People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Feliks Yakovlevich Kon Феликс Яковлевич Кон From Warsaw boy patriot to Comintern old revolutionary: the Pole who returned in the sealed train
- Iosif Stanislavovich Unshlikht Иосиф Станиславович Уншлихт From Cheka deputy to civil aviation: the revolution's all-weather organizer
- Bolesław Bierut Bolesław Bierut Stalin's most trusted East European proxy, architect of Poland's Stalinist system and guardian of the Oder–Neisse border
- Władysław Gomułka Władysław Gomułka The national communist who returned in the Polish October of 1956 to test a 'Polish road to socialism'
- Stefan Staszewski Stefan Staszewski The PZPR Warsaw first secretary whose unauthorized print run of 15,000 copies broke Khrushchev's Secret Speech out of party control