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28.04.07
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The People’s Politician
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By Dmitry Babich
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The Legacies of Boris Yeltsin’s Rule
The death of former President Boris Yeltsin brought back to international news the long-forgotten combination of words – "democratic Russia." The world's leaders, including the heads of some states with which Russia does not have the best relations today, all acknowledged Yeltsin's role in making Russia a democratic country. Even the presidents of Lithuania and Estonia, nations that experienced explosive diplomatic exchanges with Russia including economic sanctions, during Yeltsin's tenure in the 1990s, were among the first leaders to send their condolences to the late president's family.
Why? Because those conflicts, bitter as they were, represented disagreements between democratic states, and everyone understood they were not going to lead to violence or another occupation. And in 1991, months before Yeltsin's coming to power, violence and renewed occupation were still viable options for the Soviet government. Despite all the bad blood between Russia and the Baltic states, despite all the populist and sometimes outright immoral press campaigns on both sides, the situation persists even today, indirectly proving the old truth that democracies can quarrel, but they don't fight against each other. This quiet and largely unacknowledged transition to democracy is the main positive legacy of Yeltsin's period.
Of course, there are also other legacies from that period. The number of deaths caused by the Chechen campaign and the crime wars of the 1990s made many people think of the totalitarian Soviet period as a relatively peaceful time. The number of poor people in Russia increased to 30 million under Yeltsin, and this number is only slowly decreasing.
These are major problems, but, sad as it may sound, they are more normal than the ones Russia had before Yeltsin. Every country faces the challenges of unemployment, inflation and violent crime; many developed nations experience ethnic conflicts and terrorism; but, hopefully, we don't and in the foreseeable future won't have to stand in line for food. And this was a grim reality before Yeltsin came to power in 1991.
What is Yeltsin’s role in these positive developments? Some people present him as a careless drunk; others prefer the image of a cunning manipulator with a Machiavellian streak for intrigue and cruelty. In reality, both variants are simplifications, as Yeltsin’s behavior could vary in the course of a single day, not to speak of various stages in his career. Just like the country he headed, one part of his mind could inhabit the seventeenth century while the other one was deeply entrenched in the twenty-first.
"It may sound strange after all the press rumors, but Yeltsin was a very punctual man," remembers Vladimir Shevchenko, the president’s former protocol chief, who worked with both Yeltsin and Gorbachev, but chose to stay with Yeltsin after he resigned in 1999. "He could work very hard. During his visits abroad, he barely had time to enjoy himself. In fact he did not see anything. That is why he traveled so much after his resignation."
Another former aide, Mikhail Poltoranin, presents a different picture: "The real reason [then Duma chairman Ruslan] Khasbulatov tried to seize power in 1993 was that Yeltsin wasn't in fact doing anything. He just refused to work," Poltoranin said.
Again, both versions are true. Being a responsible person in general, Yeltsin was not a "control freak" and did not try to micromanage everything around him. He preferred a Reaganesque hands-off approach, believing firmly in the ability of people to find the best way out of a difficult situation – or at least a better way than the state could decree from above. This attitude was largely new for Russia with its long paternalist tradition. So, in order to keep the people's affection, Yeltsin often had to pose as a strict disciplinarian and a father figure, which he never was in reality. Hence all the disappointments, misunderstandings and accusations of deceit.
At the time, Russia was undergoing a deep economic crisis, followed by geopolitical isolation and unfriendly attacks from former allies. The best thing Gorbachev and Yeltsin could do was alleviate the inevitable resentment, to find the best possible sugar coating for the bitter pill of humiliation. The question of how they coped with that task should be left for historians.
In the last several years, it became fashionable in Russia to blame Yeltsin for all of the country’s problems. Perhaps Yeltsin would receive greater posthumous honors had he passed away four or five years ago. In the years before his death, he had to suffer through the difficult ordeal seeing everything he did denounced by the same people who clearly profited from his reforms. These accusations often found a receptive audience among the "millions of simple Russians," Yeltsin's traditional electorate.
But this hatred may be another proof of the love and trust which many Russians felt towards their first elected president in 1991. After all, a strong disillusionment can only follow true love.
"The difference between Gorbachev and Yeltsin was that there was never a spark of love between Gorbachev and simple folk – he was a darling of intellectuals only," said Vyacheslav Kostikov, Yeltsin's former press secretary, who fell from grace in 1996 after a conflict with Yeltsin's bodyguard. "There was that spark between Yeltsin and the people, because Yeltsin was one of their own. Even his worst enemies cannot deny this." |
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