Boris Yeltsin enters the history books.

• Author: Moon, Keith
• Position: Reprint

Editor's Note: The death of former Boris Yeltsin on April 23 brought to mind an appreciation of his political career that we first published in February, 2000, shortly after his resignation as President of Russia. We are republishing that essay because we believe it presents an accurate and timely depiction of the contradictory yet essentially courageous nature of the man and supports the perhaps overly optimistic claim by a former American president that Yeltsin should be considered "the father of Russian democracy."--Pub.

"No one deserves a larger share of the credit for this transformation than Yeltsin himself. For all his difficulties, he has been brave, visionary and forthright and he has earned the right to be called the Father of Russian Democracy."

President Bill Clinton, Time, January 3, 2000

It is no surprise that Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin built up an admiration for each other in their seven shared years in office: they are remarkably similar men. Both progressed to positions of regional stature by playing along with the cronyism of the system and then made the leap to national fame as self-styled outsiders. Both men have set themselves apart as "party free," Clinton in his famous triangulation maneuver of offering America a third way, Yeltsin as a perennial lone warrior, surviving on his own political recognizance with no meaningful party behind him. Both men have faced intense public scrutiny of their private lives, Clinton for his reckless womanizing, Yeltsin for his legendary (even among hard-drinking Russians) alcohol consumption. Despite his personal failings, Clinton used his unflagging political energy and encyclopedic understanding of domestic policy to govern over an historic peacetime expansion. Yeltsin, meanwhile, squandered countless opportunities to establish a stable and legal government, allowing instead his political needs of the moment always to outweigh his vision of Russia's future.

Boris Yeltsin is a true master of the brash political moment. From the late 1980's, when he would routinely trump Mikhail Gorbachev's public relations cards with his populist moves, to the late 1990's when he rotated prime ministers like doormen to keep his own star luminescent, Yeltsin commanded Russia's media attention even when he would disappear from public view for weeks at a time. As the 1990's came to a close--a decade in which Russia tried desperately to maintain its position as a major global power despite a crumbling infrastructure--Yeltsin again stunned the nation and the world by abruptly resigning his position and delivering Russia face-to-face with its twenty-first century future. But, even with a hand-picked successor meant to guide Russia into the next millennium, Yeltsin's perpetual "politics of the moment" have left his country ill-equipped for that future.

When Boris Yeltsin first appeared on the national scene in l985, his charisma and gift for political theater were tough to match in a colorless, stagnant bureaucracy. Yeltsin was so Russian it was as though someone made him up: bear-like in stature, hard-drinking, supremely confident. He made a name for himself quickly by challenging the expectations and distinctly secretive nature of the Soviet Union's Communist Party. By 1989, he distanced himself from his mentor and political godfather, Mikhail Gorbachev, when he saw the president drifting away from radical reforms in the USSR. In a series of theatrical and dramatic moves in the late 1980's and early 1900's, Boris Yeltsin...