Soviet Communist Party head and president. He tried to relieve repression and open up and liberalize both Soviet politics and economics while still preserving Communism. This proved to be impossible and the Soviet Union collapsed.
| 1896–1974 | Giorgiy Zhukov |
| 1883–1936 | Grigoriy Zinoviev |
| 1884–1937 | Yevgeny Zamyatin |
| 1931–2007 | Boris Yeltsin |
| 1895–c. 1939 | Nikolai Yezhov |
| 1896–1934 | Lev Vygotsky |
| 1883–1954 | Andrey Vyshinsky |
| 1879–1940 | Leon Trotsky |
| 1902–1982 | Mikhail Suslov |
| c. 1886–1934 | Alexandre Stavisky |
| 1906–1977 | Alexey Stakhanov |
| 1891–1945 | Maria Skobtsova |
| Born 1948 | Natan Shcharansky |
| 1921–1989 | Andrey Sakharov |
| 1881–1938 | Alexey Rykov |
| 1885–c. 1939 | Karl Radek |
| 1938–1993 | Rudolf Nureyev |
| 1890–1950 | Vaslav Nijinsky |
| 1902–1977 | Alexander Luria |
| 1894–1971 | Nikita Khrushchev |
| 1881–1970 | Alexander Kerensky |
| Born 1963 | Gary Kasparov |
| 1893–1991 | Lazar Kaganovich |
| 1880–1942 | Michel Fokine |
| 1888–1938 | Nikolay Bukharin |
| 1871–1944 | Sergey Bulgakov |
| 1899–1953 | Lavrenti Beria |
| Born 1948 | Mikhail Baryshnikov |
| 1904–1983 | George Balanchine |
