Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
Encyclopedia
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev (2 December 1923, Yaroslavl Oblast
– 18 October 2005) was a Soviet politician and historian who was a Soviet
governmental official in the 1980s and a member of the Politburo and Secretariat
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
. The chief of party ideology
, the same position as that previously held by Mikhail Suslov
, he was called the "godfather of glasnost
" as he is considered to be the intellectual force behind Mikhail Gorbachev
's reform program of glasnost
and perestroika
.
Yakovlev was the first Soviet politician to acknowledge the existence of the secret protocols of the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Nazi Germany
in 1989.
near Yaroslavl
. He served in the Red Army
during World War II
, being badly wounded in the Nazi siege of Leningrad, and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
in 1944. Beginning in 1958, he was an exchange student at Columbia University
for one year.
Yakovlev served as editor of several party publications and rose to the key position of head of the CPSU's Department of Ideology and Propaganda from 1969 to 1973. In 1972 he took a bold stand by publishing an article critical of Russia
n chauvinism
and Soviet anti-Semitism
. As a result he was removed from his position and appointed as ambassador to Canada remaining at that post for a decade.
During this time, he and Canadian Prime Minister
Pierre Trudeau
became close friends. Trudeau's second son, Alexandre Trudeau
, was given the Russian nickname "Sacha" after Yakovlev's.
In 1983, Yakovlev accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev
, who at the time was the Soviet official in charge of agriculture
, on his tour of Canada
. The purpose of the visit was to tour Canadian farms and agricultural institutions in the hopes of taking lessons that could be applied in the Soviet Union
, however, the two renewed their earlier friendship and, tentatively at first, began to discuss the prospect of liberalisation in the Soviet Union.
In an interview years later, Yakovlev recalled:
Two weeks after the visit, as a result of Gorbachev's interventions, Yakovlev was recalled from Canada by Yuri Andropov
and became Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations
of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow
. He was succeeded by his friend Yevgeny Primakov
in 1985.
When Gorbachev became Soviet leader
in 1985, Yakovlev became a senior advisor, helping to shape Soviet foreign policy
by advocating Soviet non-intervention in Eastern Europe
, and accompanying Gorbachev on his five summit meetings with United States President
Ronald Reagan
. Domestically, he argued in favour of the reform programs that became known as glasnost
(openness) and perestroika
(restructuring) and played a key role in executing those policies.
For decades, it was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of the secret protocol to the Soviet-German Pact. At the behest of Mikhail Gorbachev
, Yakovlev headed a commission investigating the existence of such a protocol. In December 1989 Yakovlev concluded that the protocol had existed and revealed his finds to the Soviet Parliament. As a result, the first multi-party elected Congress of Soviets
"passed the declaration admitting the existence of the secret protocols, condemning and denouncing them".
He was promoted to the Politburo
in 1987 but by 1990 he had become the focus of attacks by conservative communists in the party opposed to liberalisation. At the 28th Congress of the CPSU in July 1990, a cynical Alexander Lebed caused uproar when he asked Yakovlev: "Alexander Nikolaevich... How many faces have you got?" An embarrassed Yakovlev consulted his colleagues and continued on with the proceedings, ignoring Lebed. As the conservatives gained strength his position became more tenuous, fiercely attacked
by his former protege Gennady Zyuganov
in May 1991, he was ultimately removed from the Politburo and was expelled from the Party two days before the August Coup in 1991. During the coup Yakovlev joined the democratic opposition against it. Following the failed coup attempt, Yakovlev blamed Gorbachev for having been naive in bringing the plotters into his inner circle saying Gorbachev was "guilty of forming a team of traitors. Why did he surround himself with people capable of treason?"
In his book Inside the Stalin Archives (2008), Jonathan Brent tells that in 1991, when there were Lithuanian crowds demonstrating for independence from the Soviet Union, Gorbachev consulted Yakovlev about the wisdom of an armed repression against them. Gorbachev asked, "Should we shoot?" Yakovlev answered that, "if a single Soviet soldier fired a single bullet on the unarmed crowds, Soviet power would be over." There were bullets, however, and the USSR collapsed seven months later.
In the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union
, Yakovlev wrote and lectured extensively on history, politics and economics. He acted as the leader of the Russian Party of Social Democracy
, which in the mid 1990s fused into United Democrats (a pro-reform alliance that was later reorganized into Union of Right Forces
). In 2002, acting as head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, he was present at the announcement of the release of a CD detailing names and short biographies of the victims of Soviet purges. In his later life, he founded and led the International Democracy Foundation. He advocated taking responsibility for the past crimes of communism and was critical of President Putin's
restrictions on democracy.
