People

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1932–

The deputy defence minister who, at Tbilisi, pushed for force without waiting for the Politburo

"A decision must be adopted here on the scene": to the Georgian Defence Council, Tbilisi, 8 April 1989

A career officer who rose from Suvorov military school to the top of the Soviet Army, Kochetov was promoted to Army General in 1988 and appointed First Deputy Minister of Defence in January 1989. That April he was dispatched to Tbilisi, where he told the Georgian Defence Council that 'the magnitude of the crisis is not fully appreciated in Moscow' and that 'a decision must be adopted here on the scene,' opening the path to the use of force without Politburo clearance. The crackdown on 9 April killed 21 people, and subsequent documentary research established that Kochetov was acting on Yazov's instructions and that Gorbachev had not been informed in advance.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1932–2016 ○ Natural causes

The last Communist leader of Tajikistan in the Soviet era

Resigning in August 1991, he told the deputies "I will go, but you will regret it," later calling politics "the dirtiest thing in the world."

Qahhor Mahkamov was a mining engineer turned Tajik Communist official who spent decades directing economic planning and republican administration. As perestroika widened national self-awareness and political conflict, he pursued reform within the Soviet framework but faced growing public distrust and nationalist pressure. He became Tajikistan’s first president in 1990, then resigned in 1991 after backing the failed August coup in Moscow. His career shows both the institutional continuity of a Soviet republic and the political limits exposed by its dissolution.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1932–2021 ○ Natural causes

Last surviving GKChP member who led the Soviet space industry

In 1991 I stood up for the defense of our state.

A technocrat who rose from mounter at the Kharkov instrument plant to Minister of General Machine-Building, overseeing the entire Soviet rocket and space industry, and led the Energia–Buran reusable spacecraft programme, the last great project of Soviet spaceflight. In 1988 he became CC CPSU Secretary for Defence Industry, directing the Party's military-industrial policy, and in August 1991 he joined the eight-member State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP) in a failed attempt to prevent the USSR's dissolution, for which he was imprisoned for a year and a half. At his death in 2021 he was the GKChP's last survivor.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1933–2000 ○ Natural causes

Heydar Aliyev's successor who crumbled before the Karabakh crisis

In connection with the events that occurred in Nagorno-Karabakh and Sumgait, I recognize that I morally have no right to lead the party organization of the republic.

First Secretary of the Azerbaijan Communist Party (1982–1988), appointed after Heydar Aliyev was promoted to Moscow. Personally honest but politically inert, he proved unable to manage the cascading crises of February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast soviet voted for transfer to Armenia and the Sumgait pogrom erupted days later. Distrusted by Gorbachev, he resigned in May declaring that he 'morally had no right to lead the republic's party organization,' and withdrew entirely from public life thereafter.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1933–2004 ○ Natural causes

Party leader of late Soviet Kyrgyzstan

At the presidential selection in the Supreme Soviet on 25 October 1990, neither he nor Apas Jumagulov won a majority, and Akayev was chosen first president on 27 October. In the 1995 election he lost to Akayev, 71.6 to 24.4 percent.

Kyrgyz Soviet party and state leader, born on 10 April 1933 in Alysh, Osh oblast, died on 31 July 2004 in Bishkek. A mining engineer trained at Kyzyl-Kiya and in Moscow, he began work in 1956 at the Kyzyl-Kiya coal administration and rose through party bodies. Elected first secretary of the Communist Party of Kirghizia on 2 November 1985, he held the post to 6 April 1991, was a member of the CPSU Central Committee from 1986 to 1991 and of the CPSU Politburo from 14 July 1990 to 25 April 1991. Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR in 1990, he lost the presidential selection to Akayev and the 1995 election. From September 1992 until 2004 he led the Party of Communists of Kyrgyzstan. Sources differ on the death date, 31 July or 1 August.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1933–

The last regular Soviet foreign minister

In 1988, after testifying on the INF treaty before the Soviet parliament, Bessmertnykh lingered in a Kremlin corridor to chat with an American journalist in easy English about the treaty's political significance — informality unusual for a top Soviet official.

