defeat and remained active in politics as a deputy.

Socialist-bloc leader 1934–2022 ○ COVID-19 complications

The nuclear physicist who demanded Chernobyl truth, hosted the meeting that dissolved the USSR, and called Gorbachev to tell him

Gorbachev asked, 'Have you thought about the international reaction?' I answered, 'Yeltsin is on the phone with Bush right now. Bush seems to be in favor!'

A nuclear physicist from Minsk, he was a professor at Belarusian State University and a specialist in radio electronics. In 1986, as a member of the Chernobyl investigation commission, he demanded the truth be made public against the Soviet cover-up and was removed, an experience that propelled him into politics. As chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet in 1991, he hosted Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk at the Viskuli hunting lodge for what was billed as a discussion of oil and gas supplies; when the conversation turned to dissolving the USSR, he was the first to say he would sign, and he was the one who telephoned Gorbachev to inform him the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The first head of state of independent Belarus, he was ousted in 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko's corruption allegations and spent his final decades in Minsk as an unyielding opposition elder.

Culture and literary control 1934–2023 ○ Natural causes

Propaganda-trained culture minister who executed glasnost-era cultural liberalization

In June 1989, the USSR Supreme Soviet reviewed Premier Ryzhkov's proposed cabinet and rejected Zakharov's renomination as culture minister. For the first time in decades, the rubber-stamp legislature told a sitting minister he was unqualified and sent him packing.

Trained as an economist, he rose through the Leningrad party organization's propaganda and agitation apparatus to reach Moscow, where Gorbachev appointed him Minister of Culture in 1986. His tenure oversaw a decisive shift in Soviet cultural policy: the publication of previously banned books, the relaxation of film censorship, and expanded autonomy for artistic creation. He personally mediated the acrimonious split of the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1989 the newly empowered Supreme Soviet rejected his renomination, the first major case of the legislature exercising real confirmation power over a sitting minister. After leaving office, he served as deputy premier of the Russian republic and later wrote memoirs judging the Gorbachev era a 'reign of missed opportunities.'

Scholar 1934–2023 ○ Natural death

A liberal economist who helped design the transition from a planned to a market economy

Yevgeny Yasin was an economist who developed reform proposals for moving the late Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. As a co-author in the Shatalin group’s 500 Days programme, he helped formulate a blueprint for rapid market transition, then worked in the reforming Russian state after the Soviet collapse. As Yeltsin’s economy minister, he represented the liberal reform line while confronting disputes over the transition’s social costs and the state’s capacity. He later shaped economic policy education and public debate through the Higher School of Economics and the Liberal Mission Foundation.

Party Secretariat and cadres 1935–2006 ↓ Removed & detained 1991, natural causes

The party apparatus gatekeeper who managed Gorbachev's documents, then betrayed him

On August 18, 1991, Boldin flew to Foros alongside Baklanov, Varennikov, and Shenin to deliver an ultimatum to Gorbachev — the man whose paper flow he had managed for a decade.

An economist by training who graduated from the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy and the CC Academy of Social Sciences, he worked in the Central Committee apparatus from 1961 and later served as agricultural department head and economic commentator at Pravda. In 1981 he became Gorbachev's assistant, and in 1987 he was appointed head of the CC General Department, the office controlling the entire document flow of the Politburo and Secretariat, adding the post of presidential chief of staff in 1990. During the August 1991 coup, however, he sided with the State Emergency Committee and was one of the four emissaries who flew to Foros to confront Gorbachev; arrested after the coup's failure, he was detained and then amnestied in 1994.

State security agencies 1935–2012 ✕ Suicide

Last chief of Soviet foreign intelligence

On August 19, 1991, the day the GKChP coup began, Shebarshin 'demonstratively' played tennis all day.

The last chief of the KGB First Chief Directorate, a career officer who built decades of field experience in Pakistan, India, and Iran. He kept his distance from the August 1991 coup, served a single day as acting KGB chairman after its failure before Boris Yeltsin blocked him, and later chronicled Soviet foreign intelligence's final chapter in his memoirs.

