The journalist who saved the Daugava River and led the Latvian Popular Front
'Standing up for the Daugava meant the same thing as standing up for an independent Latvia. The fight against the Daugavpils HPP was the start of our revolution.'
A Latvian journalist and politician. In 1986, his article in Literatūra un Māksla, co-written with Arturs Snips, sparked public opposition to the Daugavpils hydroelectric dam; the campaign gathered 30,000 signatures and forced the Soviet Council of Ministers to halt construction in 1987. At the founding congress of the Latvian Popular Front in October 1988 he was elected its first chairman, turning a mass movement born of environmental protest toward the political goal of restoring independence. He served as deputy speaker of the Supreme Council after the Front's 1990 electoral victory, resigned in 1992 and returned to journalism, later leading the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party and serving on the Riga City Council.
Career timeline
1979Began journalism, theatre and literary criticism
1986Published 'Thinking about the fate of the Daugava,' sparking anti-dam campaign. Named Most Popular Journalist
1988–1990Chairman of the Latvian Popular Front
1990–1992Deputy Speaker of the Supreme Council of Latvia
1992–1998Commentator and culture editor at Neatkarīgā Cīņa and other papers
2002–2005Chairman of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party
Architect of shock therapy, the economist who dismantled the planned economy and laid the first stones of Russian capitalism
3 October 1993, live on television: "At this hour we cannot rely only on police and security forces. Muscovites, all Russians who cherish democracy and freedom, gather at the Mossovet building!" — thousands poured into the streets.
Grandson of writers Arkady Gaidar and Pavel Bazhov. After Moscow State University, he edited the economic sections of Kommunist and Pravda, arguing for market reform from within the party press. In November 1991 he became Yeltsin's Deputy PM and Minister of Economy and Finance; on 2 January 1992 he liberalised prices and launched privatisation, converting the Soviet planned economy into a market system. He served as Acting PM (June–December 1992) and during the 1993 constitutional crisis went on live television to call Muscovites into the streets. His reforms averted famine and collapse but wiped out millions' savings, a legacy that remains Russia's most polarising policy debate.
Career timeline
1978–1987Researcher at VNIISI and Academy of Sciences forecasting institute
1987–1990Editor of economic policy section, Kommunist journal
1990Head of economics at Pravda; founded the Institute for Economic Policy
1991.11–1992.03Deputy PM, Minister of Economy and Finance, then Finance Minister of Russia
1992.03–12First Deputy PM; Acting Prime Minister June–December 1992
1993.09–1994.01First Deputy PM and acting Economy Minister; TV appeal during October crisis
1993–1995State Duma deputy; leader of Choice of Russia faction
1994–2001Leader of Democratic Choice of Russia; co-chair of Union of Right Forces
1999–2003State Duma deputy; drove tax and budget-code legislation
1992–2009Director, Institute for the Economy in Transition (Gaidar Institute)
A historian of the 1950s-60s USSR and the Russian church schism
Pyzhikov noted that the Twenty-Second Congress resolution gave almost four times as much space to the Anti-Party Group as to criticism of Stalin's personality cult.
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Pyzhikov (27 November 1965, Ramenskoye, Moscow Oblast - night of 16-17 September 2019, Moscow) was a Russian historian and state official who died of a pulmonary embolism. He defended his candidate dissertation in 1998 and his doctoral dissertation in 1999, and was Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation in 2003-2004. In his final years he became widely known for research on the 17th-century schism of the Russian Church and the Old Believers; his argument that the Old Believers played an important role in the revolutionary events of the early 20th century and in the formation of the Soviet order divided Old Believer circles. He also provoked controversy with conspiratorial civilizational claims such as denying the reality of the Tatar-Mongol yoke.
Career timeline
1989Graduated from the history faculty of the Moscow Regional Pedagogical Institute
1989–Junior researcher in the CPSU-history department of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee
1998Earned a Candidate of Historical Sciences degree for research on Soviet society in 1953–1964
1999Earned a Doctor of Historical Sciences degree for research on political reform in the Soviet Union in the 1950s–1960s
2000Aide to the Russian minister for communications and informatization
2000–2003Aide to the Chairman of the Russian Government
2003.06.05–2004.06.18Deputy Minister of Education of the Russian Federation, handling quality control of education and state certification of institutions
2000s–Professor of contemporary Russian history at the Institute of History and Politics of Moscow State Pedagogical University
2001Awarded the academic title of professor
2013Received the Yegor Gaidar Prize in history for the monograph 'Грани русского раскола'
The Left Opposition secretary whom Lenin called a 'brilliant worker'
According to his daughter Zorya's recollection, Lenin called him a "brilliant worker."
