Farewell to a Maverick

Boris Yeltsin, 1931-2007 

Sadly, the majority of Russians reviled Boris Yeltsin the same way they have come to dislike Mikhail Gorbachev. Both commissar-liberators opened floodgates of reform and suffered years of ignominy by way of gratitude.

Of course, each leader had many faults, but such hatred is as unjust as it is misplaced. The fact is that Russians can now openly bad-mouth Gorbachev and Yeltsin (and Putin and the Russian State), precisely because of what these men and their advisors set in motion.