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Social movements and organizing
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
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GlossarySoviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
- Elena Dmitriyevna Stasova Елена Дмитриевна Стасова The early Secretariat’s practical organizer
- Semyon Ivanovich Balashov Семён Иванович Балашов Bolshevik leader of Ivanovo-Voznesensk who built the first soviet alongside Frunze during the 1905 general strike
- Mikhail Fyodorovich Vladimirsky Михаил Фёдорович Владимирский Old Bolshevik who watched over the Party's books for a quarter-century
- Lidia Aleksandrovna Fotieva Лидия Александровна Фотиева Lenin's personal secretary and conduit of his final political struggle
- Nikolay Nikolayevich Krestinsky Николай Николаевич Крестинский An early Bolshevik responsible secretary later put in the dock
- Matvei Fyodorovich Shkiryatov Матвей Фёдорович Шкирятов The eraser poised over party rolls for thirty years
- Grigory Yeremeyevich Evdokimov Григорий Еремеевич Евдокимов Zinoviev's right hand who saved Petrograd, then vanished at Stalin's first show trial
- Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov Яков Михайлович Свердлов The organizer who linked party and state after October
- Ivan Ivanovich Korotkov Иван Иванович Коротков From party control to the art museum: an icon-painter Bolshevik
- Sergei Mironovich Kirov Сергей Миронович Киров The Leningrad organizer whose murder became the pretext for the Great Terror
- Nikolai Aleksandrovich Uglanov Николай Александрович Угланов The Right Opposition's institutional anchor in Moscow
- Pavel Petrovich Postyshev Павел Петрович Постышев Stalin's famine envoy and terror executor called the 'hangman of Ukraine', executed in 1939
- Ivan Pavlovich Tovstukha Иван Павлович Товстуха Stalin's first secretary, keeper of his archive and author of his first biography
- Stanislav Vikentyevich Kosior Станислав Викентьевич Косиор The Ukrainian party boss who denied the famine, felled by Stalin's bullet
- Alexandra Vasilievna Artyukhina Александра Васильевна Артюхина The only woman on the Orgburo and Secretariat, who led the Zhenotdel at its peak
- Martemyan Nikitich Ryutin Мартемьян Никитич Рютин Right Oppositionist who authored the 'Ryutin Platform': the last organized intra-party call to remove Stalin
- Alexander Nikolayevich Poskrebyshev Александр Николаевич Поскрёбышев Stalin's shadow: secretary who filtered all information, drafted the 1936 Constitution & Short Course, ran the Special Sector for 25 years
- Karl Yanovich Bauman Карл Янович Бауман A party organiser who drove collectivisation forward
- Mendel Markovich Khataevich Мендель Маркович Хатаевич The party secretary who warned Molotov that grain seizures would leave nobody to plant, shot four years later
- Vladimir Ivanovich Polonsky Владимир Иванович Полонский Bolshevik Orgotdel chief and trade-union officer purged in 1937
- Klavdiya Ivanovna Nikolaeva Клавдия Ивановна Николаева The printworker who rose to the Central Committee: a proletarian woman revolutionary
- Jānis Eduardovich Kalnbērziņš Ян Эдуардович Калнберзинь Founding leader of Soviet Latvia and the longest-serving republican First Secretary among the Baltic republics
- Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich Лазарь Моисеевич Каганович 'Iron Lazar', Stalin's hard-line enforcer
- Iosif Mikhailovich Vareikis Иосиф Михайлович Варейкис Regional party boss of collectivization and the Great Terror who heard Stalin ask why there were so many spies on his watch
- Boris Petrovich Sheboldaev Борис Петрович Шеболдаев Party master of the Azov-Black Sea krai, brought down on the eve of the Great Terror
- Andrei Andreyevich Andreyev Андрей Андреевич Андреев The organization man who sat in the Politburo for 20 years, the CC secretary most often dispatched to purge the regions
- Pyotr Ivanovich Smorodin Пётр Иванович Смородин The worker-Bolshevik who built the Komsomol's mass base and made 'study' its watchword
- Arvīds Yanovich Pelše Арвид Янович Пельше Brezhnev-era guardian of party discipline and Latvian-born Politburo member
- Boris Georgiyevich Bazhanov Борис Георгиевич Бажанов The only defector from Stalin's Secretariat, chronicler of Politburo secrets
- Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov Георгий Максимилианович Маленков The first loser of the age when losers stopped dying
- Nikolai Pavlovich Chaplin Николай Павлович Чаплин The boy commissar who built the Komsomol into the party's youth-training apparatus
- Vasily Mikhailovich Andrianov Василий Михайлович Андрианов A Stalin-era regional party boss who ran wartime Sverdlovsk, then rebuilt Leningrad after the Leningrad Affair purges
- Panteleimon Kondratyevich Ponomarenko Пантелеймон Кондратьевич Пономаренко Stalin's trusted partisan chief who orchestrated the Rail War, pushed aside at the threshold of succession
- Aleksandr Vasilyevich Kosarev Александр Васильевич Косарев The young Komsomol chief who carried out the Great Purge and was then consumed by it
- Pyotr Sergeyevich Popkov Пётр Сергеевич Попков Wartime steward of besieged Leningrad, first victim of the Leningrad Affair
- Nikolai Ilyich Belyaev Николай Ильич Беляев Khrushchev loyalist who defended him in 1957, undone by the Temirtau riots
- Averky Borisovich Aristov Аверкий Борисович Аристов Presidium member born a fisherman's son, party cadres chief who loved to fish
- Yakov Fyodorovich Kapustin Яков Фёдорович Капустин The engineer who ran Leningrad's industry as second city secretary, shot as a lead defendant in the Leningrad Affair
- Alexei Alexandrovich Kuznetsov Алексей Александрович Кузнецов Postwar No. 2 in the Party Secretariat, purged in the Leningrad Affair
- Ivan Vasilyevich Spiridonov Иван Васильевич Спиридонов Khrushchev-era Leningrad party boss who proposed removing Stalin's body from the Mausoleum and stumbled over the apparatus's loyalty test
- Nikolai Mikhailovich Pegov Николай Михайлович Пегов Cadres chief pushed from late-Stalin Secretariat into diplomacy
- Georgy Mikhailovich Popov Георгий Михайлович Попов The Moscow party boss who rebuilt the postwar capital and fell in the succession struggle
- Vladimir Nikiforovich Malin Владимир Никифорович Малин 11-year keeper of the party's central document flow
- Andrei Pavlovich Kirilenko Андрей Павлович Кириленко Brezhnev-era senior secretary for cadres
- Frol Romanovich Kozlov Фрол Романович Козлов The second secretary whose stroke opened the Brezhnev era
- Aleksey Illarionovich Kirichenko Алексей Илларионович Кириченко Khrushchev-era secretary for party appointments
- Vladimir Fyodorovich Promyslov Владимир Фёдорович Промыслов The 23-year mayor who built the Brezhnev-era face of Moscow
- Iosif Mikhailovich Turko Иосиф Михайлович Турко A Kuznetsov appointee to the Yaroslavl obkom who was sentenced to 15 years instead of death in the Leningrad Affair
- Konstantin Viktorovich Rusakov Константин Викторович Русаков Brezhnev's secretary who ran party-to-party diplomacy with the socialist bloc
- Aleksandr Petrovich Rudakov Александр Петрович Рудаков Heavy-industry secretary in Khrushchev's bifurcated industrial Secretariat