A career diplomat and the first MGIMO graduate to head the Soviet Foreign Ministry, Bessmertnykh succeeded Shevardnadze in January 1991. A seasoned Americanist shaped by thirteen years at the Soviet embassy in Washington, he oversaw the signing of the START I treaty, laid groundwork for the Madrid Middle East peace conference, and became the first Soviet foreign minister to visit Israel. He advanced a 'belt of friendship and cooperation' concept to reorient Soviet diplomacy toward all perimeter states. Refusing to join the GKChP during the August 1991 coup but declining to publicly condemn it, he was dismissed within days. He later founded Russia's Foreign Policy Association and continued as an analyst.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1933–2014 ○ Natural causes

The last Communist Party first secretary of Soviet Armenia

He left the CPSU Politburo because the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved.

Vladimir Movsisyan was a politician who rose through the agricultural and party administration of Soviet Armenia. In 1990 he became first secretary of the republic’s Communist Party and a member of the CPSU Politburo, but left the Politburo after the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved. After the Soviet collapse, he remained involved in refugee administration, defence, and agricultural policy, helping shape the institutions of independent Armenia.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1933–2021 ○ Natural causes

The last Komsomol heavyweight who ran the Soviet publishing empire

The day after Yegorychev openly criticised Brezhnev's defence policy at the 1967 CC plenum, Pastukhov called him: "I'm proud of you." Yegorychev replied: "Borya, why did you do that? You've ruined your life."

A Soviet functionary who led the Komsomol as First Secretary from 1977 to 1982, heading the 40-million-strong youth organisation at the height of the Brezhnev era. He oversaw massive youth mobilisation (the BAM railway, the first ski expedition to the North Pole) and became a full member of the CPSU Central Committee in 1978. As chairman of Goskomizdat (1982–1986) he ran the Soviet publishing and censorship apparatus, then served as ambassador to Denmark and to Afghanistan during the withdrawal and its aftermath. After the Soviet collapse he continued as Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister, CIS Affairs Minister, and State Duma deputy, embodying the late Soviet elite's continuity into post-Soviet governance.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1933–2022 ○ Natural causes

A Belarusian party organizer who sought continuity as the Union dissolved

After the 1991 coup failed, he called the State Committee's formation “a crime against the party.”

Anatoly Malofeyev was a Soviet and Belarusian politician who rose from industrial work through party administration to republican leadership. In the final years of perestroika, he led Belarus's Communist Party with a record of regional administration and a union-preserving party line, and supported the State Committee on the State of Emergency in 1991. After the coup's defeat, he sought to preserve the party organization and later worked in the parliamentary politics of independent Belarus.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1933–

Nuclear industry minister who inherited Sredmash in the shadow of Chernobyl

Ryabev later recalled: 'I was in Chernobyl from 2 May and worked there more than a month. All that time I felt something terrible, heavy for all of us had happened — and pain and resentment at what had occurred.'

A physicist from Vologda who trained at MIFI and began his career at the secret nuclear weapons institute VNIIEF in Sarov. As director of VNIIEF from 1974, he led development of new nuclear warheads before moving to the Central Committee's Defense Industry Department to oversee the entire medium machine-building sector. In November 1986, in the immediate aftermath of Chernobyl, he succeeded Yefim Slavsky as Minister of Medium Machine-Building, taking command of the entire Soviet nuclear weapons and atomic energy complex. He later served as Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers with responsibility for the fuel and energy complex. After the Soviet collapse, as First Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation, he helped preserve the nuclear weapons complex and devoted himself to the multi-volume documentary history of the Soviet atomic project.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1933–2023 ○ Natural causes

The most qualified female cosmonaut candidate, grounded by politics

She told Tereshkova, 'The Komsomol and the party have irreparably spoiled you,' Kamanin recorded in his diary.

A Moscow Aviation Institute graduate and the only pilot among the five women selected for the cosmonaut corps in 1962, she scored highest on her final exams, and medical director Yazdovsky ranked her first for flight. But Kamanin recorded her independent manner as 'arrogance,' her smoking and drinking as 'moral instability,' and Korolev told her a working-class woman was needed for the flight, so Tereshkova was chosen. She later trained for an all-female Voskhod mission with a spacewalk, but the program was cancelled, and she never flew.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–

A politician who linked internationalism with regional rule

In February 1978, during an Asia-Africa people's solidarity session in Nicosia, Black September militants took him hostage; within forty minutes everyone except the Egyptian and Palestinian delegates was released.

