People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1889–1960 ○ Died in custody

Azerbaijan's people's commissar of internal affairs in the mass operations, arrested in the Beria case

As Azerbaijan's people's commissar of internal affairs in 1937–1938, he served on the special troika and took part in the Great Purge. Arrested in the Beria case in 1953, he died in custody.

Born into a peasant family in Kapana, Kutaisi province, to an Armenian father and a Georgian mother (Topuridze was her maiden name), he was a Menshevik in 1905–1910 and joined the Bolsheviks in 1918. From 1920 he served in the Azerbaijani Cheka; from 1934 he headed the Azerbaijani GPU and NKVD, and as people's commissar of internal affairs in 1937–1938 he sat on the special troika. From April 1938 he ran the NKVD's administrative and economic directorate, and in 1947–1953 he was deputy chairman of Azerbaijan's Council of Ministers. Arrested in July 1953 in the Beria case, he was committed to a psychiatric hospital and died in August 1960 before the investigation ended.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1894–1967 ○ Natural causes

The Soviet Navy's scholar-admiral who lost a leg at Tuapse and still fought two wars to the end

Stalin said of him: "A real admiral of the fleet, Comrade Isakov. Clever — no leg, but a head on his shoulders."

Of Armenian origin, Isakov was one of only three Admirals of the Fleet of the Soviet Union (1955). As First Deputy Commissar and Chief of the Main Naval Staff, he shaped Soviet naval doctrine and in the Second World War coordinated fleet-ground operations in the Baltic and Black Sea, building the 'Road of Life' across Lake Ladoga. Wounded at Tuapse in 1942, his left leg was amputated; he returned to duty through victory. After the war he authored over 150 works (including the Stalin Prize-winning Maritime Atlas) and became a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences and a Writers' Union member.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1897–1982 ○ Natural causes

The first non-Slavic front commander, from Bagration to the Baltic

In summer 1944, his troops reached the Baltic. Bagramyan sent Stalin a bottle of Baltic seawater, but Germans retook the shore before it arrived. Stalin said: 'Return it — let Comrade Bagramyan pour it back into the sea himself.'

An Armenian from Azerbaijan, he became the first non-Slav to command a Soviet front. During Operation Bagration his marshland breakthrough isolated German Army Group North in the Courland pocket. Marshal of the USSR, twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1899–1958 ○ Natural causes

Armenian production boss from wartime medium machine-building to the postwar auto industry

In 1938, as director of Uralmash, he received the rank of military engineer 2nd class. As wartime commissar of Medium Machine Building, he was responsible for the power and transmission systems of KV and IS heavy tanks and SU self-propelled guns; in May 1945 he received the Order of Kutuzov 1st class — a decoration normally reserved for army commanders who won large-scale operations.

An Armenian-origin Soviet industrial administrator who directed tank, self-propelled gun, and tractor production as People's Commissar of Medium Machine Building during World War II, and after the war successively headed the automotive and tractor industries. A hands-on manager who rose through Uralmash to work alongside Malyshev and Vannikov in sustaining Stalin-era military-industrial administration. Publicly denounced by Khrushchev and retired in 1955, he was nonetheless a war-hero-tier production commander decorated with three Orders of Lenin and the Order of Kutuzov 1st class.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1902–1950 ✕ Executed

Stalin's air adviser at Tehran and Yalta. The Red Army's only Armenian Marshal of Aviation, executed 1950

When the Baku evacuation ship was sunk, Armenak — unable to swim — was pulled from the water by Sergei Khudyakov. After Khudyakov was killed in a White raid, Armenak took his weapons and coat, led the unit to safety, and wore the dead man's name for the rest of his life.

Born into an Armenian family in Karabakh, he worked in the Baku oilfields, joined the Bolsheviks, and fought as a cavalry commander in the Civil War, adopting the name of his friend Sergei Khudyakov, who saved him from drowning before falling in battle. With honours from the Zhukovsky Air Academy, he rose to command the VVS of the Western Front during the defence of Moscow, then helped pioneer the air army reorganization that concentrated Soviet air power. As deputy commander of the VVS he coordinated aviation at Kursk and the Dnieper, was promoted Marshal of Aviation in 1944, and served as Stalin's aviation adviser at Tehran and Yalta. In the 1945 Manchurian offensive he commanded the 12th Air Army, overseeing the airborne capture of Emperor Pu Yi and the seizure of Manchukuo's gold reserves, only to be arrested that December on fabricated charges and executed in 1950.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1904–1953 ✕ Executed

Beria's closest deputy, executor of Katyn and the mass deportations

Merkulov recalled: "After late-night work, Beria always took Kobulov — only Kobulov — home or to his dacha." No one else in the Lubyanka was that close.

