People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Abdul Fattah Ismail عبد الفتاح إسماعيل Leader of South Yemen’s Socialist Party
- Ali Nasir Muhammad علي ناصر محمد South Yemeni policy conflict and the 1986 crisis
- Haile Fida ኃይሌ ፊዳ Ethiopian Marxist leader of MEISON and drafter of the Derg's national-democratic program
- Ali Salem al-Beidh علي سالم البيض The last leader of South Yemen
- Joaquim Chissano Joaquim Chissano Mozambican rehabilitation and peace
- Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov Saparmyrat Ataýewiç Nyýazow A Turkmen leader who turned late-Soviet rule into personal rule over an independent state
- Kim Jong Il 김정일 The successor between a Soviet birth record and the Paektu myth
- Chris Hani Chris Hani The SACP leader who kept the revolutionary flame alive after laying down arms
- Jarallah Omar جار الله عمر Yemeni socialist politician and advocate of unity and pluralism
- José Eduardo dos Santos José Eduardo dos Santos Angola after Neto
- Denis Sassou Nguesso Denis Sassou Nguesso Congolese Labour Party and the oil state
- Maurice Bishop Maurice Bishop The Caribbean revolutionary who cut illiteracy from 35% to 5% and declared 'we are not in anybody's backyard'
- Roman Bartoszcze Roman Bartoszcze A peasant leader who carried Rural Solidarity into pluralist politics
- Leszek Balcerowicz Leszek Balcerowicz Architect of Poland's shock therapy and symbol of the post-communist transition
- Mohammad Najibullah محمد نجیبالله The last communist president of Afghanistan, who outlasted the Soviet withdrawal by three years before the Taliban tortured and hanged him
- Miklós Németh Németh Miklós Hungary's reform premier who opened a gate in 1989
- Sita Maria Dias Valles Sita Maria Dias Valles Angolan doctor and revolutionary killed in the 1977 Nitista purge
- Hun Sen ហ៊ុន សែន Cambodia's long-serving prime minister
- László Tőkés Tőkés László The Reformed pastor whose attempted eviction in Timișoara sparked the Romanian Revolution
- Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin Владимир Владимирович Путин A ruler who recast the loss of the Soviet Union as a narrative of state restoration
- Viktor Mihály Orbán Orbán Viktor From anti-communist youth leader in 1989 to architect of 'illiberal democracy'
- Ch'oe Ch'ang-ik 최창익 Yan'an faction leader who drove the 1946 New People's Party merger and was purged in the August Faction Incident
- Pol Pot ប៉ុល ពត Leader of Democratic Kampuchea
- Paulo Jorge Paulo Teixeira Jorge MPLA diplomat and Angola's second foreign minister, a leading figure of the party's left wing