Socialist-bloc leader 1935–2020 ○ Died

Ukrainian SSR head of state during Chernobyl who pushed the evacuation of 526,000 children from Kyiv against Moscow's resistance

Recalling the interior deputy minister's report on the morning of 26 April 1986: 'The fire was put out, everything is fine. The people? Some are having a wedding, some are gardening, some are fishing in the Pripyat River.'

As Chairwoman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR during the Chernobyl disaster, she defied Moscow's directives and oversaw the evacuation of 526,000 children from Kyiv and contaminated zones in just five days. Born the daughter of a miner in Kryvyi Rih, she rose through Komsomol and the deputy ministry of education to become the republic's formal head of state in 1985, spending her tenure navigating between central information control and the realities on the ground. In 1989 she refused to sign the resolution banning the People's Movement of Ukraine (Rukh), and after retirement led children's and women's welfare foundations while maintaining a sympathetic view of the Soviet system and a critical stance toward independent Ukraine.

Science, nuclear and space development 1935–2021 ○ 10-year sentence 1988, served 5, freed 1991

The first director of Chernobyl who built the plant and was held responsible for its catastrophe

In the station courtyard I saw pieces of graphite under my feet, but I still could not imagine that the reactor had been destroyed.

Born in Tashkent as the eldest son of Russian workers, he studied energy engineering and built his career at thermal power plants. In 1970 he was appointed construction manager and first director of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which he led for sixteen years; plagued by construction delays and defective materials, he submitted his resignation, but a Party supervisor tore it up. Dismissed immediately after the 1986 disaster, he was sentenced to ten years in 1988; after his release he continued working on Chernobyl liquidation until his death in Kyiv in 2021.

Science, nuclear and space development 1935–2024 ○ Natural causes

Soviet physicist who linked fusion science, Chernobyl, and nuclear disarmament

Less than a month after absorbing radiation at Chernobyl, Velikhov chaired an international meeting on nuclear test-ban verification — turning disaster into a disarmament opening.

Soviet physicist who pioneered plasma physics for controlled fusion and MHD power. His 1959 thesis discovered magnetorotational instability, now foundational to astrophysics; in 1962 he identified electrothermal instability. He led the Soviet controlled-fusion program from 1973 and was Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1978–1991), bridging the Kurchatov Institute and the Academy. During Chernobyl (1986) he served as Gorbachev's science advisor for reactor containment, then led science diplomacy for nuclear disarmament. After the Soviet collapse he sustained the Kurchatov Institute and became founding chairman of ITER, building the framework for joint US-Soviet-European-Japanese fusion research.

Socialist-bloc leader 1935–2024 ○ Natural causes

The final head of Soviet Moldavia's Communist Party

He called the 1991 banning of the Communist Party “an illegitimate act.”

Grigore Eremei was a Moldavian party and state official whose career reached its decisive moment at the end of the Soviet system. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Moldavia in 1991, he occupied the republic's leading party post while the Union was breaking apart and Moldova moved toward independence. After the party was dissolved, he continued in public life as a Moldovan diplomat and parliamentarian, linking a Soviet political career to the institutions of the independent republic.

Science, nuclear and space development 1936–1988 ✕ Suicide

The Kurchatov chemist who led science at Chernobyl, then left the full truth on tapes before hanging himself

"I did not lie in Vienna… but I did not tell the full truth."

Valery Legasov was a Soviet inorganic chemist and first deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, who arrived at the Chernobyl disaster site on the evening of 26 April 1986 as the scientific leader of the government commission. He proposed dropping boron and sand into the burning reactor, spent a total of 60 days on site, and later presented a five-hour report to the IAEA in Vienna that drew international attention but stopped short of revealing the RBMK reactor's full design flaws. On 27 April 1988, the day after the disaster's second anniversary, he hanged himself in his Moscow apartment; the audio tapes he recorded beforehand exposed the cover-ups and systemic failures of the Soviet nuclear establishment and became a primary source for historians.

