Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first freely elected leader in 1,000 years, will be remembered for presiding over a period of remarkable transition and political change in the country. He died Monday, leaving a monumental but mixed legacy.
Standing on a tank in August 1991 to rally his countrymen to beat back a coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin would emerge as a critical figure in the late 20th century. He helped dismantle the old Soviet Union and ushered in an era of new freedoms and democracy previously unthinkable under Kremlin rule. He left office after a tenure marked by policy setbacks and criticism of his bearing and behavior.
Along with Gorbachev, a man with whom he was often at loggerheads, Yeltsin “destroyed the most monstrous political system in the history of the world, a regime with extensive resources to keep itself in power,” former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack F. Matlock told The New York Times.
Yeltsin’s liberating reforms, according to one published analysis, “gave rise to a society more free, more diverse, more energized, more entrepreneurial – and more chaotic – than any in Russian history.”
The reforms were amazing in scope. Just a decade after being labeled the Evil Empire by President Ronald Reagan, millions of Russians were freely traveling abroad and voting in fair elections and learning to rely on themselves for a better life rather than a communist government.
Yeltsin could not overcome his limitations and flaws. He had an erratic personality and his reforms inflicted pain on many Russians who couldn’t adapt, including the sick and elderly. Death and crime rates soared as suicide, alcoholism and joblessness became more prevalent. He also was quick to flex the old-style Soviet muscle, sending tanks and troops to flush hard-liners out of a hostile Russian parliament in October 1993 and launching a war against separatists in the southern republic of Chechnya one year later. Tens of thousands eventually were killed in hostilities that solved little.
Yelstin’s chaotic reign ended almost as quickly as it began as he became the first Russian leader to relinquish power on his own accord on New Year’s Eve 1999.
“Many of our hopes have not come true,” he said that day, asking forgiveness from the Russian people. “What we thought would be easy turned out to be painfully difficult.”
Yeltsin, however, will be remembered for opening his country to free markets and free thoughts even as he unleashed forces he ultimately could not control.
