People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin Михаил Александрович Бакунин Marx's greatest rival: founder of collectivist anarchism, at the center of the First International's great split
- Catherine Konstantinovna Breshkovsky Екатерина Константиновна Брешко-Брешковская 'Grandmother of the Russian Revolution' who endured 44 years of prison and exile; co-founder of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
- Sergei Gennadiyevich Nechayev Сергей Геннадиевич Нечаев Author of the Catechism of a Revolutionary, the nihilist who demanded total sacrifice for the revolutionary cause
- Elisabeth Lukinichna Dmitrieff Елизавета Лукинична Кушелева Russian revolutionary who organized the Paris Commune's Women's Union
- Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich Николай Иванович Кибальчич Narodnaya Volya's chief explosives expert who designed the bombs that killed Alexander II and sketched a manned rocket from his death cell
- Sofia Lvovna Perovskaya Софья Львовна Перовская Narodnaya Volya leader who directed the tsar's assassination with a white handkerchief; first woman executed for a political crime in Russia
- Pyotr Vasilievich Vologodsky Пётр Васильевич Вологодский A lawyer-statesman who held White Siberia together through compromise
- Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov Александр Ильич Ульянов Lenin's elder brother: a gold-medal zoologist who turned from studying worms to building bombs for the assassination of Alexander III
- Pyotr Petrovich Schmidt Пётр Петрович Шмидт The revolutionary naval officer who raised the red flag over the Black Sea Fleet and demanded a constitution from the Tsar
- Viktor Konstantinovich Kurnatovsky Виктор Константинович Курнатовский One of Russia's first Marxists, from Narodnaya Volya to leader of the 1905 Chita Republic
- Iosif Solomonovich Bleikhman Иосиф Соломонович Блейхман An anarchist spark in the crisis of 1917
- Yevno Fishelevich Azef Евно Фишелевич Азеф The Okhrana's paid informant who led the revolution's terrorist vanguard
- Alexander Osipovich Berkman Александр Осипович Беркман Anarchist writer who served 14 years for the Frick assassination attempt, then broke with the Soviet state
- Nikolai Yevgrafovich Fedoseev Николай Евграфович Федосеев Russian revolutionary who organized the first Marxist circles in the Volga region
- Ivan Vasilyevich Babushkin Иван Васильевич Бабушкин The worker-organizer Iskra trusted most: archetype of the Bolshevik worker
- Alexander Alekseevich Vannovsky Александр Алексеевич Ванновский A revolutionary who turned to Japanese literature and philosophy
- Konkordia Nikolayevna Samoilova Конкордия Николаевна Самойлова Founder of Rabotnitsa and organizer of Russia's first International Women's Day
- Ivan Platonovich Kalyaev Иван Платонович Каляев The poet-bomber who stayed his hand seeing the Grand Duchess and children: the 'ethical terrorist' behind Camus' Les Justes
- Georgy Stepanovich Khrustalev-Nosar Георгий Степанович Носарь A non-party workers' lawyer elected the first chairman of the Petersburg Soviet in 1905
- Zinovy Yakovlevich Litvin-Sedoy Зиновий Яковлевич Литвин-Седой Organizer of Presnya’s workers’ fighting squads
- Vladimir Vladimirovich Mazurin Владимир Владимирович Мазурин Combat commander of the Moscow uprising and founding leader of the Maximalist SRs
- Fyodor Andreyevich Sergeyev Фёдор Андреевич Сергеев Founder and head of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic, close friend of Stalin and Kirov
- Maxim Maximilianovich Filonenko Максимилиан Максимилианович Филоненко The Socialist Revolutionary official who pressed the revolutionary government toward coercive order
- Alexander Stepanovich Antonov Александр Степанович Антонов The man whose name became the rebellion: SR leader of the Tambov 'Antonovshchina,' the largest peasant uprising against Bolshevik rule
- Semyon Grigoryevich Roshal Семён Григорьевич Рошаль The 21-year-old commissar who brought Kronstadt sailors to the revolution
- Viktor Vasilyevich Grishin Виктор Васильевич Гришин The face of the Brezhnev era who ran Moscow for eighteen years and died while re-applying for his pension
- Ruslan Imranovich Khasbulatov Руслан Имранович Хасбулатов The Supreme Soviet chairman who stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
- Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Владимир Владимирович Путин A ruler who recast the loss of the Soviet Union as a narrative of state restoration
- Stepan Nikolayevich Khalturin Степан Николаевич Халтурин The carpenter-revolutionary who bombed the Winter Palace and founded Russia's first political workers' organization