Foreign affairs 1936–2010 ○ Died of cancer

Gromyko protégé and arms negotiator remembered for the "Walk in the Woods"

On July 16, 1982, Kvitsinsky and Paul Nitze left the formal Geneva arms talks for an unofficial walk in the woods, sketching a compromise on intermediate-range nuclear forces. Both governments rejected it — but the conversation became Lee Blessing's Broadway play "A Walk in the Woods."

A leading Soviet Germanist and protégé of Andrei Gromyko, Yuli Kvitsinsky served on the front lines of Soviet diplomacy toward the West for over three decades. As head of the Soviet delegation to the Geneva INF negotiations from 1981, his famous "walk in the woods" with American negotiator Paul Nitze in July 1982, an informal attempt to sketch a compromise on intermediate-range nuclear missiles, became an iconic Cold War moment that later inspired a Broadway play. As Ambassador to West Germany (1986–1990), he helped prepare the "Two Plus Four" treaty framework for German reunification, and as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1991 he oversaw European security affairs. After a post-Soviet hiatus, he returned as Russia's ambassador to Norway (1997–2003) and served as a CPRF deputy in the State Duma until his death.

Party leadership 1936–2013 ○ Died of cancer

Last First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party on the eve of the Soviet dissolution

Addressing the Central Committee upon his election as First Secretary in June 1990: "We will never return to the days when the party monopolised power. But neither will we allow Ukraine to become a testing ground for political experiments."

A mechanical engineer by training, Gurenko rose from technologist to factory director at the Donetsk Machine-Building Plant before turning to party work in 1976. He served as secretary of the Donetsk Oblast Party Committee and deputy chairman of the Ukrainian SSR Council of Ministers, and took part in the disaster response as deputy chairman of the state commission after the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Backed by Gorbachev, he became First Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee and a full member of the CPSU Politburo in June 1990, only to resign in August 1991 when party activity was banned after the failed coup. In independent Ukraine he returned to parliament and chaired the economic policy committee, helping reorganize the former communist political current.

Party Secretariat and cadres 1936–2014 ○ Natural causes

Institutional backbone of the Gorbachev presidency, from General Department chief to head of the Presidential Apparatus

The day Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, he called Revenko in and joked, 'Want to see a Soviet millionaire?' The two then allocated the entire million-plus dollars to children's oncology centres and Chernobyl areas. When done, Gorbachev smiled: 'Well, no more millionaire.'

A Ukrainian Soviet apparatchik who served as head of the CPSU Central Committee General Department and chief of the USSR Presidential Apparatus, forming the institutional core of perestroika governance. Rising through Komsomol and party bodies in Odessa and Kiev, he was called to Moscow in 1984 and became head of the General Department in 1985, controlling the Central Committee's document flow and functioning as Gorbachev's closest staff officer. With the creation of the presidency in 1990, he served on the Presidential Council and then as head of the Presidential Apparatus, managing the shift from party to presidential administration. After the USSR's dissolution he was vice president of the Gorbachev Foundation before returning to Kiev.

Military and defence 1936–2014 ○ Died, prolonged illness

The general who gave the operational order to clear Rustaveli Avenue

'Not a single demonstrator died from a shovel. That was invented by Mr Sobchak together with the Georgian fascists.'

As commander of the Transcaucasus Military District, he gave the operational order to clear the independence rally on Tbilisi's Rustaveli Avenue on 9 April 1989, an action that left 21 civilians dead. The Sobchak commission named him, yet the chain of command ran upward to Defence Minister Yazov and the republican party leadership, and Rodionov became the only figure publicly held to account within that structure. He had previously commanded the 40th Army in Afghanistan (1985–86), and in 1996 Yeltsin made him Russia's Defence Minister, only to sack him ten months later when he refused to subordinate the army's budget to the government's reform plans.