Glossary of Selected Russian Personalities

Alexander II (1818-1881) the Russian Emperor from 2 March 1855 until his
assassination on 13 March 1881. He initiated liberal reforms, of which the
emancipation of serfs was the most important.

Victor Abakumov (19081954) a Soviet official. In 1943-46 - head of military

counter-intelligence, in 1946-51, Minister of State Security. Arrested in 1951
charged with treason and participation in a Zionist plot. Executed in December
1954.

Bella Akhmadulina (19372010) a Soviet and Russian poet, translator, short

story writer, a representative of Khrushchevs thaw generation of the Soviet
creative intelligentsia. One of the reformers of socialist realism who established
a new style of poetry and writing in the Soviet Union.

Anna Akhmatova (18891966) one of the most famous Russian poets of the
20th century. She was persecuted by the Soviet authorities and not allowed to
publish for decades. Zhdanovs decree on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad
attacked her writing as bourgeois and anti-Soviet.

Nadezhda Alliluieva (19011932) the second wife of Joseph Stalin.

Svetlana Alliluieva (19262011) Stalins youngest child and only daughter by
his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluieva. She ended her life in emigration, in the
USA.

Lavrenty Beria (18991953) a Soviet security official, in 193853 head of the

NKVD (from 1946, the MGB). After Stalins death, he was charged with
treason and with organising the Great Terror and was executed.

Aleksandr Blok (18801921) a Russian lyrical poet of the Symbolism style.

Leonid Brezhnev (19061982) in 196482 General Secretary of the Central

Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Bukharin (18881938) a member of Lenins Old Guard and a

prominent Soviet politician, economist and Marxist theoretician. Bukharin was
arrested in January 1937 and expelled from the Party as a Trotskyite. In March
1938, he was falsely charged with counter-revolutionary activities, treason and
espionage, and executed.
Yakov Dzhugashvili (19071943) the eldest son of Joseph Stalin by his first
wife, Kato Svanidze. He served in the Red Army and was taken prisoner during
the first weeks of the German invasion. He died, probably in Sachsenhausen
concentration camp. There is a widely spread belief that the German authorities
offered to exchange Yakov for Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, captured during
the Battle of Stalingrad, but that Stalin turned the offer down, saying, I will not
trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant. However, there is no archival evidence to
verify this story.

Vera Figner (18521942) leader of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) a

terrorist group, which advocated the use of terror to achieve a revolutionary
overthrow of the government. Figner was one of the organisers of the
successful assassination of Alexander II in 1881.

Mikhail Gorbachev (born 2 March 1931) a Soviet statesman. He was the last
leader of the Soviet Union. In 198591 he was General Secretary of the
Communist Partys Central Committee and in 1990-91, the first and only
president of the Soviet Union.

Andrei Gromyko (19091989) a top Soviet official during the Cold War. In
195785 he was Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 198588, Chairman of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Aleksandr Guchkov (1862 1936) a Russian statesman. In 190517 he was

leader of the liberal-reformist Octobrist Party.

Semen Ignatiev (19041983) a Soviet official. In 1951 he replaced Abakumov

as Minister of State Security. He was involved in organising persecutions and
trials in connection with the Doctors plot and the Mingrelian Affair. After
Stalins death Ignatiev lost his position.

Lazar Kaganovich (18931991) a party leader and Stalins close associate. In

193057 he was a member of the Central Committees Politburo.

Mikhail Kalinin (18751946) a party leader and Soviet official. He was the
formal head of the Soviet state from 1919 until 1946.

Lev Kamenev (18831936) - a party leader of the Lenin generation, a staunch

opponent of Stalin. He was a member of the Central Committees Politburo
from October 1917. During the Great Terror he was falsely charged with
treason and espionage and executed in 1936.
Aleksandr Kerensky (18801970) a moderate socialist revolutionary. He was
head of the provisional government in July October 1917. In May 1918 he
emigrated to Western Europe, where he devoted his life to writing and to editing
migr publications.

Nikita Khrushchev (18941971) a top Soviet and party official. He was the
First Secretary of the party in 195364 and Chairman of the Council of
Ministers in 195864. He occupied several ministerial and top party positions
under Stalin and in that capacity he participated in Stalins purges. However, at
a closed session of the 20th party congress in 1956 he denounced Stalins cult
of personality, thus opening the door to the first wave of de-Stalinisation. In
1964 he was toppled from his position by his Politburo colleagues.

Sergei Kirov (18861934) a party and Soviet official. He was head of the
Leningrad party organisation. On 1 December 1934 he was killed by a gunman
near his office in the Smolny Palace.

