Curated playlist
Russian atheists
- Nikita KhrushchevNikita Khrushchev spent four hours in 1956 tearing down Stalin's reputation. He had helped carry out Stalin's purges.
- Anton ChekhovAnton Chekhov's body traveled to Moscow in a railway car meant for oysters. The detail offended his friend Maxim Gorky.
- Mikhail GorbachevMikhail Gorbachev refused to declare a state of emergency during the August 1991 coup.
- Mikhail SuslovA box of index cards with Lenin quotes launched Mikhail Suslov's Soviet career. Stalin promoted him in 1937.
- Vyacheslav MolotovFinns named the Molotov cocktail after Vyacheslav Molotov, who called bombing raids food deliveries.
- Konstantin ChernenkoSoviet leader Konstantin Chernenko's obituary ran on page two. Page one celebrated his successor, Gorbachev.
- Vladimir LeninLenin's name came from no person, and the N in N. Lenin stood for nothing. One theory points to the Lena River.
- Mikhail BakuninKarl Marx had the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin expelled from the First International in 1872.
- Vissarion BelinskyRussian critic Vissarion Belinsky died in 1848, just before the Tsar's police could arrest him.
- George GamowGeorge Gamow added Hans Bethe's name to a physics paper as a prank. Bethe had not written a word of it.
- Dmitri ShostakovichStalin walked out of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera in 1936, and the next day Pravda attacked it.
- Leon TrotskyLeon Trotsky escaped Siberia hidden in a load of hay. He later built the Red Army.
- Peter KropotkinAnarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin refused a cabinet seat in Russia's Provisional Government.
- Vladimir MayakovskyPoet Vladimir Mayakovsky once threw tea at his audiences. He later wrote propaganda posters for the Communist Party.
- Nikolai VavilovBotanist Nikolai Vavilov set out to end famine but was arrested in 1940 and died in a Soviet prison.
- Ivan PavlovIvan Pavlov spent his early career studying how a dog's stomach works. His famous discovery came almost by accident.
- Maxim GorkyWriter Maxim Gorky visited a Soviet labor camp that had been staged for him, and he did not notice.
- Sergei EisensteinSergei Eisenstein reached Hollywood in May 1930 and was sent home within five months.
- Vladimir VernadskyVladimir Vernadsky argued that living things are a geological force. His 1926 book The Biosphere made the case.
- Élie MetchnikoffÉlie Metchnikoff poked citrus thorns into starfish larvae in 1882 and watched cells swarm them.
- Yevgeny ZamyatinYevgeny Zamyatin smuggled his banned novel We out of the Soviet Union. He wrote to Stalin and left in 1931.
- Alexander ZinovievSoviet writer Alexander Zinoviev was expelled from his country, then returned by choice 21 years later.
- Anton RubinsteinAnton Rubinstein gave 215 concerts in 239 days on one American tour. The Russian pianist called it slavery.
- Konstantin TsiolkovskyDeaf teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky wrote the rocket equation in a log house in 1897.