The Cause of Yeltsin's Death

The first president of Russia died of cardiovascular collapse in Moscow's Central Clinical Hospital, where he was receiving regular medical care. He even had his own deluxe quarters reserved in room 7, to which the former president repaired whenever he was ailing. According to the official diagnosis announced yesterday by the medical center's managing director, Sergei Mironov, Boris Yeltsin died as a result of "a progressive cardiovascular collapse with multiple organ involvement." "In this case, the crucial systems of the organism are urinary, digestive, and endocrine," explained Ivan Dedov, the head of the Center for Advanced Medical Assistance. "He had coronary problems and angina pectoris," said Andrei Vorobyov, the chief physician at the medical complex attached to the presidential administration. "It was a typical coronary death: sudden cardiac arrest." Roszdrav (the national health service) head Yury Belenkov, who previously headed the team of doctors treating Mr. Yeltsin, told Kommersant that the state of the former president's health had declined precipitously over the last three days: "He was in the hospital, unable to get out of bed," he said.

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So, You See, It Turns Out to Be This Kind of Squiggle"
A Political Biography of Russia's First President

Boris Yeltsin introduced many colorful phrases into the Russian political lexicon, one of which was the memorable "squiggle." Basically the entire political biography of the first Russian president consisted of such "squiggles," notes Dmitry Kamyshev, the political editor at Kommersant.

The first about-face in his career was in 1987, when the promising Ural Party apparatchik whom Mikhail Gorbachev had invited to take up the post of First Secretary of the Moscow City Communist Party Committee unexpectedly took the floor at the Party's October plenum to air harsh criticism of the Party leadership in general and General Secretary Gorbachev in particular. The move exacted a terrible price on the Party career of Yeltsin the communist: he lost his position as the head of the Communist Party in Moscow and was demoted to the position of deputy head of Gosstroi (the state construction agency). However, the October plenum laid the foundation for his future election victories, first as a People's Deputy of the USSR and the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and then as the first president of Russia.

Many of Yeltsin's other "squiggles" worked out similarly well: despite initially looking like tactical defeats, they often later turned into strategic victories. This was true, for example, with the "shock therapy" of Yegor Gaidar's government: the relentless upward spiral of prices was a harsh blow to the credibility of the president, who had promised to "lie down on the rails" if the standard of living fell in Russia, but the outcome was the elimination of queues and of shortages of goods in the shops. And in October 1993, Boris Yeltsin's decision to send tanks to shell the White House sacrificed Russia's image as a civilized country in the service of adopting a new constitution that laid out the foundations of democracy along Western lines.

Yeltsin's other decisions were marked by similar internal contradictions. Take, for example, the scandalous loans-for-shares auctions of 1994-1995 that did not bring in the money for the budget that the authors of the privatization program had been counting on. This in large measure was what forced the government to resort to building the pyramid of T-bills that eventually led to the financial crash in August 1998. However, it was chiefly as a result of these auctions that a large and basically effective group of property owners arose, in whose hands many loss-making enterprises were turned around and began to flourish. And Boris Yeltsin compensated for the political damage done by the appearance of "a bunch of oligarchs hogging all the country's wealth" with his victory in the presidential elections in 1996. After all, his victory was achieved largely with the help of those same oligarchs, who had united behind the cause of repelling "the threat of communism's revenge."

Just about the last big political mistake that Boris Yeltsin owned up to publicly was the deployment of troops to Chechnya in December 1994. In essence, this decision was also the result of yet another "squiggle." The declaration of Chechen independence itself in fall 1991 was the direct consequence of the struggle of the national republics against the country's federal center, a struggle that the new Russian leadership had actively supported. After the "parade of sovereignty" began in Russia itself, however, Moscow tried to put the brakes on the process, but in the Chechnya of that time, although a peace agreement would be signed in August 1997 with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov, "self-determination" still seemed too far off.

