Boris Yeltsin: Communist as They Come

April 23, 2007 marked the death of one of the world's most controversial political figures: Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. Born February 1, 1931 to destitute parents in the Ural Mountains of Butka, Russia, Boris lived out his childhood under Communist pressures; his father was arrested during a Joseph Stalin purge when Boris was only six years of age. He was later released, however, but Communism reigned rampant during WWII and throughout his adulthood. In 1955, Boris graduated from the Ural Polytechnic Institute as a construction engineer, and a year later married fellow engineer, Naina Girina. By the age of thirty he had decided to join the leading Communist faction.

During the following years, Yeltsin climbed the Communist political ladder, and became the head of construction for the entire nation of Russia under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev as well as the party chief for Moscow. At this point, his position was more economic than political, as he stressed his ideals for a growing Russia. Soon that would change, however, and by October of 1987, he established his official political stance during a closed Communist party meeting: the economy was growing at a snail's pace, and he was dissatisfied. His fellow Communists also needed to get an unsatisfied nuisance off their chests; Boris Yeltsin himself. One month thereafter, Yeltsin was fired from his position as the head of his party, and it is at this point in his life where his health issues began to surface.

In 1989, defying his deteriorating heart conditions, Boris Yeltsin emerged as one of the most influential Parliament members in Russia during an election. Barely two years later, he won yet another astonishing election, this time gaining the most popular commander in chief appointment in Russia's history. At this point, Yeltsin had officially snipped ties with the Communist party. Note: snipped. His election campaign had promised the Russian people he would further democracy and, in effect, break the back of the Communist monster. His defiance against the coup d'etat of August 18, 1991 seemed to prove his politics even further when he stood up against fierce Communist opposition in defense of the reigning president Gorbachev. But following a successful suppression of the coup, Yeltsin's true political colors began to bleed through his democratic clothing.

In October of 1993, Yeltsin committed one of the biggest blunders in his presidential career. In contrast to his "death to Communism" attitude two years prior, he ordered tanks to surround Parliament once more, an illegal attempt for a man in his position. The resulting chaos found over 140 people dead and paved the way for a new constitution, one that would grant Yeltsin all the power he thought necessary to run a country. This move was highly totalitarian, tyrannical even, as it dealt yet another devastating blow to the Russian Federation.

Perhaps the most notably disastrous event that took place during Yeltsin's reign was the assault on Chechnya. Yeltsin arranged for Russian troops to storm across the border into this largely Muslim nation. His ambition was to quench a separatist rebellion. His reward: the bloodiest, most prolonged uprising of his entire career.

The legacy of Yeltsin's eight-year term in office remains splattered with the blood of Russian civilians as well as a spattering of multiple cabinet member firings, including the discharge of four prime ministers. In 1999, Yeltsin resigned in disgrace amidst political controversy. His resignation speech surprised many, and though he was seen as a democratic beacon of hope to many Westerners, his civilians thought differently.

"Yeltsin inherited the Russian state in 1991, and left it in much worse shape than he found it," says Roy Medvedev, a prominent and experienced Russian historian. "His legacy was mostly unhappy, and I don't think the Russian people will remember him with much warmth."

"Yeltsin's main drive was to tear things down; that's what he was good at," says Gennady Chuffrin, the deputy director of the official Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. "At no stage did Yeltsin attempt to build anything. Things slipped out of his hands, and were taken over by ... business tycoons, regional leaders, and criminal groups. The guiding principle of the Yeltsin era was chaos." Certainly not a vindication of Yeltsin's constructional engineering capabilities.

Many, especially American politicians, will hail Yeltsin as a democratic pioneer for Russia. But ask any Russian who has lived under Yeltsin's rule about his life during those tragic eight years, and he will likely have a different story to tell.