Anatoly Sergeevich Chernyaev (May 26, 1921 – March 12, 2017) was a Russian historian and writer who was a principal foreign-policy advisor to

General Secretary Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...

Mikhail Gorbachev during the final days of the

Soviet Union 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 nationa ...

. After fighting in World War II, Chernyaev studied history at Moscow State University, where he would teach contemporary history from 1950 to 1958. In 1961, he joined the International Department of the

Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, – TsK KPSS was the executive leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, acting between sessions of Congress. According to party statutes, the committee direct ...

, where he became a senior analyst. In March 1976, he was promoted to

Central Auditing Commission of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Central Auditing Commission (CAC), (russian: Центральная ревизионная комиссия КПСС), Centralnaya revizionnaya komissiya) was a supervisory organ within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union " Hymn of the Bols ...

. He became General Secretary Gorbachev's foreign-policy advisor in 1986 and continued to advise Gorbachev when the latter became

President of the Soviet Union The president of the Soviet Union (russian: Президент Советского Союза, Prezident Sovetskogo Soyuza), officially the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (), abbreviated as president of the USSR (), was ...

. In 2004, Chernyaev donated his diaries from the Gorbachev period to the

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, which has published portions of them in English translation; according to the editor, "One can confidently say that every bold foreign policy initiative advanced by Gorbachev in the years 1985-1991 bears Chernyaev's mark on it." Since then, the National Security Archive has made Chernyaev'
diaries
available from 1972 to 1981 and 1985 to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. English translations of the original documents are available as pdf files. The diaries from 1982 to 1984 are still expected in coming years.

References

1921 births 2017 deaths Soviet politicians 20th-century Russian historians Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members {{USSR-politician-stub