People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity
Any Political and party leadership 1 Government and administration 1
Affiliation(set)

Most people

Any Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 162 Soviet Unionstate 127 Russian Federation state institutionsstate 8 Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) 8 Lithuania state institutionsstate 3 United Russia 3 Estonia state institutionsstate 2 Latvia state institutionsstate 2 Our Home – Russia 2

All 20 affiliations

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan state institutionsstate 1

Belarus

Belarus state institutionsstate 1

Estonia

Estonia state institutionsstate 2 Popular Front of Estonia (Rahvarinne) 2

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan state institutionsstate 1

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan state institutionsstate 1

Latvia

Latvia state institutionsstate 2 Popular Front of Latvia 1

Lithuania

Lithuania state institutionsstate 3 Sąjūdis (Reform Movement of Lithuania) 2

Moldova

Moldova state institutionsstate 1

Russia

Russian Federation state institutionsstate 8 Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) 8 United Russia 3 Our Home – Russia 2

Soviet Union

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks 162 Soviet Unionstate 127

Ukraine

Ukraine state institutionsstate 1

United States

United States state institutionsstate 1

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan state institutionsstate 1
Position
Any Socialist-bloc reform leader 1 Marxism and communism 1
Citizenship
Any Russia 1 Soviet Union 1
Background
Any Russia 2
Era(set)
Any

People of the Soviet Union

The last generation1985–1991 2

People of the wider world

The Cold War and decolonization1945–현재 1
Our Home – Russia The last generation 1985–1991 Clear all
GlossaryOur Home – Russia

Anatoly Aleksandrovich Sobchak

Анатолий Александрович Собчак
Russian Federation state institutions Socialist-bloc reform leader Russian Russian 1937–2000 ○ Heart attack

Constitutional Assembly chairman and first elected mayor of Saint Petersburg

"Volodya, just don't turn to bronze" — last words to Putin, February 2000

Anatoly Sobchak was a legal scholar and democratic reformer who became the first democratically elected mayor of Saint Petersburg (1991–1996) and co-authored the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation as chairman of the Constitutional Assembly. A popular Leningrad State University law professor whose students included Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, he was elected to the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989 and co-chaired the Inter-Regional Deputies Group alongside Andrei Sakharov and Boris Yeltsin. During the August 1991 coup he organized resistance in Leningrad, negotiating with the military commander to keep troops off the streets and rallying 200,000 citizens on Palace Square. Corruption allegations forced him into exile in Paris from 1997 until Putin, then prime minister, secured his return in 1999.

Career timeline
  • 1989–1990USSR People's Deputy
  • 1989–1990Co-chair, Inter-Regional Deputies Group (with Sakharov & Yeltsin)
  • 1990–1991Chairman, Leningrad City Council
  • 1991–1996Mayor of Saint Petersburg
  • 1993Chairman, Constitutional Assembly (co-drafted Russian Constitution)
  • 1997–1999Exile in Paris

Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin

Виктор Степанович Черномырдин
Soviet Union Soviet communism Soviet Union Russia 1938–2010 ○ Natural causes

Last Soviet gas minister who turned his ministry into Gazprom

When the Orsk party committee sought to pull him from the factory floor into the apparatus, Chernomyrdin later recalled: 'I felt I was a production man and wanted to stay at my native factory. But life decided otherwise.' He considered himself a production man, not a party functionary, all his life.

Born into an Orenburg Cossack family, Chernomyrdin rose from mechanic at the Orsk oil refinery to director of the Orenburg gas-processing plant, and in 1985 became the Soviet Union's Minister of the Gas Industry. While minister he also served on the CPSU Central Committee (1986–1990) and as a deputy in both the USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets, emerging as a central figure in late-Soviet energy administration. In 1989 he abolished his own ministry and transformed it into Gazprom, the state gas concern that would become the world's largest gas monopoly, a pioneering conversion of a Soviet planned-economy ministry into a state-owned corporation that became the cornerstone of Russia's post-Soviet economy.

Career timeline
  • 1960–1973Mechanic and operator at Orsk refinery, deputy chief engineer and director of Orenburg gas-processing plant
  • 1973–1982Industrial administrator in Orsk party committee and CPSU CC heavy industry department
  • 1982–1985Deputy Minister of Gas Industry of the USSR, head of Tyumengazprom
  • 1985–1989Minister of Gas Industry of the USSR
  • 1989–1992Founded state gas concern Gazprom, first chairman of the board
  • 1984–1990Deputy of USSR and RSFSR Supreme Soviets, member of CPSU Central Committee