The UoS numbered some 30 members, including Nikita Muravyov, Sergey Muravyov-Apostol, Matvei Muravyov-Apostol, Sergei Trubetskoy, Ivan Yakushkin, Pavel Pestel, Yevgeni Obolensky, Ivan Pushchin, Mikhail Lunin and others. In 1817 they approved the UoS charter and changed the society's name to Society of True and Loyal Sons of the Fatherland.
In 1816, at the initiative of , a group of young officers of the Russian army founded the Union of Salvation (UoS). The first members had taken part in the Patriotic War of 1812 and in the foreign campaigns of 1813–1814.