Chernyaev’s 1972 diary 

Chernyaev in his home study (2012)

Anatoly Sergeyevich Chernyaev (1921–2017) was a seasoned bureaucrat who played key roles within the upper echelons of the Stalinist hierarchy in the Soviet Union for many years. In 1961, he began working in the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1972 to 1985, he served as Deputy Director of the department. During this period, the CPSU was led in turn by Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, all of whom Chernyaev worked closely with. In March 1986, he became Mikhail Gorbachev’s adviser on national security and remained in the post until the Soviet Union formally dissolved.

A page from Chernyaev's diary

What most clearly set Chernyaev apart from other Stalinist bureaucrats in comparable positions was that, upon being appointed Deputy Director in 1972, he began systematically keeping a diary in which he recorded his professional life — and, at times, aspects of his personal life as well. He maintained this habit without interruption for twenty full years, until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

In 2004, he donated the handwritten originals, along with the typewritten transcripts prepared by his partner, Lyudmila Pavlovna Rudakova, to the National Security Archive, thereby making them publicly accessible. In the following years, volumes covering The Gorbachev Years (1985–1991) and the period from 1972 to 1976 were translated into English and published. Today, complete English translations of the diaries are available in PDF format on the website of the National Security Archive.

In recent weeks, I translated Chernyaev’s 1972 diary from English into Turkish. Over the coming days, I shall be sharing with you some of the more significant and intriguing passages I have selected from it.