Twenty years ago Boris Yeltsin, a party functionary who had fallen from grace, made his second bid for power. In 1989 he became People's Deputy of the USSR, in 1990 the head of Parliament of the RSFSR and in 1991 the President of Russia. It was only later that became "Tsar Boris"...
Although Boris Yeltsin died just two years ago the "Yeltsin era" seems to have ended ages ago. Not even at the end of 1999 when he resigned, but much earlier. Today those who are finishing secondary school (and had known President Yeltsin in their pre-school age) judge about him on the basis of the myth (or myths) about Yeltsin and the "wild 1990s". In a few more years nothing but these myths will remain of the real Yeltsin. Believe me, history textbooks will take care of that.
Three myths
In visual pictures of the main myths will be something like this: a few pictures of Yeltsin speaking from the top of a tank. He creates the new Russian state. A few pictures from the "wild 1990s", turf wars among gangsters, flee markets everywhere, the message being that a free economy and a free country are accompanied by chaos. All this to drive home the point that it fell to him to be the country's leader at a very contradictory period.
The next snapshot shows Yeltsin's New Year address to the nation on December 31, 1999 (he wipes away... no, not a tear, but a "spec of dust" which, as he claimed, got into his eye in the Kremlin studio when he was recording his historic statement announcing his resignation). The crowning picture would show Mr Yeltsin leaving the Kremlin and Mr Putin staying in the Kremlin. "Take care of Russia." The message is simple: Mr Yeltsin's main achievement was choosing the right man to succeed him. The man who corrected all Yeltsin's mistakes, straightened all the twists of his policy, brought people back a sense of security (if only the crisis didn't break out), and lifted Russia from its knees. Nothing doing: history is written by victors...
But there are also the "vanquished" who have their own myth of Yeltsin. Admittedly, it is an older myth: it began taking shape in the late 1980s when Mr Yeltsin was not yet the President of all Russians. It is a myth contained in Yeltsin's three books: Confessions on a Proposed Theme (1990), Notes of a President (1994) and The Presidential Marathon (2000). The first contains a myth of Yeltsin the Democrat, the second the myth of Yeltsin who protected the Government from the spread of the "Red-Brown Plague" and the third myth is about "Grandfather Yeltsin" during his second term as President ("working with documents" was not a euphemism thought up by Sergei Yastrzhembsky in order to explain away the President's long periods of absence from his workplace, but real painstaking work on documents; that the Family was just another name for his loyal associates and colleagues and not those who pulled the strings of Russian politics in the second half of the 1990s, etc.).
That myth could make just as spectacular film pictures as the first. Once again, Yeltsin atop a tank proclaiming freedom in August 1991. Yeltsin towers over Gorbachev: Goodbye, the USSR, "the prison of nations". The 1990s, only not the "wild 1990s". Long queues for food, empty shelves, a well-fed Gaidar, a lean Chubais. Message: Yeltsin together with young reformers has saved the country from starving to death. A little later Yeltsin surrounded by his bodyguards walks through the Kremlin grounds at night in October 1993. He has just saved the country from plunging into a civil war. And so on and so forth. The film fades out on a sad reformer, a former democrat, handing over power to a former CheKa man, Vladimir Putin.
There is yet a third myth about Yeltsin: a man who presided over the ruining of his country, who shot down his own parliament and conducted a German military band after having too many drinks. This myth was prompted by despair and anger, including among those who really had more than their share of suffering during those years. Let us be fair: they too have the right to have their own myth about Yeltsin. Indeed, there is more than a grain of truth in it: he did shoot down parliament, conduct a German military band and drink heavily. Who among those who cherish this particular myth about Yeltsin does not drink? Stand up and be counted.
However, whatever the myths thought up by those who treat the first President as an icon and those who think he is a disgrace humanity, the real Yeltsin at various stages of his life is much more interesting than all the myths created about him (including by himself). The real Yeltsin is larger than all these myths. He is "tougher". For good or bad.
An ardent "evolutionary"
The most interesting thing about the first President is his own evolution. During the ten years that he was in power in the new historical era (which was ushered in by the efforts of Mikhail Gorbachev, let us not forget who started it all), he changed more than once. And not because "he changed together with the changing country".
Yeltsin came to power as a democrat, as a fighter against the privileges of the party nomenklatura, as a person who publicly renounced the System that had nurtured him. Because all the other citizens to various degrees had the same background and were rather fed up with the shortage of goods and had come to hate the System, BNY's move was widely welcomed.
Some pointed out that the rebel's hallmark style was to smash all the established norms and break all political taboos. At the time it was seen as an uncompromising attitude: compared with Gorbachev, who constantly sought a compromise between the old and the new, Yeltsin looked like a hero.
Yeltsin and Parliament is a separate saga. It was Parliament (initially the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, the first freely elected Soviet legislature, and then the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) that brought the people's darling, Yeltsin, to prominence as a politician. Mr Yeltsin joined the people's deputies at the White House resisting the August 1991 coup-makers (GKChP). In October 1993 he ordered the same White House and the rump of Parliament holed up there to be shot at. Only two years had passed between the two events (compare it to the present pace of political life). How fast Yeltsin was changing!
It was after the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet that Yeltsin (it was Yeltsin, leave Mr Putin alone) who created Parliament that we have today. True, under Yeltsin it was a "place for discussions" and under Putin (more precisely, under Gryzlov) it ceased to be even that. However, Parliament became toothless under the first President: after 1993 Mr Yeltsin abhorred "the parliamentary spirit". No wonder we have had no major public politicians since the early 1990s. To be fair, we are talking about lack of truly major and public politicians (incidentally, Russia's second President, undoubtedly number one in Russian politics, has repeatedly admitted that he did not think of himself as a politician and had never sought power). By the way, it was after the events of October 1993 that the phrase about "trampled down political turf" gained currency: no new politicians came along while the old ones were invariably shoved aside by Yeltsin to play second fiddle. Whatever people may say, it looked like he was afraid of competition.
By the way, Boris Yeltsin was one of the first leaders in the country's recent history who used the phrase "Russia is rising from its knees". He said it during his first inauguration at the Kremlin in the summer of 1991. That was before the August coup, the Byelovezhskaya Pushcha accords, the shooting down of Parliament, the new Russian Constitution, the first and second Chechen wars, the 1998 default, etc, etc.
For those who may have forgotten it: Russia was hardly ever mentioned alone as a distinct part of the USSR until 1990-1991. It was assumed that what was good for the USSR was good for Russia. Then out of nowhere there appeared the Communist Party of the RSFSR (which consisted of members of the CPSU). Then came elections to the God- forsaken Russian Parliament, Yeltsin's hour of glory. Then "Russia rose from its knees" and as a consequence the USSR collapsed. Down with political taboos. The real Boris Yeltsin who is larger and tougher than the myths about him has many more lessons to teach us...