‘A man worth remembering’
EXCLUSIVE: Sacha Trudeau shares memories of his namesake, who died yesterday in Moscow
Alexander Yakovlev, a former Soviet ambassador to Canada and the architect of glasnost, died yesterday in Moscow. Yakovlev was a close friend of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, so close that the Canadian leader nicknamed his second son after him. Below, Alexandre ( Sacha) Trudeau’s remembers Yakovlev. An obituary appears on A6. By the time I was born in December 1973, my parents had already become sufficiently close to Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev for my mother to phone him to ask if “ Sacha” was in fact the proper diminutive of Alexander and an appropriate nickname for her newborn baby. The 1970s and early ’ 80s were interesting times for SovietWestern relations. Yakovlev’s time in Ottawa spanned from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, from the American war in Vietnam to the Russian one in Afghanistan. It was a time of an escalation of the Cold War nuclear arms race, of spy games and defections. These made an interesting back- drop for my father’s and Alexander Nikolaevich’s friendship.
“ In the machinations between our respective camps, there was always the assurance that we were just men and as men, friends,” Yakovlev recounted during my last meeting with him in Moscow, a year ago.
In my time with him, he told me of the games he used to have to play with my father on such occasions as in the case of the 1983 expulsions from Canada of a dozen suspected spies from among the embassy staff.
“Since I knew that at least some of the individuals accused were not in fact spies and in any case since it was my duty, I went to Pierre to protest the expul-
sions,” Yakovlev said.
“ Pierre just told me to point out which people on the list were not in fact spies. To which, of course, I was forced to argue that they were all innocent,” Yakovlev recalled.
“ He then asked me if I wanted to hear the tapes that proved that some of them were spying. I told him that I would have to ask the Kremlin if they wanted me to hear such evidence. The Kremlin prohibited me from hearing the tapes and the expulsions went forward in their entirety.” The men were heavily bound to their duties, but playful in the very antagonism of their opposed allegiances.
After his stint in Canada, Alexander Nikolaevich went on to become one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s top lieutenants. More than this, Yakovlev was often referred to as the architect of glasnost — the “openness” which would lead to the dismantling of the Soviet empire and the end of Communism in Russia. As such, he was a key person to ask about the state of things in Russia some 14 years after the break- up of the Soviet Union.
I came to Yakovlev undeniably disparaged by the contrasting spectacle of obscene wealth and abject poverty that I witnessed in Moscow. I brought to him the question whether there might not still be a place for some of the spirit of Communism in Russia — the better sides of it of course, some mechanism for the distribution of wealth, for example, for the welfare of the unfortunate.
I also advanced the hypothesis that the hardening of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hold on power, though gnawing away at some of the political freedoms of the new Russian elite, might nonetheless improve the overall health of the nation and help the distribution of resources among the very poor.
Yakovlev nodded his head to my suggestions. “ No,” he said quietly. “ From beginning to end, our Communism was a violent one, founded on fear and bathed in blood. Russia will never so much as glance down that road again.”
I argue that it seems nonetheless that Russia’s post- Soviet experiment in democracy and capitalism has made for an irresponsible society of have and have- nots.
“ The freedom that you see at work here,” he told me, “ stems
from a very
particular
concept of
freedom:
freedom as
will, vola’. ‘
Here, one person’s freedom is still seen as limited by another person’s freedom. Thus, the freer I am the more I can exert my will over you and everyone else unhindered. This is not a very peaceful or civilized notion of freedom. We still have to learn that real freedom is secured in common responsibility and trust.”
I in turn asked whether some monopoly over freedom might not help stabilize the society enough for it to find the proper footing of freedom. Again Yakovlev refused this idea.
“ What you are seeing now in Putin’s repression of the free press and political institutions is anarchic corruption being replaced by bureaucratic corruption. The point,” he continued, “ is that the way of real freedom has to be learnt slowly by a whole society. It cannot be willed into being by one part of society. The gentle freedom cannot be built by restricting the harsh kind. The very bureaucrats that run government and Putin himself have to partake in the learning of freedom, the freedom you can trust. Look at how long and hard it was to create responsible and democratic societies in the West. Here too it will take time. Time.”
“ But it could take a hundred years!” I exclaimed.
“ Yes, it could,” he merely said.
“ But in the meantime, it is so hard for those who are not lucky!” I added.
“ Yes. So it is,” he sighed.
I left Sacha Yakovlev, reminded how it takes great intellectual courage to be a realist. And patience. In old Yakovlev’s case, he will never see the results of the forces he helped put in motion. Glasnost, openness, is still only at its infancy.
Yakovlev is a man worth remembering.