Graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Russian State Agrarian University - Moscow Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (1956-1961).[1]
Member of the CPSU since 1960. Since 1961 he worked in the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU. In 1969 he graduated from the Academy of Social Sciences under the CPSU Central Committee.
In 1981-1987, Assistant Secretary, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Mikhail Gorbachev.
Since March 23, 1990 a member of the Presidential Council of the USSR.[2]
On April 17, 1990 on August 22, 1991 Chief of Staff of the President of the Soviet Union.[3]
Actively participated in the events of August 1991 on the side of the State Committee on the State of Emergency.
August 18, 1991 as part of a group of 4 people (Baklanov, Boldin, Varennikov and Shenin) flew to Gorbachev in Foros. At 6 pm their group flew back to Moscow.
On August 22, 1991, he was released from office and arrested in the case of the State Emergency Committee; he was detained in the Matrosskaya Tishina detention center; in December 1991 he was released on recognizance not to leave. On May 6, 1994 the criminal case was terminated on the basis of the decree of the State Duma On the Announcement of Political and Economic Amnesty.
He died in 2006. He was buried at the Troyekurovskoye Cemetery.[4]