Boris Yeltsin dies
April 23rd, 2007 by ashish
An era has ended in Russia. Boris Yeltsin, the man who stood on a tank and led a counter-revolution that ended a coup attempting to bring back an old style Soviet era, died today. Boris Yeltsin is a man who has a very mixed legacy.
He was brought into some limelight by Gorbachev, but after that, whatever he did was on his own abilities. He fought his way to become a popularly elected President of the Russian Republic when the Soviet Union still stood. When hardliners attempted to depose Gorbachev, he led a people’s movement that brought back Gorbachev. However, that very fact showed a new power balance and in a few months, the Soviet Union was dissolved and a new country was born in the form of the Russian Republic with Yeltsin as the leader.
In power, he was as powerful as any leader of old. When Parliament disagreed with him, he accused it of blocking reforms and sent tanks to storm the Russian Parliament Building (The White House). Faced with the violent secession from Chechnya, he sent troops there who essentially lost the war, and caused tremendous humiliation to Russians.
In terms of reform, his era saw the rise of the oligarchs. The sell-off of state assets was heralded as a massive opportunity of loot, and many enterprising people used this opportunity to buy state assets and become billionaires overnight. This is an image and reality both that did not go away.
But one thing in there, Boris Yeltsin will be remembered as the man who broke the Soviet Union and steered Russia away from its Communist past.
