The life of Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev offers a truly unique material for a captivating narrative. A war veteran: he fought on the Volkhov Front and was severely wounded. A party official: he climbed the entire career ladder, from an instructor in a provincial party committee to a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.

A scholar: a graduate student at the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee, a trainee at Columbia University (USA), a Doctor of Historical Sciences, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a director of a major academic institute. A diplomat: he served as the Soviet ambassador to Canada for ten years. Known as the "architect of perestroika," Yakovlev earned this title in the late 1980s when he, alongside Mikhail Gorbachev, actively engaged in the process of reforming the party and the state.

An active ally of democratic power: in the 1990s, the Kremlin entrusted him with a number of responsible positions in the new Russia. Almost every stage of this long biography raises questions. Among them: Was Yakovlev an "agent of influence," as many Russian politicians believed during the perestroika and the 1990s? What was his real role in the tectonic processes that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the change of the social order?

The author of this narrative, Vladimir Snegirev, a Candidate of Historical Sciences, attempts to answer these and other questions based on archival documents, printed sources, interviews with Yakovlev's associates, and his personal experience. He traces the protagonist's journey from the beginning of his party career to the collapse of the CPSU.