Aleksander Nikolaevich Yakovlev (1923-2005)

Political activist of the Soviet Communist Party; doctor and professor of history. Born in a poor peasant family in Yaroslavl on December 2, 1923. From 1941 to 1943, he served in the Soviet army and retired due to injury. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1944. Graduated from Yaroslavl normal college in 1946, later went to USA to study at the Columbia University. From 1946 to 1948 and from 1950 to 1953, he worked in the Yaroslavl State Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

From 1953 to 1965, he worked in the central organ of the C.P.S.U.. Graduated from the Central Academy of Social Sciences of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1960. Since July 1965, he served as the first vice minister of the Propaganda Department of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee and the editorial board member of the Communist Party magazine. Since 1971, he has been a member of the Central Inspection Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1973, he was removed from his position and sent to Canada as an ambassador since he published an article criticizing chauvinism, local nationalism and anti-semitism in a Literary Newspaper.

In 1981, he was re-elected as the central inspector of the Soviet Communist Party. Yakovlev accompanied Gorbachev during his visit to Canada in 1983 and consequently returned back to Moscow. From 1983 to 1985, Yakovlev served as the Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Moscow and was elected as the chairman of the Open Committee. In 1985, he was appointed as the Head of Propaganda Department of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee; in 1986, he was elected as a member of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee and Secretary of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee in charge of ideological work; in January 1987, he was elected as an alternate member of the Political Bureau; in June of the same year, he was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee. In July 1990, he was elected as a member of the C.P.S.U. Central Committee. He became senior adviser to the Presidential Office of the Soviet Union in 1991, but in July the same year he announced his resignation from this post. On August 16, 1991, Yakovlev made a declaration that he quit the membership of the C.P.S.U..

Yakovlev was a radical supporter of “humane and democratic socialism”, an advocate of Gorbachev’s reforms, and a “designer”, occupying the primary position in Gorbachev’s think tank team. In 1985, he had written to Gorbachev and put forward a series of comprehensive political reform proposals, such as plural democracy, openness, multi-party system and presidential system. In 1991, he sent a letter to Gorbachev, proposed a two-party system, advocated that the C.P.S.U. be divided into the Socialist Party and the People’s Democratic Party, and that the President be elected by the referendum. He made reports, made speeches or wrote articles in numerous newspapers and journals which attacked Marxism-Leninism, denied the socialist system, advocated “democratization, openness and pluralism”, and promoted the idea of liberalism; he appointed dissidents and promoted liberals to the editorial boards of some newspapers and magazines; he led the overturning of the C.P.S.U.’s history and played a role in historical nihilism; he suppressed and cracked down on the virtue to uphold the truth and development. He practiced “ideological terror” against those who express different opinions them and persecuted them by means of tracing the mastermind behind the scenes. Yakovlev’s views and acts against Marxism and communism caused ideological confusion among the people and led to ideological disintegration of the C.P.S.U..

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev served as Vice Chairman of the Gorbachev Foundation. At the end of 1992, he was appointed as the Chairman of the Anti-Japanese Committee for victims of political persecution. In addition, he also served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Russian Public Television (State Television 1).

On 18 October 2005, Yakovlev died of illness.