People of the thaw and the stagnation 445

Non-Soviet revolutionary 1948–1969 ✕ Self-immolation

The Charles University student who set himself on fire against the Soviet occupation

On his deathbed, Palach told doctors and fellow students: 'My deed has fulfilled its goal.' He urged others never to repeat his act but to fight alive.

On 16 January 1969, five months into the Warsaw Pact occupation, Charles University student Jan Palach set himself on fire on Wenceslas Square to rouse Czechoslovak society from growing resignation. His letter demanded abolition of censorship and a ban on Zprávy, the Soviet occupation newspaper, and he signed it 'Torch Number One'; he died of his burns three days later. His funeral drew 200,000 people, the last mass expression of the reform spirit before normalization, and twenty years later, the protests marking his death helped ignite the Velvet Revolution.

Agriculture 1949–2019 ○ Natural causes

Full cavalier of the Order of Labour Glory, collective-farm mechanizer

Viktor Baklanov arrived from his native Siberian village at the Gigant collective farm in Ukraine as an eighteen-year-old mechanizer in 1967, and over 37 years on the same farm earned all three classes of the Order of Labour Glory to become a full cavalier.

Soviet agricultural worker and state figure who spent his career as a mechanizer at the Gigant collective farm in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, distinguishing himself in all-Union and republic-level harvest competitions. He became a full cavalier of the Order of Labour Glory, 3rd class (1975), 2nd class (1982), and 1st class (1987), and was elected a People's Deputy of the USSR (1989–1991) on the collective-farm quota during perestroika.

Science, nuclear and space development 1951–1986 ✕ Killed in the explosion, never recovered

The first victim of Chernobyl, standing in the pump hall when the reactor exploded, his body never recovered

Seconds before the explosion, he called a fellow pump operator: "I need to recharge the lower feed for 22… Okay, come on. So it's shortened, one sec…" Those were his last words.

Born in Kropyvnia, Kyiv Oblast, he began working at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1973 and became a senior operator of the main circulation pumps (GCN) in the reactor shop of Unit 4. On the night of 26 April 1986, during a safety test, he was in the northern GCN pump hall when two explosions ripped through the reactor building; he was killed instantly, buried under the debris. His body was never recovered and is presumed entombed inside the Sarcophagus; a memorial plaque marks the dividing wall between Units 3 and 4.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1951–1986 ✕ Died on the day of the disaster

A commissioning engineer caught in the Chernobyl disaster

Colleagues carried him from the ruined instrument room, but he never regained consciousness and died at 6 a.m. in the Pripyat hospital.

Vladimir Shashenok was a technician who commissioned and tested instrumentation and automation systems at nuclear power plants. While taking part in tests at Chernobyl Unit 4, he suffered spinal and rib fractures and severe thermal and radiation burns in the explosion; colleagues rescued him and carried him to the Pripyat hospital, where he died without regaining consciousness. He was one of the two people who died on the day of the disaster, marking how technical work at the plant placed ordinary workers at its immediate front line.

Science, nuclear and space development

The chief designer of the Volga inflatable airlock that made Leonov's spacewalk possible

On 18 March 1965, Alexei Leonov opened the hatch of the Volga airlock after it had inflated in orbit and stepped into space.

Boris Mikhailov was the chief designer at Engineering Plant 918 (later NPO Zvezda) in Tomilino near Moscow, where in mid-1964 he led the team that designed, built, and tested the Volga inflatable airlock in just nine months. A metal airlock would not fit the Voskhod spacecraft, so his flexible structure, folded for launch and inflated on orbit, was the only solution. On 18 March 1965, Alexei Leonov walked into space through this airlock in humanity's first spacewalk.

Science, nuclear and space development 1937–

Tereshkova's backup cosmonaut, the physically strongest candidate Kamanin judged too reserved for the spotlight

"We decided it was worth trying": after she and her fiancé, skydiving instructor Sergey Kiselev, discussed the secret-police recruitment offer at their favorite café until closing time.

A mechanical engineer and nationally ranked parachutist, she was one of five women selected in 1962 for the Soviet Union's first female cosmonaut group. She trained as Valentina Tereshkova's primary backup for the Vostok-6 flight; Nikolai Kamanin rated her the best physically among the candidates but judged her too introverted for the worldwide propaganda role the first woman in space would have to play. Later she prepared with Valentina Ponomaryova for what would have been the first all-female spacewalk on Voskhod, but the mission was cancelled; after the women's group disbanded in 1969, she spent her career as a researcher at the Cosmonaut Training Center and earned a Candidate of Psychological Sciences degree.

