Planting seeds for glasnost

Alexander Yakovlev, a onetime Soviet ambassador to Canada and a key architect of former president Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost reforms that shook the last years of the Soviet Union, died Tuesday. . . . He was 81.

—Globe and Mail, Oct. 18

News about the death of Alexander Yakovlev reminded me of my one encounter with him. It was in the early 1980s when he was the Soviet Union’s ambassador to Canada. There were reports of a new wave of repression against Mennonites and other Christians, resulting in, among other things, the imprisonment of many ministers. Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) compiled a list of more than 30 imprisoned ministers, which it asked me to present to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa with a request that the government in Moscow look into the cases.

My assistant and I went to the Embassy at the appointed time and two officials received us. We began to explain our concern. After 15 minutes the ambassador appeared. Mr. Yakovlev was short, somewhat heavy with bushy hair, thick eyebrows, a stern face and a strong voice. He used a cane and walked slowly, but he wasted no time in making his two points, starting with the question: “Do you personally know the individuals on your list? Are you familiar with them? Do you know their personal lives?”

Of course I didn’t know them personally, but I argued that we were fully confident as to the accuracy of our list, that we were not motivated by a desire to criticize his government, that our organization was not on a crusade against communism, that we just wanted the basic rights of these people respected.

“So,” he interrupted, “since you do not personally know these individuals, you have to admit that there is at least a small chance that they may be in prison, not for the reasons you say but because of some hooliganism.”

“Also,” he said, shaking his finger for emphasis, “you Christians in the west have a totally wrong view about how my government sees the Christians in our country. You think that we hate them. That is not true, absolutely not! The Christians in our country are our best workers. They don’t steal from our factories. They don’t come to work drunk. When they say they will do something they do it. They are reliable. They are our best workers. Our economy would be in big trouble without them. We like the Christians in our country. It is high time you Christians in the West understood that!”

I don’t remember how I responded but I will never forget the testimony that his words conveyed. Clearly, Christian people, by being faithful in “ordinary things,” had made a substantial impression at high levels of the Soviet government, despite all the restrictions and hardships under which they lived. It was a wonderful tribute both to their personal faith and integrity and to God’s sustaining grace.

A few years later, after Mr. Yakovlev was recalled to Moscow, newspaper stories referred to him as the architect of glasnost, that is, the move toward greater freedom in the Soviet Union. Those small groups of oppressed Christians had planted some of the seeds for that historic move.

Bill Janzen is director of the MCC Canada Ottawa office.