Word: yeltsin
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...Boris Yeltsin was a man for the unforgettable surprise. His fame rested on the panache and fortitude he showed in August 1991 when plotters attempted a coup d'état against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. They reckoned without Yeltsin, then head of the Russian Soviet Republic. Clambering on top of a tank outside the Russian White House, he defied those who wanted to return Russia to its communist traditions. Their coup might have succeeded if they had put him under preventive arrest. Instead, Yeltsin emerged as the master of the political situation. Gorbachev came back from detention in Crimea...
Most Russians, however, stayed poor and felt disoriented, and Yeltsin's popularity dipped. His drunkenness harmed his cause. There was public disquiet about his frequent, lengthy absences from his office. His health caused further concern; if his cardiac condition had been public knowledge he would never have won the 1996 election. Nor would he have triumphed without getting the business oligarchs to bankroll his campaign. In return, they got their hands on oil, gas, nickel and aluminum, and grew even richer. Democracy had been one of his slogans before he came to power, and he continued to celebrate...
...Yeltsin: A Life, Timothy J. Colton has written a fine biography of Russia's first postcommunist President. He has done his homework, going to the Urals, for example, to talk to individuals who knew Yeltsin in his poverty-stricken childhood. One finding: a grandfather of Yeltsin's was persecuted as a rich peasant when Stalin imposed agricultural collectivization. Colton also spoke to acquaintances from Yeltsin's period as Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk. He justifiably concludes that Yeltsin was already a rambunctious politician before Gorbachev promoted him to head the Moscow City Party in 1985. Yeltsin was like a bull...
...salute and red carpet treatment on his foreign visits. In March 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev became the first and last President of the Soviet Union - but his power continued to derive from his position as Secretary General of the Communist party. It was the first President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, who finally changed the power structure, putting the power in the hands of the presidency at whose pleasure the Prime Minister served...
...When Yeltsin ruled Russia, urban intellectuals were optimistic about the future and the possibilities of democratic change. Most other Russians, however, sank into despair as the economy withered and the state's assets were handed out to corrupt insiders. Under Putin, attitudes have flipped. Now it's the intellectuals who are disgusted with his administration's habitual disregard for democracy, its tendency to harass opposition figures and intimidate media outlets that dare to criticize the state. Average Russians, on the other hand, seem mostly to accept Putin's grand bargain: I'll improve your standard of living if you keep...