Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life

Rating:
Summary: Excellent insights into a complicated character
Review: As a resident of Moscow during the last three years of the Soviet Union, and a frequent visitor ever since, I witness first-hand many of the events that are described in this book. However, much of the information on the inner workings that went on behind the scenes were, of course, unknown to me. I also did not know much about Yeltsin's Sverdlovsk days. This book provides a thrilling account of all these things, and proves to be a very easy read (particularly if you are somewhat familiar with the material and don't have to decipher the Russian terms). The editing of the book could be a bit better, but the material stands on its own and should be a must-read for anyone with an abiding interest in the goings-on in Russia. It's only too bad that the book was finished before the emergence of V. Putin and Yeltsin's resignation at the end of last year.

Rating:
Summary: Apologia for a fallen idol.
Review: Nearly all of Boris Yeltsin's many admirers in both Russia and the West have seen their benign image of the ex-Russian President shattered by events. The "man of the people" who campaigned against the privelages of the nomenklatura (the Soviet bureaucracy) later presided over a regime that made the corruption and elitism of its Soviet predecessor seem miniscule by comparison. The so-called "democrat" used deadly force to disband the first Russian parliament and established himself as a virtual dictator by concentrating all real power in his own hands and those of his chosen subordinates. Furthermore, the champion of national "sovereignty" who encouraged the dismemberment of the Soviet Union waged a bloody and fruitless war when the same principle threatened his own power in Chechnya. These facts have combined to undermine Yeltsin's reputation both at home and abroad.

In this massive biography, Leon Aron attempts to rehabilitate his hero. He writes an often compelling account of Yeltsin's life and career (through late 1998, when the Russian leader was rapidly being reduced to a figurehead status). However, it is fatally compromised by its one-sidedness. The most widely used sources are Yeltsin's own self-serving memoirs, interviews with his hand-picked officials, and articles written by Yeltsin-friendly journalists in both the Russian and Western media. A dominant source is Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the Cold War-era propaganda service.

While all of these biased accounts are accepted at face value, the views of Yeltsin's foes are presented (when they are presented at all) in the worst light possible. Yeltsin's two main political opponents, Yegor Ligachev and Gennady Zyuganov, are both badly misrepresented, or even slandered, in this book. Fortunately, both have authored books of their own which are available in English (_Inside Gorbachev's Kremlin_ by Ligachev and _My Russia_ by Zyuganov) so we can hear the views of these two thoughtful and patriotic men in their own words and judge for ourselves.

The Boris Yeltsin of Aron's book is like two different people. First and foremost, he is the "democratic" leader who freed Russia from the Communist "experiment", dismantled the Soviet "empire", and laid the foundations of a "modern" state and economy. The corrupt and authoritarian ruler that emerged later was an aberration, not the "real" Yeltsin. Aron even implies that his top advisors isolated him and ruled in his name (the same excuse given by apologists for Tsar Nicholas II and Josef Stalin). He is only fooling himself, though. There were not "two" Yeltsins. The demagogue with a talent for inciting the public was destined to become a dictator who ignored them. Opportunism was his hallmark. After he failed to rise to the top of the Soviet Communist government, he joined with the forces dedicated to bringing it down. He stood with the Russian Parliament in defense of the constitution during the "August Coup" of '91, then tore up the same constitution and sent tanks against the same Parliament two years later when they stood in the way of his own plans. Yeltsin acted as a "democrat" when it suited his purposes, not out of genuine conviction. He did not bring about the reforms of glasnost and perestroika, he exploited and ultimately hijacked them to satisfy his own ambition. The "unrecognizable" Yeltsin of the mid-'90s, whose behavior is so baffling and frustrating to Aron, is perfectly recognizable to those who saw through Yeltsin's game from the beginning.