In 2000, he publicly alleged that Swedish
diplomat Raoul Wallenberg
, who became famous for his role in saving thousands of Hungarian
Jews from the Holocaust, was shot and killed in Soviet secret police headquarters in 1947. He was called "God's commie" in a 2002 article for investigating crimes of the Soviet state.
As the intellectual force behind glasnost and perestroika, Yakovlev is often blamed for the demise of the Soviet Union and the victory of the United States
in the Cold War
. During a newspaper interview in 2001, Yakovlev was approached by a woman in Moscow who demanded: "Aren't you in jail yet?" Yakovlev grinned and replied with an obscenity.
Yaroslavl Oblast
Yaroslavl Oblast is a federal subject of Russia , which is located in the Central Federal District, surrounded by Tver, Moscow, Ivanovo, Vladimir, Kostroma, and Vologda Oblasts. This geographic location affords the oblast the advantages of proximity to Moscow and St. Petersburg...
– 18 October 2005) was a Soviet politician and historian who was a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
governmental official in the 1980s and a member of the Politburo and Secretariat
Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee
The Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee was a key body within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the central administration of the party as opposed to drafting government policy which was usually handled by the Politburo...
of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
. The chief of party ideology
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
, the same position as that previously held by Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial Chief Ideologue of the Party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and the separation of power...
, he was called the "godfather of glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
" as he is considered to be the intellectual force behind Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
's reform program of glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
and perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
.
Yakovlev was the first Soviet politician to acknowledge the existence of the secret protocols of the 1939 Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in 1989.
Early career
Yakovlev was born to a peasant family in a tiny village (Красные Ткачи) on the VolgaVolga River
The Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through central Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including the capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage...
near Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...
. He served in the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, being badly wounded in the Nazi siege of Leningrad, and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
in 1944. Beginning in 1958, he was an exchange student at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
for one year.
Yakovlev served as editor of several party publications and rose to the key position of head of the CPSU's Department of Ideology and Propaganda from 1969 to 1973. In 1972 he took a bold stand by publishing an article critical of Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n chauvinism
Chauvinism
Chauvinism, in its original and primary meaning, is an exaggerated, bellicose patriotism and a belief in national superiority and glory. It is an eponym of a possibly fictional French soldier Nicolas Chauvin who was credited with many superhuman feats in the Napoleonic wars.By extension it has come...
and Soviet anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
. As a result he was removed from his position and appointed as ambassador to Canada remaining at that post for a decade.
During this time, he and Canadian Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
Pierre Trudeau
Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
became close friends. Trudeau's second son, Alexandre Trudeau
Alexandre Trudeau
Alexandre "Sacha" Trudeau is a Canadian filmmaker and journalist, and second son of Canada's former Prime Minister, the late Pierre Trudeau, and Margaret Trudeau.-Early life and education:...
, was given the Russian nickname "Sacha" after Yakovlev's.
In 1983, Yakovlev accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, who at the time was the Soviet official in charge of agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
, on his tour of Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The purpose of the visit was to tour Canadian farms and agricultural institutions in the hopes of taking lessons that could be applied in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, however, the two renewed their earlier friendship and, tentatively at first, began to discuss the prospect of liberalisation in the Soviet Union.
In an interview years later, Yakovlev recalled:
- At first we kind of sniffed around each other and our conversations didn't touch on serious issues. And then, verily, history plays tricks on one, we had a lot of time together as guests of then Liberal Minister of Agriculture Eugene WhelanEugene WhelanEugene "Gene" Francis Whelan, PC OC is a retired Canadian politician. Whelan, a farmer, first won a seat in the Canadian House of Commons in the 1962 election representing the southwestern Ontario riding of Essex. He sat continuously in the House of Commons until his retirement in 1984 and was...
in CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
who, himself, was too late for the reception because he was stuck with some striking farmers somewhere. So we took a long walk on that Minister's farm and, as it often happens, both of us suddenly were just kind of flooded and let go. I somehow, for some reason, threw caution to the wind and started telling him about what I considered to be utter stupidities in the area of foreign affairs, especially about those SS-20 missiles that were being stationed in EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and a lot of other things. And he did the same thing. We were completely frank. He frankly talked about the problems in the internal situation in RussiaRussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. He was saying that under these conditions, the conditions of dictatorship and absence of freedom, the country would simply perish. So it was at that time, during our three-hour conversation, almost as if our heads were knocked together, that we poured it all out and during that three-hour conversation we actually came to agreement on all our main points.
