People of the Revolution and the USSR

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1930–2009 ○ Natural causes

The highest-ranking Armenian economist in the Soviet apparatus, who pushed the Law on Cooperatives through the Politburo

When conservative members of the Politburo vehemently opposed the Law on Cooperatives in 1988, Sitaryan reportedly answered: "This law will not destroy socialism — it will save it."

A Soviet Armenian economist and statesman who participated in nearly every major chapter of Soviet economic reform from the Kosygin era through perestroika, as both theorist and operational leader. In the mid-1960s he helped design the introduction of commodity-money relations for the Kosygin reform commission; as First Deputy Chairman of Gosplan (1986–1989) he drafted the core perestroika-era restructuring measures. The 1988 Law on Cooperatives, which he authored and personally defended before a hostile Politburo, was the first Soviet law to grant private enterprise legal standing. As Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers (1989–1990) he advanced the opening of Soviet foreign trade, and after the USSR's dissolution founded the Institute for Foreign Economic Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1931–2000 ○ Natural causes

The last party first secretary who tilted Nagorno-Karabakh toward Armenia

From the rostrum of the USSR Supreme Soviet, July 1988: "The optimal solution in this situation would be to detach Karabakh from Azerbaijan. I see no alternative."

An Armenian party functionary born in Stepanakert in 1931, Poghosyan was appointed First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Party Committee on 24 February 1988, inheriting an explosive situation barely four days after the regional soviet voted to unify with Soviet Armenia. Within weeks he chaired a party plenum that formally petitioned Moscow to transfer Karabakh to Armenia, and in July he told the USSR Supreme Soviet from the rostrum that he saw no alternative to separating Karabakh from Azerbaijan. Moscow removed him in January 1989 and replaced the oblast leadership with Arkady Volsky's Special Administration Committee; Poghosyan retired to Moscow and died there in 2000.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Soviet communism 1932–1998 ○ Natural causes

The Armenian party functionary who enforced Baku's control over Nagorno-Karabakh

"Although the autonomous oblast is close to the Armenian republic, they are separated by high mountains." (1977 international journal interview)

An Armenian from Shamakhi, Azerbaijan, Kevorkov was appointed by Heydar Aliyev in 1973 as First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast and served until 1988. An outsider wholly loyal to Aliyev, he suppressed Armenian national aspirations and enforced Baku's control over the region. His 1977 claim that Karabakh was 'separated from Armenia by high mountains' made him a pariah among Armenians; in February 1988 he was dismissed after the oblast soviet voted to unify with Soviet Armenia. Arrested in Baku in 1992, he was freed under Aliyev's 1993 amnesty and spent his last years as a Moscow history teacher, dying in 1998.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1932–1999 ✕ Assassinated

Modernized Soviet Armenia over 14 years, sacked for siding with Karabakh, returned and assassinated in parliament

On 23 April 1975, Demirchyan became the first Soviet Armenian leader to officially condemn the organizers of the Armenian Genocide, mourning the victims in the republic's name.

Rising from the Yerevan Electrotechnical Factory as foreman, party secretary, chief engineer, and director, Demirchyan became First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia in 1974 and led Soviet Armenia for fourteen years. His tenure saw the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant, Yerevan Metro, and other modern infrastructure built. In 1975 he became the first Soviet Armenian leader to officially condemn the Armenian Genocide, and he secured Armenian as the state language in the 1978 Constitution. In 1988, after siding with protests demanding Nagorno-Karabakh's transfer to Armenia, Moscow removed him on health grounds. After the Soviet collapse he returned to politics, winning 40% in the 1998 presidential runoff and being elected Speaker in 1999, only to be assassinated in the parliament shooting alongside Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan that October.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1932–2012 ○ Natural causes

The last leader of Armenia's Communist Party before the Soviet collapse

In late 1990, he led Armenia's Communist Party while the political foundations of its rule were already shaking.

Stepan Pogosyan was an Armenian Communist Party politician and historian who spent much of his career directing mass media and publishing in Soviet Armenia. He represented a party leadership whose state base and political influence were weakening as the socialist system came apart. From late 1990 to 1991, he served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia and as a member of the CPSU Central Committee Politburo, then retired from political work.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1933–2014 ○ Natural causes

The last Communist Party first secretary of Soviet Armenia

He left the CPSU Politburo because the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved.

Vladimir Movsisyan was a politician who rose through the agricultural and party administration of Soviet Armenia. In 1990 he became first secretary of the republic’s Communist Party and a member of the CPSU Politburo, but left the Politburo after the Nagorno-Karabakh question remained unresolved. After the Soviet collapse, he remained involved in refugee administration, defence, and agricultural policy, helping shape the institutions of independent Armenia.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1950–2017 ○ Heart disease

The first legal Soviet millionaire, whose 90,000-ruble party dues payment forced the cooperative law to be amended twice

The party organizer wrapped both arms around the stacks of cash, stared with wild eyes, and with a trembling hand wrote in the party card: 'Salary for January 1989: three million rubles.' The average monthly wage at the time was 200 rubles.

The first legal millionaire of the USSR and founder of the Tekhnika cooperative. In January 1989 he paid himself a salary of 3 million rubles, and when his deputy's party dues of 90,000 rubles were broadcast on the programme Vzglyad, a national scandal erupted that forced the government to amend the cooperative law twice. He later served as a People's Deputy and State Duma deputy, becoming an emblematic figure of early Russian capitalism.

Soviet Union Soviet communism 1901/1902–1983 ○ Natural causes

Armenian party functionary who managed the international communist movement in late Stalinism

In August 1953, CC official A. L. Dedov reported to Khrushchev that Grigoryan's colleagues 'point to close relations between Grigoryan and Beria.'

Born in an Armenian village in Azerbaijan, Grigoryan rose from army newspaper editor to head of publishing and propaganda in the Moscow party apparatus. In 1949 he succeeded Mikhail Suslov as chairman of the Foreign Policy Commission (International Department), overseeing CPSU relations with communist parties worldwide until 1953. His tenure coincided with the deepening Tito–Stalin split after the Cominform's founding, the victory of the Chinese Revolution, and the Korean War. Elected a candidate member of the Central Committee at the 19th Party Congress in 1952, he was removed after Beria's fall, transferred to the Foreign Ministry, and dropped from the Central Committee.