People of the Revolution and the USSR
- Yevsei Grigoryevich Liberman Евсей Григорьевич Либерман Theoretical catalyst of the 1965 Soviet economic reform
- Alexei Matveyevich Rumyantsev Алексей Матвеевич Румянцев The political economist who opened Khrushchev's economic debate, and institutional founder of Soviet sociology
- Georgy Arkadyevich Arbatov Георгий Аркадьевич Арбатов The USSR's preeminent Americanist who built a think-tank on Arbat Street, not in Akademgorodok, and designed détente
- 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'