Title: Boris Yeltsin
Headings: Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Content: Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin, the former President of Russia who died today aged 76, led Russians away from the bondage of Communism, but was never to see the promised land of a thriving market economy and a state ruled by law. 23 April 2007 • 12:01am
He took control of a Russia in chaos and left it in a different kind of chaos when he suddenly resigned on the last day of 1999. During his time in office two very different Yeltsins etched themselves on the world’s consciousness. There was Yeltsin the fighter, who climbed on top of a tank in August 1991 to raise the standard of liberty against the Soviet putschists who wanted to restore Communism. And there was the later version, another broken-down Brezhnev, puffy-cheeked, stiff gaited, who disappeared from view when most needed, paralysed by heart disease, a fondness for the bottle and bouts of depressive indecision. Yeltsin thrived in opposition, but aged visibly in power. His finest hour was his campaign in 1991 to unseat the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, in the course of which he killed off the Soviet superpower and ushered in the modern Russian state. Once in power, Yeltsin seemed less comfortable. As the challenger he enjoyed popularity: the more he upset the West, then in the grip of its love affair with Gorbachev, the more old women begged to kiss his feet.