Gorbachev's pen and conscience: architect of New Thinking diplomacy
Diary, 10 November 1989, on the fall of the Berlin Wall: 'The Berlin Wall has collapsed. This entire era in the history of the socialist system is over. That is what Gorbachev has done.' Source: Gorbachev Foundation archive, translated for the National Security Archive.
Born 25 May 1921 in Moscow (Maryina Roshcha), died there on 12 March 2017. He volunteered for the Red Army in July 1941, fought on the Northwestern Front in the liberation of the Baltics, and left military service in 1945. He studied at Moscow State University's history faculty and in 1958–1961 worked on the editorial board of Problems of Peace and Socialism in Prague. He joined the Central Committee's International Department in 1961, served as Gorbachev's foreign policy aide from March 1986 to 1991, and was a People's Deputy of the USSR in 1989–1991. From 1992 he led perestroika documentary projects at the Gorbachev Foundation. Sources differ on his degree year and on the dating of his International Department deputy headship.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1941–1946Red Army: volunteered July 1941; Northwestern Front with the 1st Shock Army, wounded; service to 1945–1946
- 1938–1950Moscow State University history faculty (1938–1941, resumed 1947–1949, then aspirantura); candidate dissertation defended 1950
- 1950–1958Lectures in modern history at Moscow State; acting department chair
- 1958–1961Prague: editorial board of Problems of Peace and Socialism
- 1961–1986CC International Department: referent under Ponomarev, rising to deputy head (1970–1986 per RU Wikipedia/RGASPI; NSA gives 1972–1985)
- 1986–1991Gorbachev's foreign policy aide: summit prep, speeches, architect of New Thinking
- 1992–2011Gorbachev Foundation: projects 'Documentary History of Perestroika' and 'Foreign Policy of Perestroika'; service 1992–2011
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarFought as platoon and company commander in Northwestern Front and Baltic liberation
- 1979–1989The Soviet-Afghan WarOpposed retaining volunteer troopsGorbachev's foreign-policy aide, he wrote a sharp memo opposing Shevardnadze's January 1989 proposal to retain volunteer troops, calling it a violation of the Geneva Accords and condemning 'more dozens of our boys' lives.'
- 1985–1991Perestroika and GlasnostArchitect of Gorbachev's foreign policy
- 1985–1989The New Thinking and the End of the Cold WarAs foreign-policy aide, drafted the documents of the New Thinking.
- 1989The Revolutions of 1989Gorbachev's foreign policy adviser, architect of new thinking
- 1991The Novo-Ogaryovo Process and the New Union TreatyAide who testified through his diaryGorbachev's foreign policy aide who recorded in his diary on 3 August what Gorbachev told him about the 29 July meeting: the three drank until 3 a.m. discussing the treaty and post-signing appointments.
The Diaries: 1972–1991 — Twenty Years of Daily Notes from Inside Power
Chernyaev kept an almost daily diary from 1972 until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. The diaries capture the intellectual climate inside the International Department during the Brezhnev years, his decision to remain within the system after the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia in the hope of reform from within, and every major decision of Gorbachev's perestroika foreign policy: the Reykjavik summit (1986), the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, the policy of non-intervention in Eastern Europe, and the inside story of German unification negotiations.
The diaries derive their exceptional value from being contemporary records, free of post hoc interpretation or retrospective rationalization. No other member of Gorbachev's inner circle left a record of comparable length or consistency. Chernyaev himself said he merely "wrote down what I saw and heard that day," but historians regard the diaries as the most candid primary source on top-level Soviet decision-making during perestroika.
In 2004 Chernyaev donated the Gorbachev-era diaries to the National Security Archive at George Washington University, and the full run from 1972 has since been made available in English translation. The originals are also held at the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). The 2010 volume Sovmestnyi Iskhod: Dnevnik Dvukh Epokh, 1972–1991 runs to 1,047 pages and has become essential reading for scholars of late Soviet political history. Andrei Sorokin, director of ROSSPEN publishers, called the diaries "a unique historical source — there are few diaries in world history kept for so long by someone at the very heart of power."