Alexandra Kollontai (18721952) a Russian revolutionary, a member of the

first Soviet government. In 192345 she served as Soviet ambassador in
Norway, Mexico and Sweden.

Lavr Kornilov (18701918) Russian general. In summer 1917 he attempted

to use military force amidst the growing chaos and impotence of the provisional
government. According to different sources he was going either to overthrow
the government and replace it with a military dictatorship, or to prop it up with
military force against the Bolsheviks.

Alexei Kosygin (19041980) a party and Soviet official during the Cold War.
He served as Minister of Finance, then Minister of Light Industry and then
Minister of Light and Food Industry. In 19641980 he was the Chairman of the
Council of Ministers. In 1965 he initiated the economic reform known as the
Kosygin reform, which included a partial decentralisation and liberalisation of
the management of the economy and introduced elements of cost accounting
and financial stimuli for industrial innovation and for workers.

Nadezhda Krupskaya (18691939) a Russian revolutionary, member of the

Bolshevik party and wife of Vladimir Lenin. She served as Deputy Minister of
Education from 1929 until her death in 1939.

Otto Kuusinen (18811964) a Finnish and Soviet politician and official. In

November 1939, during the Winter War, Stalin appointed him as head of
the Finnish Democratic Republic. In this capacity he signed the Treaty of
Friendship and Mutual Assistance with the USSR (2 December 1939). When
the Finnish Democratic Republic did not materialise, Kuusinen was made head
of the Supreme Soviet of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic. He was
a member of the Central Committees Politburo and secretary of the partys
Central Committee.

Aleksei Kuznetsov (19051950) a Soviet and party official, a Lieutenant-

General of the Soviet Army, member of the partys Central Committee.
Kuznetsov was arrested, tried and sentenced to death in a secret trial during the
Leningrad Affair. He was executed in 1950.

Georgy Malenkov (19021988) a top Soviet and party official, Stalins close
associate. In 19531955 he was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers.

Ramon Mercader (19131978) a Spanish communist and NKVD agent. In

1940 he assassinated Leon Trotsky in Mexico City.

Solomon Mikhoels (1890 1948) a Soviet actor and theatre director. During
World War II Mikhoels served as chairman of the Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist
Committee. He was murdered on Stalins orders in 1948.

Anastas Mikoyan (18951978) a top Soviet and party official, Stalins close
associate. In 196465 he was the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme
Soviet, in 195564, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and
in 193849 and 195355, the Peoples Commissar/Minister of Foreign Trade.

Viacheslav Molotov (18901986) a top Soviet and party official, Stalins

closest associate. In 19301941 Molotov served as Chairman of the Council of
Peoples Commissars. In 193949 and 195356 he was Minister of Foreign
Affairs and in 19421957, First Deputy of the Chairman of the Council of
Ministers.
Sergo Ordjonikidze (Ordzhonikidze) (18861937) a Georgian party leader, a
member of the Politburo and Stalins close supporter. Having found out about
his imminent arrest during the Great Terror he committed suicide to avoid
torture. The official reason given for his death was a heart attack.

Robert Rozhdestvensky (19321994) a Soviet and Russian poet, a

representative of Khrushchevs thaw generation of the Soviet creative
intelligentsia. One of the reformers of socialist realism who established a new
style of poetry and writing in the Soviet Union.

Alexei Rykov (18811938) a Bolshevik leader and a prominent Soviet

official. One of Stalins major opponents during the late 1920s. In 193637 he
was charged with treason and anti-Soviet conspiracy on fabricated evidence. In
March 1938 he was tried, sentenced to death and executed.

Andrei Sakharov (19211989) a Russian nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident,

an active proponent of disarmament, peace and human rights. He became
famous for his role in the creation of the first Soviet hydrogen bomb and then
for his dissident activities. In 1975 Sakharov was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize.

Nikolai Shvernik (18881970) a Soviet official, in 194653, Chairman of the

Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (19182008) a Russian novelist and short story

writer. He was a former Gulag prisoner and by his writing he helped to raise
awareness of the Gulag system both in the USSR and abroad. Solzhenitsyn was
awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature for the ethical force with which he
has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.

Alexei Stakhanov (19051977) a famous Soviet miner, Hero of Socialist

Labour. He started the Stakhanovite movement - a campaign intended to
increase worker productivity and to demonstrate the superiority of
the socialist economic system.

Vasily Stalin (19211962) the younger son of Joseph Stalin by his second
wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva. A Lieutenant-General of the Soviet Army.