Born in Tiflis, the son of an Armenian tailor, he joined the party in January 1925 and began his security career in the Georgian Cheka in 1922. Beria spotted him in 1931 and moved him into the Georgian GPU's Secret-Political Department; he went on to serve as deputy people's commissar of internal affairs of the Georgian SSR (1937–1938) and head of the NKVD Investigative Section (1938–1939). In 1940 he sat on the troika that issued death sentences on Polish officers and others in the Katyn massacre, and as deputy people's commissar of NKVD and NKGB he directed the deportations of Chechens, Ingush, Crimean Tatars and others. From 1946 he was deputy head of the Main Directorate of Soviet Property Abroad (GUSIMZ) and from October 1951 its first deputy head; he became first deputy minister of internal affairs in March 1953, was arrested with Beria on 27 June and shot on 23 December 1953.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1904–1970 ○ Natural causes

From heavy-water reactors to the world's largest accelerator: 23-year director of ITEP

After Khrushchev agreed not to arrest ITEP dissidents in 1956, Alikhanov told the four who had spoken at the party meeting: 'If you knew what you were doing, you're heroes. If you didn't, you're fools.'

A founder of Soviet nuclear physics. His positron spectroscopy (1933–40) and magnetic spectrometer built with Kozodayev laid the basis for Soviet nuclear electronics. In the atomic project he was scientific secretary of the Special Committee's council, leading heavy-water reactor development. In 1945 he founded Laboratory No. 3, later ITEP, directing it for 23 years and personally leading the USSR's first heavy-water research reactor (1949) and first industrial heavy-water reactor (1951). ITEP's 7 GeV synchrotron (1961) served as prototype for the 70 GeV Serpukhov accelerator, the world's largest in 1967. Never a Party member, he shielded staff during anti-cosmopolitan purges, signed the 'Letter of 300' against Lysenkoism, and in 1966 joined Kapitsa and Sakharov opposing Stalin's rehabilitation.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1905–1970 ○ Stroke

Father of the MiG: the fighter designer who ruled the sky in an instant

Stalin asked: "What fool will sell us his secrets?" The fool was Britain's Labour government. Mikoyan flew to London in 1946 to buy jet engines; the reverse-engineered Rolls-Royce Nene became the heart of the MiG-15.

From a lathe operator in a remote Armenian village to founder of the Soviet Union's foremost fighter design bureau. In 1939 he co-founded OKB-155 (MiG) with Mikhail Gurevich; his MiG-15 mastered the skies over Korea and his MiG-21 became the most-produced supersonic fighter in history. The younger brother of Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan, he rose on his own terms: twice Hero of Socialist Labor, six Stalin Prizes, the Lenin Prize, and colonel-general. MiG aircraft set 55 world records.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1911–1968 ○ Natural causes

The physicist who personally armed the first Soviet atomic bomb and built the second nuclear weapons center as its first scientific director

On 29 August 1949, Shchelkin signed for RDS-1 at the assembly workshop, inserted the initiating charge into the plutonium sphere, sealed the tower door last, and pressed the detonation button.

Kirill Shchelkin was a combustion and detonation physicist who formulated the theory of spin detonation and became a decisive figure in the Soviet atomic bomb project. On 29 August 1949 at the Semipalatinsk test site, he personally inserted the initiating charge into the plutonium sphere of RDS-1, sealed the tower door, and pressed the detonation button. In 1955 he was appointed the first scientific director and chief designer of the second Soviet nuclear weapons center, Chelyabinsk-70 (now VNIITF) in the Urals, where his team developed the first thermonuclear charge accepted into service by the Soviet Army. Awarded Hero of Socialist Labor three times alongside Kurchatov and Khariton, he was forced to retire in 1960 after a series of heart attacks.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1901/1902–1983 ○ Natural causes

Armenian party functionary who managed the international communist movement in late Stalinism

In August 1953, CC official A. L. Dedov reported to Khrushchev that Grigoryan's colleagues 'point to close relations between Grigoryan and Beria.'

Born in an Armenian village in Azerbaijan, Grigoryan rose from army newspaper editor to head of publishing and propaganda in the Moscow party apparatus. In 1949 he succeeded Mikhail Suslov as chairman of the Foreign Policy Commission (International Department), overseeing CPSU relations with communist parties worldwide until 1953. His tenure coincided with the deepening Tito–Stalin split after the Cominform's founding, the victory of the Chinese Revolution, and the Korean War. Elected a candidate member of the Central Committee at the 19th Party Congress in 1952, he was removed after Beria's fall, transferred to the Foreign Ministry, and dropped from the Central Committee.