People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 The paramount leader who redirected China through reform and opening
- Chen Yun 陈云 CCP elder who designed China's socialist economic system with his 'bird-cage economy' concept
- Bo Yibo 薄一波 First finance minister and central figure of the “61 renegades” case, who returned in the reform era as a conservative elder
- Xi Zhongxun 习仲勋 A founder of the northern Shaanxi base, purged for sixteen years, who opened Guangdong’s special economic zones
- Hu Yaobang 胡耀邦 The reformist general secretary who rehabilitated the Cultural Revolution’s victims and freed thought; his death sparked the 1989 protests
- Wan Li 万里 “If you want rice, look for Wan Li” — the reform pioneer who let Anhui’s peasants contract land to households
- Zhao Ziyang 赵紫阳 From Sichuan’s farm reforms to general secretary, the reformer who opposed martial law in 1989 and died under house arrest
- Hua Guofeng 华国锋 Mao’s designated successor — “With you in charge, I am at ease” — who arrested the Gang of Four and was eased out by Deng Xiaoping
- Jiang Zemin 江泽民 The “core” plucked from Shanghai in 1989 who led post-Tiananmen China into the market economy and the “Three Represents”
- Li Peng 李鹏 The premier who declared martial law in May 1989, called “the butcher of Beijing”; Zhou Enlai’s ward