The last "squiggle" was Yeltsin's early departure on December 31, 1999 and his handover of power to Vladimir Putin. At the time, Boris Yeltsin announced that he was leaving Russia "to a new generation of politicians" who would make sure that the country "would never return to the past." But over the seven years of his presidency, Vladimir Putin has proven that a return to the past is possible: direct elections of regional governors have been abolished, the rules for election to the State Duma have been tightened, many rights enjoyed by citizens have been curtailed, and almost all of the country's influential media outlets are now under the control of the government. Many opponents of the government are convinced that the "appointment" of Vladimir Putin as his successor was the first Russian president's big mistake. But Boris Yeltsin himself never acknowledged it as such. At least not in public.

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Boris Yeltsin on Vladimir Putin and His Times

On Putin's political course: "Strategically, President Putin has chosen the right course. It is a long road, and he is not hurrying, but he is pursuing a policy of democracy" (during a visit to Alaska on August 10, 2005)

On presidential power: "Fairly strong presidential power is exactly what Russia needs" (during a media appearance on December 7, 2003)

On democracy: "I firmly believe that the measures that the country's leaders have taken after Beslan will follow the course of the democratic freedoms that have been Russia's most valuable achievement over the last decade" (in an interview with The Moscow News on September 17, 2004)

On Putin's personnel policies: "When it comes to the political and business elite, the new president, in my opinion, has the tact and reasonable firmness not to let anyone too close, not to leave anyone out in the cold, to preserve a precise and correct distance" (in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 8, 2000)

On oligarchs: "There has been more harm than good from Berezovsky. He didn't work, he interfered. So Putin did the right thing when he took a harsh line in relation to Berezovsky and the other so-called oligarchs. I supported Vladimir Vladimirovich in this" (in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 8, 2000)

On an "Orange Revolution" in Russia: "Is a similar 'color' course of events possible in Russia? I say categorically not. Neither the political nor the national basis for that has ever existed here" (in an interview with the magazine Itogi on January 30, 2006)

On the power vertical: "The move to bring local laws and administration systems in line with a single nationwide common denominator is long overdue" (in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 8, 2000)

On the return of the Soviet national anthem: "I am categorically opposed to the return to the Soviet hymn as the national anthem. These things are not to be trifled with" (in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 8, 2000)

On opposition: "Opposing opinions should always exist in society – life cannot exist without them. I have talked to Vladimir Vladimirovich about that" (in an interview with The Moscow News on October 21, 2003)

On freedom of speech: "The freedom of speech does not pose any threat. I am worried about something else: that some see this freedom as meaning that anything goes. It is inappropriate to burst out and forget a sense of moderation" (in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on December 8, 2000)

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Vladimir Putin on Boris Yeltsin and His Times

"All basic democratic institutions are operating in Russia. We have a real market economy, an independent press, and free and open elections. I want to emphasize that the achievements are in large measure tied to the name of first Russian president Boris Yeltsin" (in an interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Neue Kronen Zeitung on February 8, 2001)

"We are developing the country on the basis that was created by the previous political administration under the leadership of the first Russian president, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. Clearly, life evolves and does not stay the same. Clearly, we are different people… Today I lead a country, I bear political responsibility for its current and future status. We treat the first president with respect, we listen to his opinions, we take his opinion into account when making decisions. But we will act independently" (at a press conference on June 24, 2002)

"[Boris Yeltsin] is a free man. He has the opportunity to move about freely, meet with people freely, and to air his own opinions. I think there's nothing wrong with that. But I have my own opinion on many matters, and I am going to implement what I feel is necessary, what I consider to be compatible with Russia's interests. Boris Nikolayevich is a colorful person and an experienced politician. He has his own opinion, and he will express it. But thank you. I will keep that in mind" (at a press conference on June 24, 2002)

"The situation now is different from what it was in the beginning or the middle of the 1990s, when salaries went unpaid and where pensions weren't paid for several years in some places. There is nothing to say about various benefit payments: people didn't see them for years. Now it's a different situation" (in a meeting with members of the government on January 17, 2005)

"You can evaluate the activities of the first president of the Russian Federation however you like, but one thing is clear: at the time when Boris Nikolayevich governed Russia, the people of our country, the citizens of Russia received the main thing that made all of these transformations possible: freedom. That is the enormous historical service of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin" (at a press conference on January 31, 2006)

"The big hopes of millions of people were pinned on the changes of the early 1990s, but neither government nor business lived up to these hopes" (in a speech to the Federation Council on May 10, 2006)