Key Figures Flashcards
Alexander II
Ruled as Tsar from 1855 to 1881. Sometimes known as the ‘Tsar Liberator’; primarily for his abolition of serfdom in 1861 and other reforms. Assassinated in 1881.
Alexander III
Succeeded his father, Alexander II, in 1881. He opposed his father’s reforming policies and repressed political opposition.
Alexandra Feodorovna
The German wife of Nicholas II.
Lavrenty Beria
Head of the NKVD from 1938. Executed in 1953.
Leonid Brezhnev
A close ally of Khrushchev. Eventually led the group that forced him from power.
Father Gapon
An Orthodox priest who organised workers’ unions from 1903 but remained loyal to the Tsar. Fled into exile after Bloody Sunday but was later hanged.
Lev Kamenev
An active Bolshevik from 1905 and later a member of the Politburo. Executed in the purges of 1936.
Alexander Kerensky
A Socialist Revolutionary who sat in the Petrograd Soviet and Provisional Government in 1917, rising to become leader of the government from July. Deposed by the Bolsheviks in October.
Nikita Khrushchev
First Secretary of the party from 1953 to 1964 who had emerged as leader in the mid-1950s. He delivered the ‘secret speech’ in 1956, which revealed the extent of Stalin’s purges. Ousted in 1964.
Sergei Kirov
A popular figure, he was Party Secretary in Leningrad before being assassinated in 1934.
Lavr Kornilov
Army general who attempted a coup against the Provisional Government in August 1917.
Peter Lavrov
A populist who, in 1874, led a group of students into the countryside to live and spread their ideas among the peasants.
Vladimir Lenin
Leader of the Bolsheviks from 1903, he shaped the communist state which emerged after the 1917 October Revolution. Died in 1924 and and the city of Petrograd was renamed ‘Leningrad’ after him.
Georgy Malenkov
Prime Minister and leading reformer after Stalin’s death. Forced to resign by Khrushchev in 1955.
Julius Martov
A leader of the Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Broke with Lenin and led the Mensheviks.
Nicholas and Dmitri Milyutin
Two brothers who were both close advisers of Nicholas II.
Vyacheslav Molotov
Served under Stalin and was part of the collective leadership that ruled the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death.
Nicholas II
Tsar from 1894 until his abdication in February 1917. Determined to uphold the Tsarist autocracy, he proved to be an indecisive ruler.
Konstantin Pobedonostev
Tutor to Alexander III and later to Nicholas II, he encouraged Alexander to maintain a highly autocratic government.
Prince Lvov
A wealthy aristocratic landowner who had led the Kadets and Russian Union of Zemstva before becoming leader of the Provisional Government in 1917.
Gregory Rasputin
A mystic peasant who exercised great influence with the Empress Alexandra and then in the Tsarist government in the early years of WWI. Assassinated in 1916.
Joseph Stalin
General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922, he exercised increasingly dictatorial control over the Soviet Union until his death in 1953.
Peter Stolypin
Interior Minister from 1906 to 1911, he introduced major reforms in agriculture. Assassinated in 1911.
Leon Trotsky
A brilliant orator, he masterminded the takeover of Petrograd by Red Guards in October 1917 and the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Assassinated on Stalin’s orders in Mexico in 1940.
Mikhail Von Reutern
Minister of Finance under Alexander II from 1862 to 1878.
Ivan Vyshnegradsky
Finance Minister from 1887 to 1892.
Sergei Witte
Finance Minister from 1892 to 1903. Credited with the rapid expansion of the Russian economy at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Gregory Zinoviev
A close ally of Lenin. Played a prominent part in the October Revolution but was purged by Stalin in 1936.
