(FORTUNE Magazine) – Who are George Radanovich, Charles Bass, and Sam Brownback, and what do they want? Chances are those names mean nothing in your house. But in Newt Gingrich's House, Radanovich, Bass, and Brownback--and 70 of their closest friends--are important folks indeed. They've made for a visible difference in Washington--and are about to press for even more.

They're GOP freshmen, the shock troops of the Republican revolution and a significant new force in U.S. politics. Before they were even sworn in, they forced the new congressional leadership to agree to trim House perks, including free postage. This fall they were the engine of GOP resistance to a budget deal with President Clinton. And in 1996 they're determined not just to shrink government further but to reshape it completely.

The mantra of these new Republicans is change, change, change. And then more change. Next year the freshmen have three big aims: "defunding the left," by eliminating politically suspect (in their eyes) federal social and cultural programs, such as the National Endowment for the Arts; reforming the campaign finance system; and abolishing (finally) a few big government departments. Their hit list includes the Energy Department, the Bureau of Reclamation, and--get this--the Internal Revenue Service, made redundant by a slew of GOP tax overhaul plans.

They may seem robotic--that's the Democrats' rap against them--but this crowd is hardly monolithic. "The idea that we all agree on everything, or anything, is nuts," says Bass, an architectural products executive. Their ranks include a sports broadcaster, two former pro athletes, a dentist, a mechanical engineer, a trucking manager, a vintner, and--perhaps most appropriate of all--an auctioneer. Only about half have ever held elected office before.

What they have in common is an uncommon level of focus and commitment. "This is the only place I have ever been where just doing what you said you would do makes you stand out," says Representative Mark Neumann, a homebuilder from Wisconsin.

Take Radanovich. A tireless agitator for privatization, he wants to transfer into private hands a government-owned water project that extends the length of the Central Valley, much of which runs through his California district. Bass, a flinty son of New Hampshire, wants a smaller deficit next year, even if that means a slimmer tax cut. Brownback, for six years the state agriculture commissioner in Kansas, wants the clear elimination of several federal agencies and departments.

In the old days--a whole year ago, to be exact--nobody much cared what freshmen lawmakers wanted. No longer. These Republican freshmen empowered Gingrich--their election transformed him from GOP gadfly to Speaker--and Gingrich in turn empowered the freshmen. A few months ago he was asked whether the country needed a third political party. His answer was telling: We already have a third party--the House freshmen.

In truth, the freshmen are a useful tool for Gingrich. He can (and does) say that he'd like to compromise but that the freshmen--more conservative, more strident, more impatient than the rest of the GOP caucus--don't give him much room to maneuver. "He's smart enough to use us when he needs to and to shut us down at other times," says Representative Rick White of Washington State. "We don't necessarily like that, but we know Newt can deliver." It works the other way too: A Congressional Quarterly voting study shows the GOP freshmen have displayed more party loyalty--and opposed President Clinton more often--than veteran Republicans.

That's their only loyalty. "I'm not here to tinker around the edges," says White. "The danger is not that we'll do too much. The danger is that we'll do too little." There's little chance of that, which is what worries the Democrats. "They don't understand how complex the real world is," complains Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the Democrat these freshmen most like to hate. "They think you can make all these significant cuts in theory and not have any impact in practice."

Washington has seldom seen anything like the freshman frenzy; the closest comparison is the 1974 Democrats, the so-called Watergate babies who stormed into the Capitol to change how the House worked by attacking the seniority system. The current freshmen also want to change how the House works, but that's not enough. Their target is the whole country.

"Whenever you get 73 people together, you get a big group," observes Richard Fenno, a University of Rochester specialist on Congress. "They're very self-conscious. They talk about 'our class.' That can be pretty potent." It sure is. Especially since most of these freshmen are betting that in Congress, unlike on campus, the way you get to be a sophomore is not to play by the rules.

David Shribman is Washington bureau chief for the Boston Globe and a Pulitzer Prize--winning political reporter.