Alexander Dzasokhov was a Soviet party and diplomatic politician whose career grew out of youth organizations and solidarity work with Asia and Africa. After serving as ambassador to Syria and leading the North Ossetian party organization, he reached a position where international politics and the nationality question converged. At the 28th CPSU Congress he was elected to the Politburo and Central Committee Secretariat, making him part of the last Soviet leadership as reform and the Union’s dissolution intersected. He later served in the Russian State Duma and as president of the Republic of North Ossetia–Alania, where he dealt with federal relations and interethnic tensions.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–1966 ✕ Suicide

Gagarin's second backup, the cosmonaut ranked third for the first flight who never reached orbit

On 18 February 1966, the note he left his wife before leaving home: "Zinok! You were always the best. You'd have to search to find a woman like you. Forgive me."

In January 1961 the State Commission ranked the first-flight candidates: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov. He was the second backup for Vostok 1 and later trained as backup for the Vostok 3/4 dual flight, but in March 1963 a clash with a military patrol at Chkalovskaya station (drunk, and refusing to apologize) cost him his place in the cosmonaut corps. Exiled to a fighter unit in the Far East, he fell into alcoholism and depression; on 18 February 1966 he stepped in front of a train, aged thirty-one. His existence was kept secret until glasnost, his image airbrushed from the 'Sochi Six' photograph and his name erased from official histories.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–1993 ○ Natural causes

A Soviet republican leader who asserted institutional authority in crisis

“A state of emergency was declared and troops were sent in without the republic’s consent.”

Elmira Kafarova was an Azerbaijani Soviet politician and diplomat who moved through education and foreign-affairs administration before leading the republic’s Supreme Soviet. In January 1990, she publicly protested the declaration of emergency in Baku and the entry of Soviet troops, stating that the decision had been taken while she was in Moscow and without her knowledge. Her institutional dissent, unusual within the Soviet republican leadership, illuminates how the nationalities crisis became a collision among republican institutions, a mass movement, and Union power.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–

The general who sent men onto the Chernobyl roof when the robots died

'How is this possible?' I still cannot stop asking myself. 'Did we come from the Stone Age, to collect sheets of lead and cut makeshift protection for vital organs?'

A Soviet civil defence general and doctor of technical sciences. Four months after the Chernobyl explosion, when every remote-controlled robot had failed, the government commission handed him the most dangerous decontamination zone. He ordered lead sheeting stripped from the walls of government offices and improvised into protective gear, then ran 3,828 soldiers through the roofs of reactor 3 in 40–90-second shifts; they cleared 200 tonnes of highly radioactive debris by hand. He developed radiation sickness, wrote two books about the operation, and was nominated for Hero of the Soviet Union, only to be struck from the list after a conflict with the chief of staff of the Kiev Military District.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–

Youngest KGB general turned its highest-ranking defector-critic

"I like Americans very much. But after seven months here I am convinced more than ever that the Communist system is better than yours." — 24-year-old KGB officer Kalugin, posing as a Fulbright scholar to Newsweek, 1959.

A KGB Major General who, as the youngest general in the agency's history, headed foreign counterintelligence (Directorate K) and directed Cold War espionage against the United States. He broke with the service in the late 1980s, publicly denouncing its corruption, backed Yeltsin during the 1991 coup, and emigrated to the US, where his memoirs exposed the inner workings of the KGB.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–1968 ✕ Killed in crash

The first human smile to leave the Earth

Re-entry: the capsule engulfed in 3,000-degree plasma, ten Gs pressing on his body. Inside, Gagarin whistled — Shostakovich's "The Motherland Hears, The Motherland Knows." He later wrote in his autobiography: "I sang that song the whole way down to Earth."

A collective-farm carpenter’s son circled the planet in 108 minutes on April 12, 1961: “Poyekhali!”, let’s go. In the middle of the Cold War he became the one man both camps loved. Training for a return to space, he died in a MiG crash in 1968. He was thirty-four.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1934–2019 ○ Natural causes

First to open the door to the cosmos, and the first to draw it from inside

"It was so quiet I could even hear my heart beat. I was surrounded by stars and was floating without much control." — the first human to walk in space, 18 March 1965.

A Siberian miner's son, Leonov became the first human to walk in space on 18 March 1965, floating outside Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes, and nearly dying when his suit ballooned so badly he had to bleed oxygen to squeeze back into the airlock. He was also the first artist in space, sketching an orbital sunrise with coloured pencils tethered together in weightlessness. A decade later, as commander of Soyuz 19, he led the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (the first US-Soviet docking in orbit) and forged a lifelong friendship with American commander Thomas Stafford. From 1976 to 1982 he served as deputy director of the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center and chief cosmonaut, overseeing the next generation. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and a major general of aviation, he produced over 200 space-themed paintings across a life that fused exploration with art.