8 Sidney Hook, The Hero in History: A Study in Limitation and Possibility (New York: Humanities Press, 1943), 156–57. The Russian Lenin was the only one of Hook’s examples about whom he wrote an entire chapter. The prevalent image in many recent studies of social and political change is that of “path dependency,” whereby positive reinforcement, short time horizons, and inertia keep things on the same track over extended periods of time. See in particular Paul Pierson, Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), chap. 1. Before a path can be established, however, it has been pointed out that relatively small factors, such as choices by leaders or bargains struck among different groups, may push things down one of several competing paths, so that the pattern is one of “periods of relative (but not total) openness, followed by periods of relative (but not total or permanent) stability.” Ibid., 53. Yeltsin made his mark in a period of relative openness in which Hook’s metaphor of a fork in the road holds up well.

9 Erik H. Erikson, Gandhi’s Truth: On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (New York: Norton, 1969), 113, 402.

10 Gorbachev, of course, addressed these same issues in his own way, and, unlike Yeltsin, he also made conceptual breakthroughs on issues of war and peace. But Gorbachev’s reassessments on domestic issues were less thorough than Yeltsin’s, which explains why, in the radical climate of the times, Yeltsin consistently outbid him.

11 Isaiah Berlin, “On Political Judgment,” New York Review of Books, October 3, 1996, 26–30.

12 Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate (New York: Knopf, 2002), xx.

13 Sergei Stankevich, interview with the author (May 29, 2001). Stankevich by the time of the interview had no use for Yeltsin and could not be suspected of bias in his favor.

14 Anatolii Kulikov, Tyazhëlyye zvëzdy (Heavy stars) (Moscow: Voina i mir, 2002), 410 (italics added).

15 The significance of negative as well as positive choices is clearly drawn in Richard J. Samuels, Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 19.

16 Martin Gilman, “Becoming a Motor of the Global Economy,” Moscow Times, November 14, 2007.

17 Quotations from Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy 13 (January 2002), 10, 12. Carothers was writing generally of countries that have lost their way in the transition, and not specifically about Russia.

18 Even Putin’s treatment of lower-level officials brings to mind Yeltsin’s early reputation as boss for the bosses. One observer has called him “the people’s czar who reins in ministers, bureaucrats, tycoons, and even the politicians of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.” Peter Finn, “In a Russian City, Clues to Putin’s Abiding Appeal,” The Washington Post, November 24, 2007.

19 Richard Sakwa, Putin: Russia’s Choice, rev. ed. (London: Routledge, 2008), xi.

20 Henry Yasas, quoted in Tatyana Gershkovich, “Remembering Yeltsin,” Moscow Times, September 14, 2007. Some pictures are available at http://www.art4.ru/ru/news/news_detail.php?ID=2994█_id=28.

21 Gershkovich, “Remembering Yeltsin.” Kavarga’s own description of the work in materials distributed at the gallery places more emphasis on the chaos depicted, “without which an absolutely new creation would be impossible.” Yeltsin’s name, he said, should be read as “fixing in memory either the formation or the crushing of our latest illusion.”

22 Gukova’s description from the exhibit.

23 Description at the exhibit by Tavasiyev.

24 Description at the exhibit by Leikin and Miturich-Khlebnikova.

Index

Abramovich, Roman

Achalov, Vladislav

Aeroflot

Afanas’ev, Viktor

Afanas’ev, Yurii

Against the Grain. See Confession on an Assigned Theme

Ageyev, Gelii

Agrarian Party

agricultural collectivization

Yeltsin’s critique of

Akayev, Askar

Akchurin, Renat

Aksënenko, Nikolai

Albright, Madeline

Alekperov, Vagit

Aleksii II (Orthodox patriarch)

on Yeltsin as believer

Alma-Ata accord

Amiel, Barbara

Andreas, Dwayne

Andropov, Yurii

and planned transfer of Yeltsin to Moscow

anti-Semitism

Arbatov, Georgii

Arkhangel’skoye-2

army

attempted reform of

disarray of

impeachment charge over

arrears. See nonpayments

Atatürk, Kemal

Avakov, A. V.

Aviastroi

Ayatskov, Dmitrii

Badge of Honor

Bakatin, Vadim

Baker, James A.

Baklanov, Oleg

Baltym

Barannikov, Viktor

Barsukov, Mikhail

Barvikha

Basayev, Shamil

Bashilov, Sergei

Bashkirs

Bashkortostan (Bashkiriya)

Basilashvili, Oleg

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