Yeltsin was a daring and shrewd politician who battled his way to the top, but his political triumph has been a disaster for Russia. The population is now decreasing at a rate more than twice as high as during the worst years of famine and Stalinist terror in the 1930s. Instead of producing a free and prosperous Russia, the catastrophic economic experiments of Yeltsin's regime have impoverished his nation to the benefit of a tiny minority. Crime, drug use, suicide, and malnutrition are at an all time high. In the final analysis, no amount of excuse-making by apologetic works such as this can refute that Yeltsin's true legacy is one of humiliation, failure, and ruin.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed hero
Review: The timing of this thorough, scholarly journey through the life of one of the twentieth century's true world historical figures is unfortunate. Released in mid 1999, it misses the final, and decidedly pivotal, story of Boris Yeltsin's last months in power, when he finally identified a worthy successor to carry the standard for free markets, democratic process, and rule of law in the erstwhile authoritarian Russian state. After gamely ushering the reader through the (almost literally)heart-stopping crises and byzantine political intrigues of Yeltin's career, the book ends with the ailing president mired in the financial debacle of 1998, running out of time and options, and forced to play ball with his reactionary Prime Minister. Luckily we all know how the story played out in the end, with Yeltsin's dramatic New Year's resignation and the ascension of Vladimir Putin to the presidency. As the reader comes to know Yeltsin in the course of this book, the scope of his political genius and daring reveals itself so plainly and effectively that this reader yearned to know something about why Putin impressed him to the point of bequeathing his legacy to him. Nonetheless, as a work of history rather than political evaluation, "Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life", succeeds broadly in demonstrating the varied levels of its subject's titanic efforts to transform a near-death society into something which may well one day become a great nation. Yeltsin's successes unfold on three levels. The first, and most central to the book, is the defeat and dismantling of the inhuman Stalinist Soviet society which had strangled Russia for sixty years or more. This astounding victory set the stage for Yeltsin's assumption of the presidency, after full and free elections, and the various political victories he achieved over the course of his two terms in office. Finally, and probably most importantly for Russia and the rest of the world, Yeltsin began an irreversible process in this country for the first time in its history: a drive toward private property, free prices, and enterprise which began the nation's slow march into the community of liberal-minded societies. The book does a fine job of demonstrating the ruthless personal drive which propelled Yeltsin to greatness. From his early days in the semi-Siberian city of Sverdlosk, when he blew two fingers off his left hand while stealing munitions from a factory on a dare from some teenage friends, the author paints a vivid portrait of a budding iconoclast. This reader yearned for more about these formative years, but the thinness here is understandable, given the opaque nature of Soviet style historical documentation. The inner workings of the communist maze confounded Yeltsin as much as is does the reader--it's a truly incomprehensible system, and makes for slow going sometimes as we follow Yeltsin on his journey of discovery. It becomes exciting as his speeches start to reflect his sense of the waste and obscene inhumanity of the entire system. This reader was looking for that pivotal moment, though, that one or two unique events which crystallized Yeltsin's thinking and made him realize his destiny. Sadly, those moments are buried as effectively as the system Yeltsin brought down. This book gives us a great record of the "how" of what happened, but only hints helplessly at the "why". All in all, it's an ambitious read, but an informative and thoroughly competent one. In a way, it makes sense to leave Yeltsin at the end struggling and fighting away against his physical and political decline. This is the milieu in which he clearly thrived. Overall victory seemed to soften him. So, in order to get a sense of the real man, perhaps we have to forgo the happy ending.

