People of the Revolution and the USSR
Political and party leadership
Marxism and communism
The revolutionary wave and the world war 1917–1945
Clear all
- Sen Katayama 片山潜 Japanese communist founder who shook Plekhanov's hand and shaped Comintern East Asia strategy
- Feliks Yakovlevich Kon Феликс Яковлевич Кон From Warsaw boy patriot to Comintern old revolutionary: the Pole who returned in the sealed train
- Ernst Friedrich Däumig Ernst Friedrich Däumig German socialist and a leading figure in the workers’ council movement.
- Julian Józefowicz Marchlewski Julian Marchlewski A Pole who passed through the German and Russian revolutions and tried to bring revolution home
- Leo Jogiches Leo Jogiches The revolution's underground organizer, always behind the scenes, until he had to lead
- Tserendorj Цэрэндорж First prime minister of the Mongolian People's Republic, diplomat of the old regime
- Marcel Cachin Marcel Cachin Leader who took the SFIO majority into the Comintern at Tours in 1920, founding the French Communist Party, and ran L’Humanité
- Fernand Loriot Fernand Loriot French socialist and teachers’ union activist who led the Committee for the Third International
- Karl Liebknecht Karl Liebknecht The lone vote against the war; the revolution's first martyr
- Rosa Luxemburg Rosa Luxemburg “Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently”
- Luis Emilio Recabarren Luis Emilio Recabarren Father of the Chilean labour movement and pioneer of Latin American communism
- Vasil Petrov Kolarov Васил Петров Коларов Co-founder of Bulgarian communism, from the Comintern to head of state
- Angelica Isaakovna Balabanova Анжелика Исааковна Балабанова The Comintern's first secretary, who taught Mussolini and branded him traitor
- Vincas Kapsukas Vincas Mickevičius-Kapsukas Founder of the Lithuanian Communist Party who headed Soviet Lithuania and Litbel
- Eero Haapalainen Eero Haapalainen Trade union leader who commanded the Finnish Red Guards from January to March 1918
- Kullervo Achilles Manner Kullervo Achilles Manner Head of Finland's 1918 Red revolutionary government, who later led the exiled Communist Party and served the Comintern
- Edvard Gylling Edvard Gylling Finnish socialist who was Red Finland’s commissar of finance and later headed the government of Soviet Karelia
- William Z. Zebulon Foster William Zebulon Foster From leading the Great Steel Strike of 1919 to longest-serving leader of American communism
- Heinrich Brandler Heinrich Brandler KPD chairman who called off a revolution; co-founder of the International Right Opposition
- Zigmas Angarietis Zigmas Angarietis Interior commissar of Soviet Lithuania, a Lithuanian communist leader killed in the Great Terror
- Georgi Mihaylov Dimitrov Георги Михайлов Димитров From Leipzig defendant to Comintern General Secretary
- Eugen Leviné Eugen Leviné Communist who led the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 and was shot after its fall
- Paul Levi Paul Levi From Rosa Luxemburg's lawyer to KPD leader, his 'anti-putschism' took on Comintern adventurism
- Henk Sneevliet Henk Sneevliet The Dutch revolutionary who planted communist seeds in Indonesia and China, then fought both Stalinism and Nazism
- Jaan Anvelt Jaan Anvelt Head of the Estonian Workers' Commune and leader of the 1924 rising
- August Thalheimer August Thalheimer Main theorist of the KPD and Bonapartist analyst of fascism
- Alexandra Petrovna Kim Александра Петровна Ким The first Korean communist, who gave her life bridging the Russian Revolution and Korean liberation
- Danzan Данзан Founding member and first party chairman, shot as a 'bourgeois'
- Eino Rahja Eino Rahja Petrograd Finnish Bolshevik who helped Lenin escape to Finland in 1917 and sat on the Red Guards’ three-man command in 1918
- Béla Kun Kun Béla 133 days of the second Soviet state in Europe, and the execution cellar 19 years later
- Ernst Thälmann Ernst Thälmann Hitler's personal prisoner, unbroken by eleven years in solitary
- André Marty André Marty The naval engineer who led the Black Sea mutiny and rose to the Comintern Secretariat
- John Reed John Reed From eyewitness of the Bolshevik Revolution to founder of the Communist Labor Party of America: an American buried at the Kremlin Wall
- Hugo Eberlein Hugo Eberlein German Communist who abstained on the Comintern’s founding at its first congress and was later shot in the Great Purge
- Manabendra Nath Roy মানবেন্দ্র নাথ রায় The Indian Marxist who debated Lenin on colonial revolution
- Viktor Kingissepp Viktor Kingissepp Bolshevik who led the underground communist party in independent Estonia and was executed
- Elbegdorj Rinchinovich Rinchino Элбек-Доржи Ринчинович Ринчино Buryat revolutionary, drafter of Mongolia's 1924 constitution, victim of the Great Terror
- Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga The left-communist theorist who rejected parliamentarism and analyzed the USSR as state-capitalist
- Georgios Siantos Γιώργης Σιάντος A KKE leader who bore both the Resistance's victory and its defeat at the negotiating table
- Harry Pollitt Harry Pollitt Stalin's personally approved CPGB General Secretary who led the party for 25 years
- Arkadi Maslow Аркадий Маслов The pianist-turned-revolutionary who drove the KPD's ultra-left turn, and became the anti-Stalinist left's perpetual dissident
- Earl Russell Browder Earl Russell Browder The CPUSA leader who declared Communism was 20th-century Americanism, and then dissolved his own party
- Nurija Pozderac Nurija Pozderac A Bosnian politician who embodied a multi-ethnic resistance coalition
- Sanzo Nosaka 野坂参三 International communist who founded the JCP, ran the Comintern's Pacific networks, and led the party for 24 years
- Sükhbaatar Сүхбаатар Military leader of Mongolia's 1921 revolution, posthumously canonized as its 'father'
- José Díaz José Díaz From baker to General Secretary: the leader who steered Spanish communism through the Popular Front and Civil War
- Choibalsan Чойбалсан Mongolian revolution and consolidation
- Ruth Fischer Ruth Fischer First woman to lead a major European communist party, and its sharpest anti-Stalinist apostate
- Dolores Ibárruri Dolores Ibárruri “¡No pasarán!”: the voice of anti-fascism that refused to let Franco's armies pass
- Joaquín Juliá Maurín Joaquín Maurín A revolutionary who pursued workers' unity across communist divisions