Title: Boris Yeltsin | Russia | The Guardian
Headings: Boris Yeltsin
Russia
Boris Yeltsin
Jonathan Steele

Content: Finally, just over a year later, he ordered Russian troops, most of them conscripts, to try to put down a rebellion in Chechnya that has remained a key issue ever since. The rash move sent more Russian citizens to their deaths than the 10-year-war, which the Soviet Union waged in Afghanistan till 1989. Any of these actions would have ensured Yeltsin a place in the catalogue of strong Russian leaders from Ivan the Terrible onwards. The four together create an extraordinary record for a man who was virtually unknown in Russia, let alone abroad, until the age of 56. Yeltsin's name is indelibly linked with Russia's faltering experience in trying to create democracy in a country which had known centuries of authoritarianism. He was given strong support by western governments who feared a return to communist rule but confused personality with process. They frequently overlooked Yeltsin's mistakes and encouraged him to bring in a constitution that concentrated massive power in the presidency rather than achieving a reliable system of checks and balances. But western support did at least prevent backsliding, and in spite of hints that he might cancel the presidential elections of 1996, when opinion polls suggested he would lose massively, or indeed the parliamentary elections of 1999, Yeltsin reluctantly honoured the system. Yeltsin was born to a peasant family in the village of Butko in the Urals. When the family's only cow died, Yeltsin's father moved to Perm to work as a labourer on a building site.