Dr. George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15 1917), British historian, became one of the best-known writers on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, "The Great Terror".

Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels (real surname - Vovsi), ; (January 12/13, 1948) was a Soviet Jewish actor and director in Yiddish theater and the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Born Shloyme Vovsi in Dvinsk (now Daugavpils), Latvia, Mikhoels studied law in Saint Petersburg, but left school in 1918 to join Alexander Granovsky's Jewish Theater Workshop, which was attempting to create a national Jewish theater in Russia based on the Yiddish language.

Vsevolod Nikolayevich Merkulov, was the head of NKGB from February to July 1941, and again from April 1943 to March 1946. He was a member of the so-called "Georgian mafia" of Lavrenti Beria, head of the NKVD. In 1913, Merkulov graduated from the Tiflis Gymnasium with the gold medal and became a student at St. Petersburg University, Department of Physics and Mathematics. From 1921-1922, he worked as a detective at the Transportation Unit of the Cheka in Georgia.

Nikita Vasilyevich Petrov is a Russian historian. He works at "Memorial," a Russian organization dedicated to Soviet political repression. Petrov specializes in Soviet security services. The book about Nikolai Ezhov written by Nikita Petrov and Marc Jansen is based on the archives made accessible after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Petrov's part was tracking original archival documents, while Jansen worked with published sources.

Solomon Grigorevich Mogilevsky (1885, Pavlograd - March 22, 1925) headed the Soviet foreign intelligence service, the "INO" of the GPU, from 1921 to May 1922, when he was sent to head the GPU in the South Caucasus region where had been involved in the suppression of the August Uprising in the Georgian SSR.

Solomon Bregman, in Russian,Соломон Брегман, was a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee formed in the Soviet Union in April 1942. The committee was lead by the famous Yiddish actor Solomon Mikhoels. Bregman was born in the town of Zlynka in the Bryansk district. Bregman was a deputy minister of State Control and an active party member since 1912. He was editor-in-chief of The Book About Jews-Heroes of the War against Fascism.

Alexander Gregory Barmine (1899-1987) was a general in the Soviet Army who fled the purges of the Stalin era and escaped to the United States where he served in the Army during World War II and became a government official. Barmine participated as a young man in the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution. At 21, he rose to the rank of brigadier general was later detailed by the Soviet army to service as a diplomat, …

Aleksei (born Lazar) Yakovlevich Kapler (also Alexei, ; Kiev, - Moscow, 11 September 1979) was a Soviet filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and writer. He was known as an anchor and director of the TV program "Kinopanorama" (a cinema overview). He is also known for his brief romance with Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.

Lidia Muhtarovna Yusupova is the Coordinator of the Grozny office of the Moscow-based human rights organization Memorial. She has been described by the BBC News service as "the bravest woman in Europe", and representatives of Amnesty International have similarly declared her "one of the most courageous women in Europe". Both Lidia and her organization have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Lidia was born in Grozny to Chechen parents, …

Anatoly Lamanov was one of the central figures of the 1921 Kronstadt rebellion in the Soviet Union. As student in 1917 he became Chairman of the "Kronstadt Soviet of Worker's Deputies" (the Kronstadt Soviet), and later served as the Chairman of the Kronstadt Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies.

Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Georgian: ლავრენტი ბერია, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria; Russian: Лаврентий Павлович Берия; 29 March, 1899 – 23 December, 1953) was a Soviet politician and chief of the Soviet security and police apparatus. Beria is now remembered chiefly as the executor of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge of the 1930s and 1940's, …