Ben Kingsley
— Dmitri Shostakovich
Sherry Baines
— Nina Shostakovich
Magdalen Asquith
— Galya Shostakovich
Mark Asquith
— Maxim Shostakovich
Terence Rigby
— Joseph Stalin
Ronald Pickup
— Marshall Tukhachevsky
John Shrapnel
— Andre Zhdanov
Robert Reynolds
— Brutus
Vernon Dobtcheff
— Gargolovsky
Brook Williams
— H.G. Wells
Peter Woodthorpe
— Alexander Glazunov
William Squire
— Khatchaturyan
Dorota Kwiatkowska
— Anna Akhmatova
Liza Goddard
— English Humanist
Murray Melvin
— Film Editor
Robert Urquhart
— Journalist
Chris Barrie
— Carnival Thin Man
Frank Carson
— Carnival Fat Man
Ed Bishop
— American Commentator
Collin Hurst
— Stalin's Secretary
Joyce Grundy
— Stalin's Mother
Mark Thrippleton
— Young Stalin
Robert Stephens
— Vsevolod Meyerhold
Jane Cox
— The Widow
Julian Stanley
— Andre Gide
David Sharpe
— Mandelstam
Rowen Parr
— Galya (aged 39)
Bronco McLoughlin
— Cossack
Christopher Bramwell
— Vanya
Marita Philips
— Madam Lupinskaya