People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1906–1976 ○ Natural causes

From trace elements to federal politics: a Latvian agrochemist who chaired the Soviet of Nationalities

During the 1959 purge of Latvian national communists, Vilis Lācis backed Eduards Berklavs as his successor — but Moscow chose Peive instead. Appointed to break Latvia's autonomous line, he left the republic for good and spent the rest of his career as a science administrator in Moscow.

Born to Latvian peasant farmers, Peive was an agrochemist who pioneered research on trace elements in plant nutrition. After serving as rector of the Latvian Agricultural Academy and president of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, he simultaneously chaired the Soviet of Nationalities and the Latvian SSR Council of Ministers, a model Baltic cadre of the Khrushchev era. Chosen as head of government in 1959 over Eduards Berklavs during the purge of Latvian national communists, he later moved fully to Moscow and spent his final years at the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1911–1978 ○ Natural causes

Academy president who coordinated space science

At drawn-out meetings Keldysh would close his eyes and appear to drift off; everyone assumed he had checked out. Then, unexpectedly, he would interject a question that hit the core of the issue with surgical precision, revealing he had missed nothing.

An applied mathematician and president of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1961–1975). In the 1930s he solved the aircraft flutter and shimmy problems mathematically. In 1946 he organized a Calculation Bureau at the Steklov Institute to handle numerical analysis for nuclear weapons development. From the mid-1950s he served as 'Chief Theoretician' coordinating orbital calculations for satellites and crewed spaceflight, forming the core scientific leadership of the Soviet space program alongside Korolev. He was also the de facto state customer for Soviet computer development. A scientific administrator who wove theory, computation, research institutes, and state decisions into a single system.