Boris Yeltsin, Thank You
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday April 25, 2007
IT WILL take some time for Russians and the outside world to evaluate Boris Yeltsin in a balanced way. The heroic beginnings to his eight years in power, standing on top of a tank to defy a coup launched by hardline generals intent on shoring up the dying Soviet Union, were followed by a descent into tragi-comedy. The once mighty Red Army was sent packing from Chechnya by separatist irregulars. State assets were plundered by well-connected kleptocrats and mafia groups. The rouble collapsed. The lifespan of most Russians became shorter and more miserable with the removal of state rationing and welfare.
During this shambles, Mr Yeltsin's media persona became that of a frequently drunk buffoon. His chosen successor, the former KGB colonel Vladimir Putin, is steadily winding back the democratic freedoms unleashed by Mr Yeltsin's ebullient seizing of the moment in August 1991. To the West, Mr Yeltsin's achievements are being whittled away. To the remaining communists in places such as Beijing and Hanoi, the Russian experience is a lesson for their people against political reform. Most Russians, it seems, curse his memory for the hard life they now lead. But all of Mr Yeltsin's mistakes can be acknowledged and still it must be said that the world is a better place because of him. There was no easy way to dismantle a brutal totalitarian system like the Soviet Union - not after three generations of darkness. Tinkering with communist party control, as Mikhail Gorbachev was doing with his perestroika and glasnost policies, was only prolonging the stagnation and inevitable death of the system. Mr Putin, from a more authoritarian internal reform school started by the "whisky-drinking, jazz-loving" KGB chief Yuri Andropov, will find the same thing. Thanks to Mr Yeltsin, the evil Soviet system has been irrevocably smashed, the Russians reconnected to their great traditions, and the nationalities of the former Soviet republics set free. The courage of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, murdered most probably by Putin regime insiders, and now of the chess champion-turned-activist Garry Kasparov, suggests there will be struggle against a restoration of the chains. Many Russians may think Mr Putin's drive to restore "order" and re-confiscate assets will bring back their security, but a solid core of educated people has gained wider exposure to systems that combine freedom and prosperity. In time, the Yeltsin era may come to be seen by Russians as Charles Dickens summed up revolutionary France: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ..."
© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald