Alexander Yakovlev at 10th "Apple" Party Congress
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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Alexander Yakovlev Died
// Obituary
Yesterday, Alexander Yakovlev, head of the International Foundation “Democracy,” former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and one of the main ideologists of “perestroika,” died. He was 82. People who knew him had two absolutely different views on Yakovlev’s persona: some called him a real patriot, and others said he was a traitor of the ideals.
Yesterday morning, Alexander Yakovlev went for his regular check up with the doctors in the Presidential Administration Healthcare Facility in Michurinsky Avenue. As Kommersant learned from Valentina Sevko, Yakovlev’s secretary at “Democracy” Foundation, right after the medical exam Yakovlev went straight home. “On Monday, Alexander was working pretty hard on the introduction to the complete volume of Boris Vasiliev,” Sevko said. “He was going to finish writing the introduction in the nearest couple of days and then to go to the 75th Birthday of Yuri Ryzhov, former USSR Ambassador in France. When Yakovlev came back home he felt ill.
“I talked to Nina (the widow of Alexander Yakovlev –Kommersant), she said that when he came from the hospital he was OK,” the former USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev told Kommersant. “Alexander went up to the second floor, sat in the chair and died.” Alexander Yakovlev had several serious diseases including diabetes and problems with lungs. However, he died from a stroke. “He did not obey to the bed regime and was continuing to work despite serious discomfort.” Mikhail Gorbachev said. As Yakovlev’s friends say, he was stricken down by grief from the recent death of his close friend –journalist Yegor Yakovlev. “Three days ago he told me about that,” Valentin Zorin, former political commentator from the State TV-Radio Committee of the USSR, told Kommersant. “He was complaining for the health and also regret about the people who passed away—the people who were together with him in his most important time of his life—perestroika.”
“Recently we had an interview for all three of us, Alexander Yakolev, Yegor Yakolev and I. And here they are gone,” Mikhail Gorbachev sadly stated. “He had great diplomatic skills. It is a big loss for me personally and for all of us,” Yuri Ryzhov said. A lot of people were telling yesterday about the life of Alexander Yakolev in the life of the country. “I was a young radio journalist and Alexander was director of the radio propaganda department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party,” Valentin Zorin remembered. “It was he who came up with the idea for information and music channel radio channel Mayak. He thought about it as an alternative to the Western radio stations. He also came up with the name.” “Despite the pressure from the Communist Party on the media, he was helping journalists to defend humane ideals,” Yasen Zasursky, dean of Faculty Journalism of Moscow State University, said. “When we had conflicts with authorities, we went to him for help knowing that he’s on our side. Because of that he was sent to Canada as ambassador.” Valentin Zorin was also remembering the time when Alexander Yakolev was working in Canada (he was sent there as ambassador in 1973 after the famous publication in Literaturnaya Gazeta. “Against Anti-History” – Kommersant): Mikhail Gorbachev who was in that time agricultural secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party came to Canada and met with Yakolev. This meeting influenced Gorbachev tremendously. It was not accidental that when he became General Secretary he immediately called Yakolev back into the country.” “The most important periods of my life are connected with Alexander Yakolev,” Mikhail Gorbachev stated. “I remember when we were preparing a January party plenum in Zavidovo (the plenum of 1987 where there was a report about perestroika and glasnost sounded for the first time.—Kommersant.) We had such sharp contradictions that we didn’t speak for two days. But then we met and cleared out our brains and made the plenum where we called things by their own names—stagnation, necessity to get rid of the brakes in the system and perestroika.” The scientific director of Higher School of Economics Yevgeny Yasin called Alexander Yakolev an amazing person: “Fate brought simple young guy from Yaroslavl, who went to the war, to high-ranking posts in the Central Committee of the Community Party where he came to the democratic beliefs. He was one of the people of the 1960s who made a huge contribution to the democratization of the country.”
Yesterday the first president of Russia Boris Yeltsin and current head of the state Vladimir Putin expressed their condolences to Yakolev’s family.
However, not everybody thinks about Alexander Yakolev the same way. For Communists of the old school, the figure of Alexander Yakolev is a symbol of changes that led the USSR to disintegration of its super power status. Nikolai Ryzhkov, former Yakolev colleague in the political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, former chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR and currently senator from the Belgorod region, stated that he regrets about the death of Yakolev: “Just about the death of any other person.” “Our ways parted once and for all,” he told Kommersant. “I was not his friend because my friends are people who do not betray their views and ideals. Alexander Yakolev betrayed his civic position. He came to the Central Committee of the Communist Party as a regular communist, made a good career and then started to trample the ideals that he was growing up with.” The partisan of the conservative line of the political bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Yegor Ligachev, who Kommersant asked to tell about his former colleague, refused to comment and only made short statement on the telephone: “All our lives we were on different sides of the barricades. I cannot add anything to that.” The ex-chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR Anatoly Lukyanov told Kommersant: There were so many things separating us recently that I have nothing to say.”
“He was hated by a lot of people who were trying to accuse him of betrayal because he was persistent,” ex-president Mikhail Gorbachev said. “But he was a real man who was fighting and warring for the country. He was a real patriot—not like those who just like to talk.”
Ivan Tyazhlov
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 19, 2005
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