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
- 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
- Yuri Nikolayevich Afanasyev Юрий Николаевич Афанасьев The historian who called the conservative majority 'aggressively obedient'