Piotr Stolypin (1862 1911) a Russian statesman, an initiator of an agrarian

reform which aimed at improving legal and economic status of the peasantry
and at destroying village communes. The ultimate goal of the reform was to
advance the Russian economy and to achieve political stability.

Yakov Sverdlov (18851919) a Bolshevik leader and Soviet official. His

organisational skills made him a key figure in the party in 1917-18.

Mikhail Suslov (19021982) a Soviet and party official. From 1965 until his
death he was the Second Secretary of the CPSUs Central Committee, and,
unofficially, the partys main ideologue.

Mikhail Tomsky (18881936) a Bolshevik leader, a party and Soviet official.

He was head of the All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. During the
First Moscow Trial of Zinoviev and Kamenev Tomsky was accused of criminal
ties to them. He committed suicide in 1936 before his imminent arrest.
Leon Trotsky (18791940) a revolutionary leader. In the first years of Soviet
power he was Peoples Commissar of Foreign Affairs Peoples Commissar of
Military and Naval Affairs and Commander of the Red Army. He played a
significant role in the creation of the Red Army during the Civil War. Trotsky
lost the struggle for power with Stalin and was exiled from the USSR in 1929.
On 20 August 1940, he was mortally wounded by Ramon Mercader and died
the next day.

Mikhail Tukhachevsky (18931937) a Soviet military commander, hero of the

Russian Civil War. In the 1920s and 1930s he played a leading role in the
modernisation of the Red Army. He was arrested and executed on Stalins
orders together with other Soviet marshals during the Great Terror.

Aleksandr Vasilevsky (18951977) Marshal of the Soviet Army from 1943,

Chief of the General Staff and Deputy Minister of Defence during World War
II. In 194953 he was Minister of Defence.

Kliment Voroshilov (18811969) a top military, Soviet and party official.

Stalins close associate. In 192540 he was the Peoples Commissar for
Defence, in 195360, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of
the USSR.

Andrei Voznesensky (19332010) a Soviet and Russian poet and writer, a

representative of Khrushchevs thaw generation of the Soviet creative
intelligentsia. One of the reformers of socialist realism who established a new
style of poetry and writing in the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Voznesensky (19031950) a Soviet economist and politician. He was

head of the Peoples Commissariat for State Planning during World War II. He
was charged and executed during the Leningrad Trial.

Sergei Witte (18491915) a prominent Russian statesman. In 190506 he was

the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire who began the
modernisation of the Russian economy.

Genrich Yagoda (18911938) a Bolshevik leader and prominent security

official. In 193436 he was head of the NKVD. He was executed in 1938 during
the Great Terror.

Boris Yeltsyn (1931 2007) a Soviet and Russian politician. He was the first
President of the Russian Federation (19911999).
Avel Yenukidze (18771937) a Bolshevik leader, a prominent Soviet official.
One of the first members of the Central Committee to be executed during the
Great Terror.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933 2017) a Soviet and Russian poet, novelist,

essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, publisher, actor, editor and film director.
Together with Andrey Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella
Akhmadulina and several other writers, poets, artists and actors, he was a
representative of the Khrushchev thaw generation of the Soviet creative
intelligentsia. One of the reformers of socialist realism who established a new
style of poetry and writing in the Soviet Union.

Nikolai Yezhov (18951940) head of the NKVD from 1936 to 1938. Was
charged with treason and espionage and executed in 1940.

Andrei Zhdanov (1896 1948) a Soviet and party top official and Stalins
close associate. In 19341945 he was head of the Leningrad party organisation.

Polina Zhemchuzhina (1897 1970) a Soviet official, wife of Vyacheslav

Molotov. In the 1930s she was director of the Soviet cosmetics trust and
Minister of Fisheries, and in 1939-48, head of textile production in the Ministry
of Light Industry. In 1949 Zhemchuzhina was arrested, charged with ties
tointernational Zionism and sent to the Gulag, where she remained until Stalins
death.

Georgy Zhukov (18961974) Marshal of the Red Army, head of the General
Staff, Deputy Commander-in-Chief, Minister of Defence and a member of the
Politburo. During World War II he was the Red Army commander in many
battles, ultimately commanding the 1st Belorussian Front in the Battle of Berlin,
which resulted in the defeat of Nazi Germany, and the end of the War in
Europe.

Grigory Zinoviev (18831936) a Bolshevik party leader. In the 1920s he was

the most prominent among Stalins opponents after Trotsky. He was charged
with treason and espionage and executed in 1936.

Mikhail Zoshchenko (1894 1958) a Soviet writer and satirist. Zhdanovs

decree about the Zvezda and Leningrad magazines banned the publication of his
writing along with the poetry of Anna Akhmatova.