29 Facts About Alexander Yakovlev

Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian.

Alexander Yakovlev was later demoted to ambassador to Canada, in response to his public opposition to ethnic nationalism within the Soviet Union.

The first child of five, Alexander Yakovlev was born to a peasant family in a small village called Korolyovo, on the Volga River, near Yaroslavl.

Alexander Yakovlev had four sisters, two of whom died in infancy.

Alexander Yakovlev's father served in the Red Cavalry during the Russian Civil War and was a devoted communist; he became the first chairman of a local collective farm.

Alexander Yakovlev graduated from secondary school days before Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Alexander Yakovlev was drafted into the Soviet Navy in November 1941, with brief training, and became part of the Soviet Marine Corps.

Alexander Yakovlev served as a platoon commander of the 6th Marine Brigade of the Baltic Fleet, on the Volkhov Front during the Siege of Leningrad.

Alexander Yakovlev was hospitalised until February 1943, and was demobilised.

Alexander Yakovlev became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1944.

Alexander Yakovlev graduated the same year and went to Moscow to attend the Higher Party School.

Alexander Yakovlev asked to leave the Central Committee to enroll in the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee.

All other students besides Alexander Yakovlev were members of the KGB.

Alexander Yakovlev intensively studied the English language, Roosevelt and the New Deal, drawing connections between the United States at that time and the Soviet Union.

Alexander Yakovlev returned to the Central Committee to work on ideology and propaganda, and published several anti-American books.

Alexander Yakovlev defended a dissertation dealing with the historiography of US foreign policy, and received the degree of kandidat nauk, the equivalent of a doctorate, in July 1960.

Alexander 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.

From 16 to 23 May 1983, Alexander Yakovlev accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev, who at the time was the Soviet official in charge of agriculture, on his tour of Canada.

Alexander Yakovlev frankly talked about the problems in the internal situation in Russia.

Alexander Yakovlev was saying that under these conditions, the conditions of dictatorship and absence of freedom, the country would simply perish.

Two weeks after the visit, as a result of Gorbachev's interventions, Alexander Yakovlev was recalled from Canada by Yuri Andropov and became Director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in Moscow on 16 August 1983; he was succeeded by his friend Yevgeny Primakov in 1985.

When Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Alexander 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 President of the United States Ronald Reagan.

At the behest of Mikhail Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev headed a commission investigating the existence of such a protocol.

In December 1989 Alexander Yakovlev concluded that the protocol had existed and revealed his findings to the Soviet Parliament.

Alexander Yakovlev was promoted to the Politburo in 1987, but by 1990 he had become the focus of attacks by hardliner communists in the party opposed to liberalisation.

Alexander Yakovlev led Boris Yeltsin's commission for the rehabilitation of victims of Soviet political repression.

Alexander Yakovlev acted as the leader of the Russian Party of Social Democracy, which in the mid-1990s fused into the United Democrats, a pro-reform alliance that was later reorganised into the Union of Right Forces.

Alexander Yakovlev advocated taking responsibility for the past crimes of communism and was critical of President Vladimir Putin's restrictions on democracy.

Alexander Yakovlev was called "God's commie" in a 2002 article for investigating crimes of the Soviet state.