Nina Alexandrovna Andreyeva (russian: Нина Александровна Андреева, 12 October 1938 – 24 July 2020) was a Soviet and Russian chemist, teacher, author, political activist, and social critic. A supporter of classical
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
principles, she wrote an essay entitled ' that defended many aspects of the traditional Soviet system, and criticized
General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and his closest supporters for not being true
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
. In the rebuke published in the official party newspaper ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' the essay was called ''The Manifesto of Anti-
Perestroika Forces''.
Career in chemistry
She was born in
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
(now
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
), and was a chemistry lecturer at the
Leningrad Technological Institute
Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology (Technical University) (russian: Санкт-Петербургский Технологический Институт (Технический Университет)) was founded in 1828. It is o ...
. She joined the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) around 1966.
''I Cannot Forsake My Principles''
Andreyeva's essay ''I Cannot Forsake My Principles'' ('; variously translated in English commentary) was published in the newspaper ''
Sovetskaya Rossiya'' on March 13, 1988, at a time when
Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...
and
Alexander Yakovlev
Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev (russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Я́ковлев; 2 December 1923 – 18 October 2005) was a Soviet and Russian politician, diplomat, and historian. A member of the Politburo and Secreta ...
were either about to start on overseas visit or already abroad, and was initiated and approved by the secretary of the Communist Party's
Central Committee,
Yegor Ligachev
Yegor Kuzmich Ligachyov (also transliterated as Ligachev; russian: Егор Кузьмич Лигачёв, link=no; 29 November 1920 – 7 May 2021) was a Soviet and Russian politician who was a high-ranking official in the Communist Party ...
.
She was contemptuous of
Perestroika and defended the Soviet leader
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
. Of the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...
s, "they are being blown out of proportion" she wrote.
Giulietto Chiesa
Giulietto Chiesa (; 4 September 1940 – 26 April 2020) was an Italian journalist, author, lecturer, and politician. He was Vice-President of the European Parliament Committee on International Trade, European Parliament's Committee on Inter ...
, then Moscow correspondent of the Italian Communist newspaper ''
L'Unità
''l'Unità'' (, lit. 'the Unity') was an Italian language, Italian newspaper, founded as the official newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in 1924. It was supportive of that party's successor parties, the Democratic Party of the Left, ...
,'' found Andreyeva's original letter and discovered that it had been rewritten, only 5 pages of her 18 page typescript were published, much of the rest being thought too extreme. In the originally unpublished portions, Andreyeva commented that Stalin's critics wrote "in the language of Goebbels" and referred to "nations of little importance, like the Crimean Tartars and Zionist Jews."
Party officials critical of the reforms welcomed the published essay. Ligachev told the official news agency
TASS
The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...
to send the Andreyeva letter to local newspapers throughout the Soviet Union to publish it. It was much reprinted in the Soviet Union and East Germany, but it received no critical response in the media. The Leningrad party issued a television documentary apparently showing mass support in the city for the Andreyeva letter.
Not until after Gorbachev had returned from abroad, and following a two-day meeting of the
politburo on March 24–25 to discuss the Andreyeva letter, did a response appear in ''
Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the ...
'' on 5 April 1988.
The ''Pravda'' article described the letter as containing "nostalgia, backward-looking patriotism," the work of "blind, die-hard, undoubting dogmatists."
Gorbachev said later that many members of the Politburo seemed to share Andreyeva's views, and that he had to coerce them into approving the publication of an official rejoinder. Gorbachev described it as a direct attack "against perestroika."
Under the reforms, she told
David Remnick
David J. Remnick (born October 29, 1958) is an American journalist, writer and editor. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book '' Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'', and is also the author of ''Resurrection'' and ''King of th ...
of ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' in 1989 that under Stalin "the country built socialism for 30 years" and stated: "Our media are lying about Stalin now. They are blackening our history." On then current conditions, she told him: "The political structure of an anti-socialist movement is taking place in the form of democratic unions and popular fronts."
She said of Leningrad television: "they'll show an artist, a painter, who is supposedly a representative of Russian art. But excuse me, he is not a Russian. He is a Jew." She added: "You can say Russian, Ukrainian, why not Jew? Does it diminish the person? Why hide him behind some other nationality. Jew and Zionist mean different things, but all Zionists are Jews." In the ''Sovetskaya Rossiya'' letter, she attacked "cosmopolitan" conspirators.
For his book ''
Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire'' (1993), Remnick drew on his contact with Andreyeva.
Subsequent career
By July 1990, she was heading an organization called ''Yedinstvo'' (Unity) which aimed to return the country to the Bolshevik principles of
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
and was planning to leave the CPSU. ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' described the group in August 1991 as "a haven for many hard-line Communists".
Andreyeva later played a leadership role in the formation of post-Soviet communist organisations. Founded in November 1991, the
All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (initially Bolshevik Platform), Andreyeva was the party general secretary and the party wanted a mass campaign to replace
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...
. It saw itself as the successor to the CPSU. In October 1993, the party was temporarily suspended along with fifteen other organisations after President Yeltsin's repression implemented after a
constitutional crisis
In political science, a constitutional crisis is a problem or conflict in the function of a government that the political constitution or other fundamental governing law is perceived to be unable to resolve. There are several variations to this ...
. In May 1995 she was removed from the post as the head of the
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
Central Committee of the party for "lack of revolutionary activity."
Nina Andreyeva died in
St. Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
on 24 July 2020.
Works
*
*
*
References
External links
Full text of ''I Cannot Waive Principles'' (archived)as published in Sovetskaia Rossiia on March 13, 1988
All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviksofficial site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Andreyeva, Nina
1938 births
2020 deaths
Scientists from Saint Petersburg
Stalinism
Anti-revisionists
Russian communists
Russian Marxists
Soviet women chemists
20th-century Russian chemists
20th-century Russian women scientists
Science teachers
Social critics
Neo-Stalinists
20th-century Russian women politicians
21st-century Russian women politicians