The catalyst behind the Soviet collapse
By Maura Reynolds, Times Staff Writer
April 24, 2007
MOSCOW — Boris N. Yeltsin, the burly, bearish peasant who struck the deathblow that shattered the Soviet Union and served as the first president of the shrunken, disorderly Russia that emerged, died Monday. He was 76.
Yeltsin, who had been plagued by heart and other health problems for many years, died of "cardiovascular insufficiency" at a Moscow hospital, Sergei Mironov, head of the Russian presidential administration's medical center, told reporters.
In a televised speech Monday evening, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin described Yeltsin as "a man thanks to whom a whole epoch began, a new democratic Russia was born, a state free and open to the world."
"He was a straightforward and brave national leader," Putin said. "And he was always extremely frank and honest when defending his positions."
Putin declared Wednesday a national day of mourning. The Kremlin press service announced that a memorial service would be held that day at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow, followed by burial at the Novodevichy cemetery, where many prominent Russians are buried.
Yeltsin was the first leader in Russian history — medieval, imperial or Soviet — to be democratically elected. He was also the first to voluntarily relinquish power, resigning on New Year's Eve 1999 in favor of Putin.
A man of great ambition and periodic vision, Yeltsin wrenched his country out of more than seven decades of socialist economic planning and Communist Party rule. His forceful stands were key to freeing the Soviet Union's constituent republics, creating 15 countries stretching from Europe to China. He lifted state controls in Russia on artists, journalists, churches and scholars.
Then he, and Russia with him, floundered. Hobbled by illness, Yeltsin failed to build a stable, prosperous and democratic nation. Economic programs backfired or ran aground. The legal system languished, and corruption and crime flourished in the vacuum. Rapacious businessmen bled the country of cash. Yeltsin launched a ruinous war against the independence-minded republic of Chechnya.
But today's critics of the post-communist era look back on Yeltsin's rule as a period of democratic freedoms that are now being chipped away.
Two images capsulize his career: In August 1991, Yeltsin clambered atop a tank outside the Russian parliament, galvanizing popular resistance and squelching a coup by hard-liners seeking to overthrow Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Communist rule ended within weeks, the Soviet Union within months.
More than eight years later, a contrite Yeltsin went on television and resigned, finally acknowledging that he had failed to deliver on his promises of democracy and prosperity.
"I want to ask your forgiveness," Yeltsin said. "I want to apologize for not making many of our dreams come true."
Yeltsin's contradictions were as sweeping as the changes he wrought on his countrymen. He believed he was promoting democracy but concentrated power in his own hands. He criticized Gorbachev for backtracking on reforms and bringing hard-liners into the Kremlin, then did the same. He abhorred the Communist Party and KGB but handpicked a former intelligence agent as his successor.
Gorbachev sent a letter Monday to Yeltsin's wife, Naina, in which he paid tribute to his successor, who was sometimes an ally and sometimes a rival.
"Our destinies crossed paths in the most difficult years," Gorbachev wrote, according to a copy released by his office. "Yes, there were differences between us, and they were big ones…. But in these minutes I am thinking about the fact that both of us wanted what was good for the country and its people."
*
Closed to criticism
Some observers have suggested that Yeltsin's fatal flaw was that he saw himself as the embodiment of Russian democracy. Not knowing how to build the institutions and social practices necessary for civil society, he concentrated on prolonging his reign and neutralizing his opposition. He ignored criticism. His governing style had more in common with that of the monarchs and tyrants who preceded him than with parliamentary democracy.
The West had a hard time knowing how to respond to Yeltsin. At first preferring the smooth rhetoric of Gorbachev, most Western leaders shied away from the brash Russian president. But after Gorbachev resigned, they embraced Yeltsin wholeheartedly, judging that his new nation would need a bold figure to lead it through the post-Soviet disarray.
Some came to regret that stance as Yeltsin became increasingly erratic and ill through two terms as president. But he had marginalized his rivals, and therefore any democratic alternative to his increasingly autocratic leadership.
Single page
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 >>