Born in Samara to a working-class family, he began working at nine and became a metal fitter and turner at the Hartmann locomotive works in Lugansk at fourteen. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1905, worked on the Lugansk committee, and as a delegate to the 1912 Prague Conference met Lenin before being arrested and exiled to Narym. During the February Revolution of 1917 he led his regiment out in Kostroma, then served as secretary of the Moscow Party Committee, a Central Committee member (1919–1921) and CC secretary (1920–1921). One of the leaders of the Left Opposition who signed the Declaration of the 46, he was expelled in 1927 and exiled to Semipalatinsk, reinstated in 1930, and shot in 1937 as a main defendant in the Second Moscow Show Trial.
Career timeline
1905Joined Bolsheviks at 15, agitation work in Lugansk
1908–1916Repeated arrests and exiles (Vologda, Narym), escapes and rearrests
1912Delegate to the Prague Party Conference
1917Led February mutiny in Kostroma, Secretary of Moscow Party Committee
1919–1921CC Secretary, Orgburo member, Southern Front Revvoensovet member
1922–1924Head of Political Administration RVSR, Deputy People's Commissar for Transport
1923–1927Signed Declaration of 46, Left Opposition leadership — expelled
1928–1937Exiled to Semipalatinsk, reinstated, head of Central Highway Administration, tried and executed in Second Moscow Show Trial
Founder of North Korea's state security and enforcer of its political repression
Arrival dates conflict: Russian Wikipedia and Lankov say 1946 (Lankov: September), English Wikipedia says October 1945. By 1947 he already headed the state protection (political police) department, and Lankov considers it likely he was the first head of North Korean state security.
A Koryo-saram from the Russian Empire whose birthplace is undocumented and whose birth year sources give as 1912, 1913 or 1914. He worked in the Soviet NKVD and intelligence agencies. Russian Wikipedia and Lankov date his arrival to 1946, English Wikipedia to October 1945. By 1947 he already headed the state protection (political police) department, and in September 1948 became Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Director of the Political Security Bureau, though Lankov holds he was never again allowed to control the political police. He held the security portfolio as Minister of Social Security (March/May 1951) and Interior Minister until November 1960. Russian Wikipedia describes him both as organizer of the North's repression system and as an executor who carried out the leadership's directives. Of the Soviet faction, he escaped the purges and died on 18 July 1992.
Career timeline
1937–1944Deported to Kazakhstan, then investigator in Kzyl-Orda and prosecutor's office work in Kzyl-Orda and Taldy-Kurgan oblasts, 1942–1944 (Russian Wikipedia); joined the party in 1940. Lankov says his record before 1946 is undocumented
1947Head of the state protection (political police) department, Interior Bureau, North Korean People's Committee (Lankov). English Wikipedia has him as Director-General of the Interior Affairs Bureau from May 1947, which does not fit the bureau-under-ministry structure after 1948
Sep 1948 – Feb or Mar 1951Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Director of the Political Security Bureau (English Wikipedia). Per Lankov he was afterwards never allowed to control the political police again
Mar or May 1951 – 1952Minister of Social Security (the Political Security Bureau was reorganized as the Ministry of Social Security). March per English Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture; May per English Wikipedia's Ministry of Social Security article
1952.10–1960.11Minister of Interior (the Ministry of Social Security was merged back into the Ministry of Internal Affairs)
1956.08As Minister of Internal Affairs during the August faction incident mobilized the police to monitor Pyongyang and led the investigation of the 'factionalists' (English Wikipedia). The same article also records a claim that he was abroad at the time
1956–1980Member of the WPK Central Committee (elected April 1956; reelected November 1970 and October 1980)
1960.11–1972Deputy Director of the Central Court; from November 1966 information director of the party Liaison Bureau
1972.12–1992President of the Central Court (reappointed 1982 and 1986, in office until his death)
