People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Vissarion Grigoryevich Belinsky Виссарион Григорьевич Белинский Literary critic called the father of the Russian radical intelligentsia
- Alexander Ivanovich Herzen Александр Иванович Герцен Founder of Russian peasant socialism, publisher of The Bell
- Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev Николай Платонович Огарёв Russian utopian socialist theorist who co-edited Kolokol with Herzen
- Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky Николай Гаврилович Чернышевский The revolutionary democrat whose What Is to Be Done? remade Lenin and shaped a generation of revolutionaries
- Nikolai Alexandrovich Dobrolyubov Николай Александрович Добролюбов The literary critic who died at 25 but became the teacher of an entire generation of Russian revolutionaries
- Dmitry Ivanovich Pisarev Дмитрий Иванович Писарев The standard-bearer of Russian nihilism who declared that what can be smashed must be smashed