Digging Out How Russia Liberated Itself from the Soviet Union

Named head of propaganda for the USSR by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, Alexander N. Yakovlev put in motion the process that became known as perestroika and eventually brought an end to communism. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev-celebrated by some as "the father of glasnost" and hated by others as "Gorbachev's demon"-has served as chairman of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression. Using documents never before seen in the West, he sifts through the ashes of the USSR to try to understand how the horror of what he calls "Leninism-Stalinism" could have evolved. For Yakovlev, who began his own career as a Soviet apparatchik, looking backward is a profound and deeply personal experience.Yakovlev, Alexander N. is the author of 'Digging Out How Russia Liberated Itself from the Soviet Union', published 2007 under ISBN 9781594030550 and ISBN 1594030553.