At the memorial banquet in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin preferred in his eulogy to link Yeltsin’s life with freedom: “It is the rare person who is given the destiny to become free himself and at the same time to carry millions along behind him, and to inspire truly historic changes in his homeland and transform the world.”3 Putin’s eloquent words make you wonder what he meant by freedom, given his labors since 1999 to retrench the liberties Yeltsin had helped install. One suspects they were propaganda for his approach no less than a heartfelt attempt to honor Yeltsin.
For one more assessment, we may turn to Viktor Shenderovich, the head writer of
He was someone out of [the nineteenth-century writers Alexander] Ostrovsky and [Nikolai] Leskov, with [Mikhail] Saltykov-Shchedrin and Dostoevsky thrown in. He was large-scale, authentic, perpetually breaking out of bounds, not susceptible to simple description. Everything he did, he did himself. His victories and his disasters were all in his own hand and were a match for his personality—enormous. . . . He had character enough for a whole army division. Fate broke itself against this flint many times. But he would not have been Russian if he was not capable of self-destruction. And he never would have been first secretary of the Sverdlovsk obkom of the CPSU if he did not know how to step all over people. He was of one bone and one flesh with the nomenklatura and of one bone and one flesh with the people.
On the benevolent side, Shenderovich offered a selective comparison with Yeltsin’s handpicked successor. In the days Yeltsin came under fire for his missteps, he tolerated the flak. Putin, whose subordinates had
If assessments of a historical figure, especially on the normative plane, often diverge, attempts to come to closure by appealing to the person himself or to the court of public opinion are unlikely to be satisfactory. Out of power, Yeltsin, in this instance, simultaneously stood by his record and conceded some veracity to the charge that he failed to bring about the speedy improvement he had promised. While still in office, he could display a sense of humor about the partial and discordant results he was getting. At a Kremlin luncheon in the mid-1990s, John Major asked him to describe the state of Russia in one word. “Good,” Yeltsin said. Major was flabbergasted, since he had the impression the place was going to the dogs. The Briton next asked him to give his diagnosis in two words. “Not good,” Yeltsin replied drolly.5
The populace, who in Yeltsin’s second term and into his retirement years were inclined to appraise him unkindly, have drifted toward a similar ambivalence. In April 2000 the Public Opinion Foundation asked a representative sample of voting-age adults whether Yeltsin had played a positive or negative role in Russian history. Only 18 percent saw him in a positive light, while 68 percent were negative and 14 percent could not answer. Shortly after Yeltsin’s death, the poll was repeated. By this time, favorable and unfavorable readings had equalized, as 40 percent of respondents believed Yeltsin’s contribution was positive, 41 percent saw it as negative, and 19 percent were unable to say. Positive reviews in 2007 were 13 percentage points ahead of negatives among respondents who fully trusted President Putin, presumably reflecting Putin’s gracious send-off as well as Yeltsin having been his patron. The gap was 10 to 12 points among persons thirty-five or younger, university graduates, and residents of the big cities.6 These are kinder results than polls have revealed for the contemporary reputation of Mikhail Gorbachev.7
Soviet communism died not even twenty years ago. Most would agree that ultimate perspective on Yeltsin and his role will be more attainable when a generation or two has passed than it is at present. The best we can do right now is come up with the first, rough draft. I put one forward in full recognition of Yeltsin’s many paradoxes and imperfections. His paradoxes do not rule out a verdict, and his imperfections do not rule out a positive one.
