Title: Ex-Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin Dies - CBS News
Headings: Ex-Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin Dies
Ex-Russian Leader Boris Yeltsin Dies
Content: He would knock an opponent off his horse, but never destroy him. In his time, there were many shortcomings and even crimes, but ... there was never any physical removal of political opponents in Russia, and that was his personal contribution." But there was another Yeltsin. He was hesitant to act against rampant crime and epic corruption, beginning in his own administration, as both sapped public faith and crippled the young democracy. His government's wrenching economic reforms impoverished millions, poor people whose wages and pensions Yeltsin's government often went months without paying. In the course of the Yeltsin era, per capita income fell by a staggering 75 percent, and the nation's population fell by more than 2 million. Vodka consumption soared. Yeltsin was a master of Kremlin intrigues, and preferred the chess game of politics to the detail work of solving economic and social problems. He fired the entire government four times in 1998 and 1999. The economy sank into a deep recession in the summer of 1998, but Yeltsin rarely commented on the troubles and never offered a plan to combat them.