People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Ivan Terentyevich Kleymenov Иван Терентьевич Клеймёнов The organiser who turned rocket research into a state institution
- Lev Vladimirovich Kuleshov Лев Владимирович Кулешов Creator of the Kuleshov Effect, the father of Soviet montage theory who proved editing, not the shot, creates meaning
- Boris Georgiyevich Bazhanov Борис Георгиевич Бажанов The only defector from Stalin's Secretariat, chronicler of Politburo secrets
- Nadezhda Sergeyevna Alliluyeva Надежда Сергеевна Аллилуева A Bolshevik woman who worked in Lenin's secretariat, married Stalin, and pursued her own political independence
- Pavel Aleksandrovich Mif Павел Александрович Миф Comintern China specialist who cultivated the 28 Bolsheviks
- Nikolai Pavlovich Chaplin Николай Павлович Чаплин The boy commissar who built the Komsomol into the party's youth-training apparatus
- Semyon Grigoryevich Gendin Семён Григорьевич Гендин Cheka-bred intelligence officer who led the GRU during the Great Purge and saved Sorge's Tokyo station
- Yevgeny Petrovich Petrov Евгений Петрович Петров Co-author with Ilf of The Twelve Chairs, satirist who captured NEP-era Soviet life and later edited Ogonyok magazine
- Nikolai Alekseyevich Ostrovsky Николай Алексеевич Островский Author of How the Steel Was Tempered, paragon of socialist realism
- Lev Ilyich Rusinov Лев Ильич Русинов An experimental physicist who explored fission and nuclear isomerism