Rating:
Summary: The Multi Revolutionary
Review: The timing of this thorough, scholarly journey through the life of one of the twentieth century's true world historical figures is unfortunate. Released in mid 1999, it misses the final, and decidedly pivotal, story of Boris Yeltsin's last months in power, when he finally identified a worthy successor to carry the standard for free markets, democratic process, and rule of law in the erstwhile authoritarian Russian state. After gamely ushering the reader through the (almost literally)heart-stopping crises and byzantine political intrigues of Yeltin's career, the book ends with the ailing president mired in the financial debacle of 1998, running out of time and options, and forced to play ball with his reactionary Prime Minister. Luckily we all know how the story played out in the end, with Yeltsin's dramatic New Year's resignation and the ascension of Vladimir Putin to the presidency. As the reader comes to know Yeltsin in the course of this book, the scope of his political genius and daring reveals itself so plainly and effectively that this reader yearned to know something about why Putin impressed him to the point of bequeathing his legacy to him. Nonetheless, as a work of history rather than political evaluation, "Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life", succeeds broadly in demonstrating the varied levels of its subject's titanic efforts to transform a near-death society into something which may well one day become a great nation. Yeltsin's successes unfold on three levels. The first, and most central to the book, is the defeat and dismantling of the inhuman Stalinist Soviet society which had strangled Russia for sixty years or more. This astounding victory set the stage for Yeltsin's assumption of the presidency, after full and free elections, and the various political victories he achieved over the course of his two terms in office. Finally, and probably most importantly for Russia and the rest of the world, Yeltsin began an irreversible process in this country for the first time in its history: a drive toward private property, free prices, and enterprise which began the nation's slow march into the community of liberal-minded societies. The book does a fine job of demonstrating the ruthless personal drive which propelled Yeltsin to greatness. From his early days in the semi-Siberian city of Sverdlosk, when he blew two fingers off his left hand while stealing munitions from a factory on a dare from some teenage friends, the author paints a vivid portrait of a budding iconoclast. This reader yearned for more about these formative years, but the thinness here is understandable, given the opaque nature of Soviet style historical documentation. The inner workings of the communist maze confounded Yeltsin as much as is does the reader--it's a truly incomprehensible system, and makes for slow going sometimes as we follow Yeltsin on his journey of discovery. It becomes exciting as his speeches start to reflect his sense of the waste and obscene inhumanity of the entire system. This reader was looking for that pivotal moment, though, that one or two unique events which crystallized Yeltsin's thinking and made him realize his destiny. Sadly, those moments are buried as effectively as the system Yeltsin brought down. This book gives us a great record of the "how" of what happened, but only hints helplessly at the "why". All in all, it's an ambitious read, but an informative and thoroughly competent one. In a way, it makes sense to leave Yeltsin at the end struggling and fighting away against his physical and political decline. This is the milieu in which he clearly thrived. Overall victory seemed to soften him. So, in order to get a sense of the real man, perhaps we have to forgo the happy ending.

Rating:
Summary: One Biiiiig Lie
Review: This is a whitewash from beginning to end. Nobody who knows contemporary Russia could endure it. Therefore, Aron must be addressing an audience deeply ignorant of Russia. Who else would stand for a biography of Yeltsin which in 750 pages makes only four brief references to Boris Berezovskiy? Writing a Yeltsin biography without including Berezovskiy is like writing the Life of Pinocchio without mentioning the carpenter!

Yet Aron expects to get away with it--and based on the reviews of this book, he will succeed. The New York Times has termed Aron's book "a fine, full-blooded portrait of Yeltsin." With the help of ignorant blurbs like that one, Aron's target readers will end up believing that Yeltsin and his friends were doing God's work, or at least Adam Smith's--rather than divvying up the plunder of a fallen empire while its stunned, exhausted people were too weak to resist.

None of the great scandals of Yeltsin's reign are mentioned, let alone explained. Where's the Loans-for-Shares scheme, possibly the biggest single act of embezzlement of the twentieth century? Aron has such contempt for his readers that rather than come up with an alibi for Yeltsin, he never so much as mentions the whole sleazy deal. In fact, Aron has so little respect for his readers that he actually attempts to tell them that the oligarchs are a myth:

"...The secrecy in which the Russian robber barons cloaked their dealings resulted in a vast exaggeration of their wealth and power both by the Moscow rumour mill and by the resident correspondents of Western newspapers and television networks..."

Having assured his readers that Yeltsin's accomplices are mythical beasts, he goes on to deny, without elaboration, some well-proven charges against Yeltsin:

"...equally bizarre [is] the 'theory' that explained Yeltsin's dependence on the oligarchs by the gifts which they showered on his family--as if the President of Russia, should he decide to do so, needed intermediaries in raiding the country's treasury."

What's so "bizarre" about that "theory"? "Intermediaries in raiding the country's treasury" is, if anything, a mild description of people like Berezovskiy and Chubais, who may well be remembered as the greatest thieves in the history of the world. Yeltsin's job was to present a "democratic" face to the West while the robbery was being carried out, not to heft the sacks of cash out to the car by himself. (He's not in that kind of condition.) That's not a "bizarre theory"; that's simple division of labour.