Two weeks after the visit, as a result of Gorbachev's interventions, Yakovlev was recalled from Canada by Yuri Andropov
Yuri Andropov
Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov was a Soviet politician and the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 12 November 1982 until his death fifteen months later.-Early life:...
and became Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations
Institute of World Economy and International Relations
The Institute of World Economy and International Relations was founded in 1956. It was a successor to the earlier organization, the Institute of World Economy and Politics which existed from 1925 to 1948....
of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. He was succeeded by his friend Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Primakov
Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov is a Russian politician and diplomat. During his long career, he served as the Russian Foreign Minister, Prime Minister of Russia, Speaker of the Soviet of the Union of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and chief of intelligence service...
in 1985.
Perestroika and its aftermath
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the title given to the leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. With some exceptions, the office was synonymous with leader of the Soviet Union...
in 1985, Yakovlev became a senior advisor, helping to shape Soviet foreign policy
Foreign policy
A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...
by advocating Soviet non-intervention in Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
, and accompanying Gorbachev on his five summit meetings with United States President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
. Domestically, he argued in favour of the reform programs that became known as glasnost
Glasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
(openness) and perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
(restructuring) and played a key role in executing those policies.
For decades, it was the official policy of the Soviet Union to deny the existence of the secret protocol to the Soviet-German Pact. At the behest of Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, Yakovlev headed a commission investigating the existence of such a protocol. In December 1989 Yakovlev concluded that the protocol had existed and revealed his finds to the Soviet Parliament. As a result, the first multi-party elected Congress of Soviets
Congress of Soviets
The Congress of Soviets was the supreme governing body of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and several other Soviet republics from 1917–36 and again from 1989-91. After the creation of the Soviet Union, the Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union functioned as its legislative branch...
"passed the declaration admitting the existence of the secret protocols, condemning and denouncing them".
He was promoted to the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
in 1987 but by 1990 he had become the focus of attacks by conservative communists in the party opposed to liberalisation. At the 28th Congress of the CPSU in July 1990, a cynical Alexander Lebed caused uproar when he asked Yakovlev: "Alexander Nikolaevich... How many faces have you got?" An embarrassed Yakovlev consulted his colleagues and continued on with the proceedings, ignoring Lebed. As the conservatives gained strength his position became more tenuous, fiercely attacked
Architect amidst the Ruins
The Architect amidst the Ruins was an open letter by Gennady Zyuganov, then a relatively little known party functionary, to Alexander Yakovlev, the ideologist of Perestroika, also known as the Architect of Perestroika...
by his former protege Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov is a Russian politician, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation , Chairman of the Union of Communist Parties - Communist Party of the Soviet Union , deputy of the State Duma , and a member of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe...
in May 1991, he was ultimately removed from the Politburo and was expelled from the Party two days before the August Coup in 1991. During the coup Yakovlev joined the democratic opposition against it. Following the failed coup attempt, Yakovlev blamed Gorbachev for having been naive in bringing the plotters into his inner circle saying Gorbachev was "guilty of forming a team of traitors. Why did he surround himself with people capable of treason?"
In his book Inside the Stalin Archives (2008), Jonathan Brent tells that in 1991, when there were Lithuanian crowds demonstrating for independence from the Soviet Union, Gorbachev consulted Yakovlev about the wisdom of an armed repression against them. Gorbachev asked, "Should we shoot?" Yakovlev answered that, "if a single Soviet soldier fired a single bullet on the unarmed crowds, Soviet power would be over." There were bullets, however, and the USSR collapsed seven months later.
In the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union was the disintegration of the federal political structures and central government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , resulting in the independence of all fifteen republics of the Soviet Union between March 11, 1990 and December 25, 1991...
, Yakovlev wrote and lectured extensively on history, politics and economics. He acted as the leader of the Russian Party of Social Democracy
Russian Party of Social Democracy
Russian Party of Social Democracy was a political party in Russia. It was founded in February, 1995 on the initiative of Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev, the 'architect of perestroika', who in 1994 had called for forming a united movement of Russian social democrats...
