People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1908–1990 ○ Natural causes

Father of the modern VDV, who turned airborne troops into a heavily armored strike force

As his son Alexander tested the world's first crewed parachute drop of a BMD-1 in 1973, Margelov watched from the command post gripping a loaded pistol — ready to shoot himself if the experiment failed.

Vasily Margelov commanded the Soviet Airborne Forces (VDV) for 23 years and is regarded as the father of the modern airborne troops. A decorated officer who earned the Hero of the Soviet Union for forcing the Dnieper at the head of the 49th Guards Rifle Division in 1944, he assumed command of the VDV in 1954 and transformed it from light infantry into a heavily armored strike force. Under his leadership the BMD-1 airborne fighting vehicle, heavy parachute platforms, and the Kentavr and Reaktavr crewed airdrop systems were developed, while An-22 and Il-76 transports gave the force strategic reach. He made over sixty parachute jumps, the last at 65, and led VDV operations during the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By his retirement in 1979 the VDV had become one of the Soviet military's most capable arms, popularly called 'Uncle Vasya's troops.'

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1909–1989 ○ Natural causes

“Mister Nyet,” whose last move was to nominate the reformer

At the Politburo on 11 March 1985, the day after Chernenko's death, Gromyko rose at once after Gorbachev opened the session and proposed him for General Secretary. The line attributed to him, a nice smile but iron teeth, became the most famous version; the published record omits it.

Foreign minister for twenty-eight years, he represented the USSR at defining moments of Cold War diplomacy, from Yalta to the missile crisis, détente and Helsinki. Entering diplomacy in 1939 into vacancies left by the purges, he became ambassador to Washington (1943–46) and the first Soviet UN representative. From the late 1940s he used the Security Council veto more than twenty times, earning the name 'Mister Nyet', and held that 'ten years of negotiations are better than one day of war'. A full Politburo member from 1973, he supported the 1968 entry into Czechoslovakia and shared political responsibility for the 1979 decision to send troops into Afghanistan. In March 1985 he nominated Gorbachev for General Secretary; he retired on health grounds in 1988 and died in Moscow in 1989.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1912–1976 ○ Died of illness

Belarusian-born marshal who commanded the Warsaw Pact forces for nine years

In the defence of Minsk in 1941, Yakubovsky's tank unit crushed an advancing German motorcycle convoy by ramming it with their tanks in the city streets.

Born the sixth child of a Belarusian peasant family, he was conscripted into the Red Army in 1932 and graduated from the Kalinin Belarusian United Military School in Minsk in 1934. Through the Great Patriotic War he commanded tank units in the defence of Minsk and Mogilev, at Stalingrad and Kursk, in the liberation of Kyiv, and in the Berlin and Prague offensives, twice earning the title Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1967 he became First Deputy Minister of Defence and a Marshal of the Soviet Union, and as commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact forces he directed the military preparations for the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, though operational command passed to Ivan Pavlovsky days before the operation. He died of illness in Moscow on 30 November 1976, and his ashes were interred in the Kremlin Wall.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1912–2007 ○ Retired 1986

The 'Great Mute' who presided as the party's gatekeeper of Soviet culture for 21 years

He stood by the record player, eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the final chords of a Haydn sonata. When the music stopped, he murmured 'a divine work' and invited his guests to sit.

For 21 years under Brezhnev, Vasily Shauro headed the CC CPSU Culture Department, the party apparatus that decided which literature, film, art, and music reached the Soviet public. A Belorussian teacher groomed in Agitprop, he used conservative support to drive Alexander Yakovlev out of the CC in 1973, delaying ideological reform until Gorbachev.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1912–2009 ○ Natural causes

The Soviet 'governing ambassador' who managed Cold War Berlin

On 3 September 1971, Abrassimov signed the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin and remarked: 'No rose without thorns.' It was a line about Brandt's Ostpolitik — and the plain truth from a diplomat who had negotiated on the Cold War's front line for nearly a decade.

A Soviet career diplomat of Belarusian origin. He fought as a political officer with the Belarusian partisans, then rose to First Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Council of Ministers and Secretary of the republic's Central Committee. Turning to diplomacy in 1957, he served two terms as Soviet ambassador to East Germany (1962–1971, 1975–1983), becoming Moscow's point man on German affairs. In 1966 he held secret talks with West Berlin mayor Willy Brandt, and on 3 September 1971 he signed the Four-Power Agreement on Berlin for the USSR. His heavy interference in East German domestic politics earned him the nickname 'governing ambassador' and led Erich Honecker to demand his recall in 1983. He ended his career as Chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Tourism and briefly as ambassador to Japan, retiring in 1986.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1914–1989 ○ Natural causes

Belarusian partisan leader who rose to Brezhnev's Politburo and served as USSR First Deputy Premier for thirteen years

If I were asked today to lead such an operation, I would not accept. I ask the Czechs to forgive us.