State security agencies ?–? ○ Natural causes

KGB security officer who commanded border troops under Andropov

After the 1969 Sino-Soviet border clashes, Soviet border troop strength nearly doubled within three years — an expansion Kozlovsky oversaw.

A Soviet KGB official who supervised the Chief Directorate of Border Troops (GUPV) under Yuri Andropov, playing a key role in tightening border enforcement and internal control during the Brezhnev era. His career embodies the institutionalised security function of the KGB in the late Soviet period.

Theorist 1959– ○ Living

The VPK's chronicler, the historian who dissected the Soviet military-industrial complex

He wrote: "The history of the Soviet VPK is a continuous cycle of war and preparation for war — and in that sense, the history of the entire Soviet economy."

A Russian historian who first systematically mapped the Soviet military-industrial complex. His 1996 monograph on the VPK in the 1920s–1950s remains foundational, and his collaboration with Cambridge scholars Barber and Harrison earned international recognition. Born to a peasant family in the Kirov region, he taught village school before studying at Moscow State University and joining the Institute of Marxism-Leninism in 1988. After the Soviet collapse he continued at the Russian Academy of Sciences, interspersed with advisory roles in the Presidential Administration and banking posts at Sberbank.

State security agencies 1934– → Defected, US citizen

Youngest KGB general turned its highest-ranking defector-critic

"I like Americans very much. But after seven months here I am convinced more than ever that the Communist system is better than yours." — 24-year-old KGB officer Kalugin, posing as a Fulbright scholar to Newsweek, 1959.

A KGB Major General who, as the youngest general in the agency's history, headed foreign counterintelligence (Directorate K) and directed Cold War espionage against the United States. He broke with the service in the late 1980s, publicly denouncing its corruption, backed Yeltsin during the 1991 coup, and emigrated to the US, where his memoirs exposed the inner workings of the KGB.

Writers and artists 1948– ○ Living

A writer who recorded the Soviet century through voices of testimony

“I've been searching for a literary method that would allow the closest possible approximation to real life.”

Svetlana Alexievich is a Belarusian writer and journalist who built a literature of collective memory by shaping testimonies from people who lived through war and social upheaval in Russian. War's Unwomanly Face and Zinky Boys brought the experiences of women and soldiers, often obscured by official heroic narratives, into view; Voices from Chernobyl recorded the human consequences of the 1986 disaster through survivors, bereaved families, and liquidators. Her work accepts the tension between documentary record and literary construction while placing individual voices at the center of historical understanding, and she received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1935– ○ Natural death

A reform-minded party official caught between control and negotiation

On the first day of the strike, he ordered an immediate collection of on-site information, saying the security service reports could not be trusted.

Tadeusz Fiszbach was a Polish United Workers' Party official and diplomat who led the party organization in Gdańsk from 1975. During the August 1980 strike, he opposed a violent solution and entered the first talks with worker representatives, remaining involved on the government side after Mieczysław Jagielski arrived. His conciliatory management nevertheless collided with the party's effort to contain an independent union, and martial law pushed him out of central politics. He later served as deputy marshal of the Sejm and as ambassador to Finland and Latvia.

Science, nuclear and space development 1937–

The textile-worker 'Chaika,' first woman in space

At the launch pad: "Hey, sky! Take off your hat!" — quoting Mayakovsky, June 16, 1963.

The first woman to fly solo in space: aboard Vostok-6 in 1963, the textile-worker 'Chaika' orbited Earth 49 times over 71 hours alone, a symbol of proletarian women's liberation through science. Later became the first woman general in Russian military history.

Socialist-bloc reform leader 1937– ○ Continued as a state cadre

A party cadre shaped by the youth movement

In July 1980, he joined the government delegation sent with Mieczysław Jagielski to negotiate with striking workers in Lublin.

Zdzisław Kurowski was a Polish politician who rose through the communist youth movement into the middle ranks of the party and state apparatus. His work connected agricultural, youth, and economic administration, first in Białystok and then in the PZPR Central Committee. When strikes spread through Lublin in July 1980, he was sent with Mieczysław Jagielski on the government delegation that negotiated over wages and living conditions. He later remained a manager of the Polish People’s Republic, serving in external economic posts.