Alexander Yakovlev (Russian politician) by his friend Yevgeny Primakov in 1985. When Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1985, Yakovlev became a senior advisor, helping to shape Soviet foreign policy by advocating Soviet non-intervention in Eastern Europe, and accompanying Gorbachev on his five summit meetings with President of the United States Ronald Reagan. Domestically, he argued in favour of the reform programs that became known as glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) and played a key role in executing those policies. In 1987, the Russian nationalist organization Pamyat sent a letter entitled "Stop Yakovlev!" to the plenum of
History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and rather than being a locus for change became a bulwark of conservatism. Increasingly, Gorbachev bypassed the party in order to implement his reforms relying instead on governmental bodies. In 1989 Gorbachev allowed other political associations (de facto political parties) to coexist with the Communist Party and in 1990 obtained the repeal of Article Six of the USSR constitution which gave the party supremacy over all institutions in society, thus ending its vanguard status. The Communist Party's power over the state formally ended that same year with the newly created post of President of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was elected