People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr Николай Яковлевич Марр Creator of the Japhetic theory who, as the sole Imperial academician to join the Communist Party, dominated Soviet linguistics for decades
- David Borisovich Riazanov Давид Борисович Рязанов Founder of the Marx-Engels Institute and independent Marxist who never stopped disagreeing
- Yuri Mikhailovich Steklov Юрий Михайлович Стеклов First Soviet editor of Izvestia, architect of the Soviet constitution
- Yevgeny Viktorovich Tarle Евгений Викторович Тарле Historian of Napoleon who won world renown, survived Academic Case exile, and returned under Stalin's personal protection
- Vladimir Ivanovich Nevsky Владимир Иванович Невский The revolutionary-historian who seized the railways in October and wrote the party's history
- Alexander Andreyevich Svechin Александр Андреевич Свечин “The Russian Clausewitz”. Theorist of strategy and operational art
- Emelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky Емельян Михайлович Ярославский The Party's Chief Atheist, Called 'the Soviet Priest'
- Vladimir Viktorovich Adoratsky Владимир Викторович Адоратский IMEL director and the first Marxist philosopher to publicly anoint Stalin as a theorist
- Evgeny Samuilovich Varga Varga Jenő The Marxist economist who predicted the Great Depression, and was punished for arguing capitalism could adapt
- Eero Haapalainen Eero Haapalainen Trade union leader who commanded the Finnish Red Guards from January to March 1918
- Platon Mikhailovich Kerzhentsev Платон Михайлович Керженцев Proletkult theorist who became architect of Stalin-era arts censorship
- Aleksei Kapitonovich Gastev Алексей Капитонович Гастев From proletarian poetry to the science of labour: founder of Soviet social engineering who trained half a million workers
- Nikolai Kakurin Николай Какурин Red Army commander who was chief of staff of the Tambov suppression and became a historian of the Civil War
- Sofia Aleksandrovna Yanovskaya Софья Александровна Яновская Bolshevik mathematician who resurrected mathematical logic in the Soviet Union
- Anna Mikhailovna Pankratova Анна Михайловна Панкратова Leading historian of the working class who drove destalinization in scholarship: first woman full academician in Soviet historical studies
- Jan Ernestovich Sten Ян Эрнестович Стэн Marxist philosopher who went from Stalin's Hegel tutor to Right Opposition conspirator
- Boris Aleksandrovich Chagin Борис Александрович Чагин The doyen of Soviet Marxist history of philosophy who alone survived his institute's purge
- Nikolai Karotamm Nikolai Karotamm First Secretary of the Estonian Communist Party in 1944–1950, removed in 1950 for allegedly shielding “bourgeois nationalists”
- Sergei Ivanovich Tiulpanov Сергей Иванович Тюльпанов Head of SMAD’s Propaganda Administration who drove the founding of the SED and the Sovietisation of eastern Germany
- Alexei Nikolayevich Leontiev Алексей Николаевич Леонтьев Founder of activity theory who laid the institutional foundations of Marxist psychology
- Mikhail Alexandrovich Lifshitz Михаил Александрович Лифшиц Builder of Marxist aesthetics who defended absolute truth and beauty against relativism
- Alexander Mikhailovich Prokhorov Александр Михайлович Прохоров Nobel-winning laser co-inventor who helmed the Great Soviet Encyclopedia for three decades
- Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg Виталий Лазаревич Гинзбург From the H-bomb's 'second idea' to the Nobel Prize: a century-spanning theoretical physicist
- Nikolai Nikolayevich Inozemtsev Николай Николаевич Иноземцев Intellectual architect of Brezhnev-era détente
- Fyodor Mikhailovich Burlatsky Фёдор Михайлович Бурлацкий Architect of Khrushchev's reforms and pioneer of Soviet political science
- Oleg Timofeyevich Bogomolov Олег Тимофеевич Богомолов An economist of socialist economic integration and reform
- Sergo Anastasi Mikoyan Серго Анастасович Микоян A historian who reconstructed the Cold War’s hidden record
- Merab Konstantinovich Mamardashvili Мераб Константинович Мамардашвили The philosopher who spoke consciousness aloud
- Alexander Yevgenyevich Bovin Александр Евгеньевич Бовин Brezhnev's foreign-affairs speechwriter who put détente into prose, then became its sharpest television commentator
- 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