People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Georgy Khosroevich Shakhnazarov Георгий Хосроевич Шахназаров Founder of Soviet political science and brains of perestroika's political reform
- Tatyana Ivanovna Zaslavskaya Татьяна Ивановна Заславская Founder of Soviet economic sociology; her 1983 report lit the intellectual fuse of perestroika
- Oleg Timofeyevich Bogomolov Олег Тимофеевич Богомолов An economist of socialist economic integration and reform
- Ivan Timofeyevich Frolov Иван Тимофеевич Фролов The philosopher who gave perestroika its humanist foundations: from defending genetics to founding the science of Man
- Abel Gezevich Aganbegyan Абел Гезевич Аганбегян Gorbachev's chief economic adviser and the market-reform architect of perestroika
- Alexandr Viktorovich Nemtsov Александр Викентьевич Немцов Russia's foremost alcohol epidemiologist, whose estimate that the anti-alcohol campaign saved over a million lives anchors the scholarship
- Yuri Nikolayevich Afanasyev Юрий Николаевич Афанасьев The historian who called the conservative majority 'aggressively obedient'
- Nikolai Yakovlevich Petrakov Николай Яковлевич Петраков An economist who carried price theory into the transition to a market economy
- Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva Нина Александровна Андреева The Leningrad chemistry lecturer whose 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' became the manifesto of anti-perestroika forces