Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva
Нина Александровна Андреева
1938–2020
○ Died of illness in St. Petersburg
The Leningrad chemistry lecturer whose 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' became the manifesto of anti-perestroika forces
"Our media are lying about Stalin now. They are blackening our history."
A Leningrad chemist and CPSU member who, on 13 March 1988, published 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' in Sovetskaya Rossiya, a full-throated defense of Stalin and an attack on perestroika. The article, drafted with the backing of Central Committee secretary Yegor Ligachev, was denounced by Pravda as the 'manifesto of anti-perestroika forces' and became the shock that drove Gorbachev to radicalize political reform ahead of the 19th Party Conference. After 1991 she founded the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (VKPB) and served as its general secretary, but neither she nor her party ever gained significant traction in post-Soviet Russia.
Career Timeline
- 1961Graduated Leningrad Technological Institute as chemical engineer
- 1966Joined the CPSU
- 1972–1988Assistant, then senior lecturer in physical chemistry, Leningrad Technological Institute
- 1979–1981Expelled from CPSU; reinstated after Party Control Committee review
- 1988.3Published 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' in Sovetskaya Rossiya
- 1989Founded Yedinstvo (Unity) society; chair of its Coordinating Council
- 1991–2020Founded All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (VKPB); General Secretary
- 2020Died in St. Petersburg
Related historical events
- 1985–1991Perestroika and GlasnostAuthor of the anti-perestroika manifestoOn 13 March 1988 she published 'I Cannot Forsake My Principles' in Sovetskaya Rossiya, a full-throated attack on perestroika that Pravda denounced as 'the manifesto of anti-perestroika forces.'
- 1988–1990The Nineteenth Party Conference and the First Contested Electionsauthor of the anti-perestroika manifestoHer article in Sovetskaya Rossiya defended Stalin and attacked perestroika, representing the conservative backlash.