, which in the mid 1990s fused into United Democrats (a pro-reform alliance that was later reorganized into Union of Right Forces
Union of Right Forces
The Union of Right Forces, or SPS , was a Russian democratic opposition party associated with free market reforms, privatization, and the legacy of the 'Young Reformers' of the 1990s: Anatoly Chubais, Boris Nemtsov, and Yegor Gaidar. Nikita Belykh was the last party's leader...
). In 2002, acting as head of the Presidential Committee for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression, he was present at the announcement of the release of a CD detailing names and short biographies of the victims of Soviet purges. In his later life, he founded and led the International Democracy Foundation. He advocated taking responsibility for the past crimes of communism and was critical of President Putin's
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin served as the second President of the Russian Federation and is the current Prime Minister of Russia, as well as chairman of United Russia and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Union of Russia and Belarus. He became acting President on 31 December 1999, when...
restrictions on democracy.
In 2000, he publicly alleged that Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
diplomat Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg was a Swedish businessman, diplomat and humanitarian. He is widely celebrated for his successful efforts to rescue thousands of Jews in Nazi-occupied Hungary from the Holocaust, during the later stages of World War II...
, who became famous for his role in saving thousands of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Jews from the Holocaust, was shot and killed in Soviet secret police headquarters in 1947. He was called "God's commie" in a 2002 article for investigating crimes of the Soviet state.
As the intellectual force behind glasnost and perestroika, Yakovlev is often blamed for the demise of the Soviet Union and the victory of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. During a newspaper interview in 2001, Yakovlev was approached by a woman in Moscow who demanded: "Aren't you in jail yet?" Yakovlev grinned and replied with an obscenity.
See also
- Alexandre TrudeauAlexandre TrudeauAlexandre "Sacha" Trudeau is a Canadian filmmaker and journalist, and second son of Canada's former Prime Minister, the late Pierre Trudeau, and Margaret Trudeau.-Early life and education:...
, son of late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre TrudeauPierre TrudeauJoseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...
is named for Yakovlev. The Trudeaus had asked Yakovlev about whether "Sacha" was the nickname for "Alexander".
- Joseph S. Nye, Jr., former dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, considers Yakovlev's story a prime example of the importance of soft power in resolving international conflicts, such as, in Yakovlev's case, the Cold WarCold WarThe Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
His books
- Alexander N. Yakovlev and Abel G. Aganbegyan, Perestroika, 1989, Scribner (1989), trade paperback, ISBN 0-684-19117-2
- Alexander Yakovlev, USSR the Decisive Years, First Glance Books (1991), hardcover, ISBN 1-55013-410-8
- Alexander Yakovlev and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick, The Fate of Marxism in Russia, Yale University Press (1993), hardcover, ISBN 0-300-05365-7; trade paperback, Lightning Source, UK, Ltd. (17 November 2004) ISBN 0-300-10540-1
- Alexander N. Yakovlev, forward by Paul Hollander, translated by Anthony Austin, Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Yale University Press (2002), hardcover, 254 pages, ISBN 0-300-08760-8; trade paperback, Yale University Press (2002), 272 pages, ISBN 0-300-10322-0
- Alexander N. Yakovlev, Digging Out: How Russia Liberated Itself from the Soviet Union, Encounter Books (December 1, 2004), hardcover, 375 pages, ISBN 1-59403-055-3
Further reading
- Christopher Shulgan, The Soviet Ambassador: The Making of the Radical Behind Perestroika, McClelland and Stewart (June 10, 2008), Hardcover, ISBN 978-0-7710-7996-2 (0-7710-7996-6), 288 pages.
External links
- http://www.alexanderyakovlev.org Site of Alexander Yakovlev's foundation
- http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Elberg/Yakovlev/yak-con0.html Interview with Alexander Yakovlev
- http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Elberg/Yakovlev/yak-elb1.html Full text of a 1993 lecture by Yakovlev
- http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/international/europe/19yakovlev.html Obituary in the New York Times
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4353766.stm BBC: Perestroika architect dies at 81
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,1595945,00.html Alexander Yakovlev
- http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3263, "The West Lost The War: Vladimir Bukovsky" by Jamie Glazov. FrontPageMagazine, May 9, 2001
- Interview with Christopher Shulgan, author of "The Soviet Ambassador", June 29, 2008
- http://www.thecommentary.ca/ontheline/20080630a.html Audio interview with Christopher Shulgan re: The Soviet Ambassador, June 2008