Post by RedFlag32 on Apr 23, 2007 16:54:23 GMT
Russian ex-president Yeltsin dies
Yeltsin oversaw a period of immense change in Russia
Boris Yeltsin, who oversaw the Soviet Union's demise and became Russia's first president, has died aged 76, the Kremlin says.
Mr Yeltsin - who had a history of heart trouble - died unexpectedly, of heart failure, in hospital.
He came to power after being promoted by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a man he then outmanoeuvred.
He won international acclaim as a defender of democracy when in August 1991 he mounted a tank in Moscow.
In what became one of the defining moments of his career, Mr Yeltsin rallied the people against an attempt to overthrow Mr Gorbachev's era of glasnost and perestroika.
Two years later he ordered Russian tanks to fire on their own parliament in October 1993, when the building was occupied by hardline political opponents.
YELTSIN KEY DATES
July 1990: Resigns from Communist Party
June 1991: Elected president of Russian republic (in USSR)
August 1991: Rallies citizens against anti-Gorbachev coup, bans Russian communist party
December 1991: Takes over from Mikhail Gorbachev as head of state
1992: Lifts price controls, launches privatisation
October 1993: Russia on brink of civil war, Yeltsin orders tanks to fire at parliament
December 1994: Sends tanks into Chechnya
June 1996: Re-elected as Russian president, suffers heart attack during campaign
1998: Financial crisis, rouble loses 75% of its value
December 1999: Resigns, appoints Vladimir Putin successor
But Mr Yeltsin, who became Russia's first democratically-elected leader after Mr Gorbachev resigned in December 1991, saw his final years in office overshadowed by increasingly erratic behaviour and plummeting popularity as the economy suffered.
Bouts of ill-health were accompanied by rumours of a drinking problem, exhibited most famously when Mr Yeltsin grabbed a conductor's baton in Berlin and, apparently inebriated, tried to sing along with the orchestra.
He announced his retirement on the last day of the 20th Century, handing over to secret service chief Vladimir Putin.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says Mr Yeltsin may have disappointed Russians by bringing them neither peace nor prosperity.
But she says he did help end 70 years of Soviet Communism, and that, in the long run, is what he will probably be remembered for.
'Historic figure'
Mr Yeltsin's eight years in power brought immense changes to Russia.
He banned the Communist Party, introduced a new constitution which concentrated all real power in the hands of the president, and presided over Russia's troubled mass privatisation in the early 1990s.
He also launched a disastrous large-scale military intervention in Chechnya in 1994.
Speaking in an interview with Russian television in 2000, Mr Yeltsin said that he saw the lives lost in Chechnya as the biggest responsibility he had to bear.
But he added that there had been no alternative and that Russia had to act against Chechen separatists.
"I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers," he said. "I made the decision, therefore I am responsible."
Reacting to the news of Mr Yeltsin's death, Mr Gorbachev expressed his "very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes", Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
The US White House paid tribute to Mr Yeltsin, saying he had been an "historic figure during a time of great change and challenge for Russia".
Yeltsin oversaw a period of immense change in Russia
Boris Yeltsin, who oversaw the Soviet Union's demise and became Russia's first president, has died aged 76, the Kremlin says.
Mr Yeltsin - who had a history of heart trouble - died unexpectedly, of heart failure, in hospital.
He came to power after being promoted by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, a man he then outmanoeuvred.
He won international acclaim as a defender of democracy when in August 1991 he mounted a tank in Moscow.
In what became one of the defining moments of his career, Mr Yeltsin rallied the people against an attempt to overthrow Mr Gorbachev's era of glasnost and perestroika.
Two years later he ordered Russian tanks to fire on their own parliament in October 1993, when the building was occupied by hardline political opponents.
YELTSIN KEY DATES
July 1990: Resigns from Communist Party
June 1991: Elected president of Russian republic (in USSR)
August 1991: Rallies citizens against anti-Gorbachev coup, bans Russian communist party
December 1991: Takes over from Mikhail Gorbachev as head of state
1992: Lifts price controls, launches privatisation
October 1993: Russia on brink of civil war, Yeltsin orders tanks to fire at parliament
December 1994: Sends tanks into Chechnya
June 1996: Re-elected as Russian president, suffers heart attack during campaign
1998: Financial crisis, rouble loses 75% of its value
December 1999: Resigns, appoints Vladimir Putin successor
But Mr Yeltsin, who became Russia's first democratically-elected leader after Mr Gorbachev resigned in December 1991, saw his final years in office overshadowed by increasingly erratic behaviour and plummeting popularity as the economy suffered.
Bouts of ill-health were accompanied by rumours of a drinking problem, exhibited most famously when Mr Yeltsin grabbed a conductor's baton in Berlin and, apparently inebriated, tried to sing along with the orchestra.
He announced his retirement on the last day of the 20th Century, handing over to secret service chief Vladimir Putin.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall says Mr Yeltsin may have disappointed Russians by bringing them neither peace nor prosperity.
But she says he did help end 70 years of Soviet Communism, and that, in the long run, is what he will probably be remembered for.
'Historic figure'
Mr Yeltsin's eight years in power brought immense changes to Russia.
He banned the Communist Party, introduced a new constitution which concentrated all real power in the hands of the president, and presided over Russia's troubled mass privatisation in the early 1990s.
He also launched a disastrous large-scale military intervention in Chechnya in 1994.
Speaking in an interview with Russian television in 2000, Mr Yeltsin said that he saw the lives lost in Chechnya as the biggest responsibility he had to bear.
But he added that there had been no alternative and that Russia had to act against Chechen separatists.
"I cannot shift the blame for Chechnya, for the sorrow of numerous mothers and fathers," he said. "I made the decision, therefore I am responsible."
Reacting to the news of Mr Yeltsin's death, Mr Gorbachev expressed his "very deepest condolences to the family of the deceased on whose shoulders rest major events for the good of the country and serious mistakes", Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
The US White House paid tribute to Mr Yeltsin, saying he had been an "historic figure during a time of great change and challenge for Russia".
