FYI
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/Elberg/Yakovlev/
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev has traveled far in his lifetime: having grown up in a peasant village near Yaroslavl, he reached the summit of power in the former Soviet Union in 1987 when he joined the Politburo and became the leading architect of glasnost and perestroika.
Despite the constraints of his position as the head of the party's propaganda department, Mr. Yakovlev repeatedly spoke out with courage, deep conscience, and integrity. A striking instance of this was his publication of an article criticizing Russian chauvinism and anti-Semitism in certain party circles, an event that marked a turning point in his intellectual and political life. The article was published in November of 1972; by 1973 he had been banished from Moscow's insider circles by an appointment as ambassador to Canada. Though he served in this position for ten years, he remained a powerful voice in the movement towards liberalization. Without a doubt, he was the most outspoken and radical proponent of glasnost and perestroika on the Politburo.
While in power, Mr. Yakovlev helped shape foreign policy and presided over ideological, intellectual and cultural affairs. He sat at Gorbachev's side during the five summit meetings with President Reagan. By 1990, he had come under increasing attack from the conservative wing of the party and extreme nationalist groups, culminating in his expulsion from the party two days before the coup d'état of August 1991. Immediately after the coup began he joined the democratic opposition. At the victory rally in Moscow on August 21, after the coup had been defeated, the man who had formerly presided over official propaganda concluded his remarks with the phrase, "I wish you all personal happiness," words that resonated sentiments of humanism and individualism, the very antithesis of the party ideology that had been imposed on the country for more than seventy years.