But the sleaziest move of all is Aron's slander of every Russian who objected to Yeltsin's regime. Aron, trusting once more that his audience is totally ignorant of Russia, dares to assert that all those who opposed Yeltsin were anti-Semitic fascists. In other words, Russians who objected to seeing their jobs, their savings, their country whisked away were no more than Jew-baiting racists. What to do, then, with a man like Yavlinsky, the half-Jewish leader of the only truly democratic anti-corruption party in the Duma? Aron, whose tolerance extends to monsters like Chubais, loses control whenever he's forced to mention Yavlinsky's name. In Aron's grovelling tale of the Yeltsinschina, Yavlinsky--virtually the only uncorrupted politician in contemporary Russia--becomes a villian.

Goebbels would be proud to have written this book. Aron was no doubt well paid to string together so many pages without a glimmer of truth. And judging by the response of the American press, it was money well spent.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed hero
Review: This is an important book, which helps to set the record straight on Yeltsin. It isn't entirely convincing though.

Stylistically it is fairly readable, though it is probably longer than it needs to be, and a bit heavy-going at times. As you might expect, it is not as readable as some of the journalistic accounts of Yeltsin's Russia. Aron relies a lot on formal sources like Yeltsin's speeches. Although he did go so far as to hunt down and interview some of Yeltsin's old acquaintances in Sverdlovsk, the same kind of intimacy with insiders is lacking later in the book.

One peculiarity of the book is the amount of space devoted to Yeltsin's career before he became president. This is both its strength and its weakness. Aron does a convincing job of showing that Yeltsin was no bumbling alcoholic, but a first-class manager and an astute analyst of Communism's failure. He rose to power because he was the quickest to recognise the irredeemable failure of the Soviet system which Gorbachev was trying to fix. Aron accurately depicts the Soviet economic collapse - something which gets almost forgotten today, when everyone wants to blame Russia's economic problems on Yeltsin.

Unlike the yes-men which the Communist hierarchy bred in droves, Yeltsin also had remarkable political courage. He showed this on several key occasions, most notably during the coup of 1991. Yeltsin correctly foresaw that the coup would fail, at a time when this was far from obvious to everyone else.

While the analysis of Yeltsin's early career is welcome, it could have been trimmed down. It seems a bit eccentric to devote less than a third of the book to Yeltsin's presidency (with only a single chapter on Yeltsin's second term). This compares with an entire chapter on a trip Yeltsin made to the US in the 1980s, for example.

The account of Yeltsin's presidency also makes some important points. Yeltsin's main political opponents were indeed a pretty unsavoury bunch, and not misunderstood social democrats. Yeltsin did launch real and necessary economic reforms - another act of political courage. Under Yeltsin, Russians have indeed become freer than at any previous time in their history.

But Russia isn't entirely democratic either. Aron skirts around some more unpleasant aspects of Yeltsin's rule. While he is surely right that there were many objective reasons why Russians voted for Yeltsin in 1996, several Yeltsin advisers have admitted that the elections would have been cancelled if Yeltsin had believed that he was going to lose. Fraudulent privatisations are mentioned, but they don't get much analysis. Sometimes we find that other inconvenient facts (like allegations of vote-rigging) are confined to footnotes.

As well as the bold (but rather intermittent) reformer, there was also another Yeltsin: the ex-Soviet apparatchik with his bevy of unpleasant cronies. This Yeltsin does crop up in Aron's autobiography, particularly in the second half of his first term. Aron is quite forthright in his condemnation of the Chechen war, for instance. But he regards this Yeltsin as a kind of temporary abberration.

The trouble is that this Yeltsin actually had a habit of recurring. The book ends rather abruptly with the appointment of the Primakov government in 1998, but extending the story to 2000 would probably not help Aron's rehabilitation of Yeltsin. The last year of Yeltsin's presidency was dominated by sordid corruption scandals, a new war in Chechnya, and an unceremonious struggle for succession.

All the same, the appointment of Putin looks a lot smarter than it did at the time (something which can be said about several of Yeltsin's mercurial hirings and firings). And with the political stability that Putin has provided, the economic reforms of the 1990s now seem to be bearing fruit. Despite fears over Putin's authoritarian tendencies, the democratic achievements of the 1990s also seem pretty secure.

A case can be made for saying that despite all the scandals, Yeltsin was guided in many key decisions by a consistent vision of a reformed and democratic Russia. This is essentially the case that Aron makes. Not everyone will be convinced, but Yeltsin probably deserves more credit than most people are inclined to give him these days.