A Belarusian partisan leader who became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus in 1956, then served as a full Politburo member and First Deputy Premier of the USSR for thirteen years from 1965, overseeing economic policy and acting as Brezhnev's political supervisor during the 1968 Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1914–1995 ○ Natural causes

Brezhnev's 'number two party ideologist' after Suslov

October 1964, the Soviet embassy in Prague. Zimyanin had just returned from Moscow, picked up the phone and boasted about the coup's success. It was Nina Khrushcheva on the line. 'Dear Leonid Ilyich is now First Secretary!' Through the silence on the other end, she learned of her husband's downfall in that very moment.

A Belarusian party functionary who served eleven years as editor-in-chief of Pravda, the longest tenure in that post, setting the direction of Soviet journalism. Elevated to CC secretary in 1976, he became the number two ideologist under Suslov, overseeing science, education, culture, sports, and media. The key executor of conservative ideological control in late Brezhnevism, he embodied the continuity of the party propaganda apparatus until his removal in 1987, two years into Gorbachev's tenure.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1917–1983 ○ Cancer

Belarus's premier for nearly 20 years who rose to First Secretary and candidate Politburo member, then died of cancer two years later

He seized on the idea of the Minsk Metro and lobbied Moscow relentlessly until he got his way. He laid the first stone himself.

Born into an Old Believer peasant family in Gomel and trained as a teacher of Belarusian language and literature, Kiselyov served nearly twenty years as Chairman of the Byelorussian SSR Council of Ministers (1959–1978), steering the republic's postwar reconstruction and industrialisation as a pragmatic economic manager. He tenaciously lobbied Moscow to secure the Minsk Metro and the Zhlobin steel plant, rose to Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers in 1978, then returned to Minsk in 1980 as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus and candidate member of the CPSU Politburo, succeeding Pyotr Masherov. He prioritised stable management over reform but died of cancer barely two years into the role.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1918–1980 ✕ Car crash

Belarus's partisan-hero leader for 15 years who transformed an agrarian republic into an industrial powerhouse - his death a legend

It is not so much about knowing and being able to do things yourself, as about seeing the good in other people. Then you yourself will mean a great deal.

A mathematics and physics teacher, he became a leader of the Belarusian partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War, earning Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Belarus for 15 years from 1965, he transformed a war-ravaged agrarian republic into a Soviet industrial and scientific powerhouse, spearheading the Minsk Metro, major chemical plants, and the Brest Fortress and Khatyn memorials. A candidate Politburo member (1966-1980) and pragmatic reformist who backed the Kosygin reforms, he was widely tipped to succeed Kosygin as Chairman of the Council of Ministers when he died in a car crash in October 1980.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1918–1991 ○ Natural causes

Longest-serving GSFG commander who led the Soviet front-line force facing NATO for eight years

4 December 1941: a German tank group was about to encircle Western Front headquarters — Captain Ivanovsky's 27th Tank Battalion stopped the breakthrough and saved the command.

A tank officer who began the Great Patriotic War as a captain and ended it as a colonel at age 26, he fought from the defence of Moscow through to East Prussia. From 1972 to 1980 he served as Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG) for eight years, the longest tenure in the post's history. He commanded the Warsaw Pact's most combat-ready formation at the very front line of the Cold War military standoff with NATO. After commanding the Belorussian Military District, he became Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of Defence in 1985, overseeing the late Cold War conventional-force buildup, and was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union that same year for his wartime service and postwar contributions to military readiness.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1925–2017 ○ Natural causes

Legendary Soviet spymaster who headed KGB illegal intelligence for 12 years

"We don't want this, but we must." — Yuri Andropov to Drozdov on the telephone, just before the assault on Amin's palace, 27 December 1979

A leading Soviet intelligence officer, Yuri Drozdov joined the KGB in 1956 and built the USSR's overseas intelligence network through postings in East Germany, China, and the United States. From 1979 to 1991 he headed Directorate S, the KGB's illegal intelligence arm within the First Chief Directorate, overseeing the global network of deep-cover 'illegals' operating under false identities. In December 1979 he commanded Operation Storm-333, the 43-minute special forces assault on Afghan president Hafizullah Amin's Tajbeg Palace that opened the Soviet-Afghan War; drawing on that experience, he founded the elite KGB spetsnaz unit Vympel in 1981. He is also remembered for posing as the 'German cousin' of captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel to facilitate the famous 1962 prisoner exchange on the Glienicke Bridge for downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.

Soviet Union state institutions Soviet communism 1929–2022 ○ Natural causes

Longest-serving geology minister who presided over the 'golden age' of Soviet mineral exploration

Asked why he sent his son to remote Aldan while other officials' children were placed in embassies — 'So that after seven years of field school, he returns a real geologist.'

Yevgeny Kozlovsky was the longest-serving Minister of Geology of the USSR (1975–1989), presiding over what contemporaries called the 'golden age' of Soviet geology. He doubled the country's mineral-resource base and drove major oil and gas development in Western Siberia, the Caspian Depression, and Central Asia. Starting as an assistant drill master in the Far East, he earned the Lenin Prize for accelerated exploration of the Solnechnoye tin deposit before rising to minister. Under his watch, the Kola Superdeep Borehole reached 12,620 metres, a Guinness record, and the USSR built a fleet of 400 geological research vessels. After the Soviet collapse, he remained a prolific theorist of Russia's mineral-resource policy, arguing that geology was inseparable from national security.