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Alexander Yakovlev

Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the 1980s, he was termed the "godfather of glasnost", and was the intellectual force behind Mikhail Gorbachev's reform programme of glasnost and perestroika.

Born into a rural family, Yakovlev served as a platoon commander of a marine brigade during World War II, and became a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union following the war. During the rule of Nikita Khrushchev, he became a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU, before resigning to study abroad as part of the Fulbright Programme, returning in 1960. Under Leonid Brezhnev, he became Deputy Head of Agitprop and was placed in charge of a group on creating the 1977 Constitution of the Soviet Union. He was later demoted to ambassador to Canada, in response to his public opposition to ethnic nationalism within the Soviet Union.

In the early 1980s, Yakovlev returned to the Soviet Union, and became a prominent supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev's proposed reforms. In response to his perceived importance in the reforms, he came under attack from hardliners such as Alexander Lebed and Gennady Zyuganov, eventually resigning two days prior to the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt. During the coup attempt, Yakovlev was a supporter of pro-democratic forces, and later became a supporter of Boris Yeltsin before turning against his successor, Vladimir Putin, in response to democratic backsliding which occurred during Putin's presidency. Provided by Wikipedia