Vadim Zagladin

Who was Vadim Zagladin?

Vadim Valentinovich Zagladin, Soviet politician and ideologist, was one of the leading theoreticians of Perestroika. Collaborator and adviser to Leonid Brezhnev and Mikhail Gorbachev, he was one of the Soviet politicians closest to Western Europe. Personal friend of François Mitterrand, Willy Brandt and Giorgio Napolitano, Zagladin was the theorist of a reformed communism, very close to European social democracy.

He graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and taught there from 1949 to 1956. From 1964 to 1988, he was First Deputy Secretary of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, assisting Secretaries Boris Ponomarev and Anatoly Dobrynin. From 1988 to 1991, he was a close advisor to Gorbachev regarding perestroika and glasnost, and continued his senior advisory role within the Gorbachev Foundation until his death. He was also Vice-President of the Association for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation, promoting links between Russia and NATO.

Vladim Zagladin was the deviser of The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates chaired by Gorbachev and founder of the Permanent Secretariat of World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates which is the official Organizer of this event.