Pavel Karlovich Shternberg was a Russian professor, academic, astronomer, Bolshevik and revolutionary of German decent. Shternberg contributed to the abolition of the Tsarist government by Alexander Kerensky during the February Revolution of 1917. He was an acquaintance of two notable revolutionaries, Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky.

Varvara Nikolaevna Yakovleva was a prominent Bolshevik party member and Soviet government official who later supported Leon Trotsky's attempt to democratize the party. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1938 for membership in a "diversionary terrorist organization." She was later shot in the Oryol Central Prison.