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&block_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
Basmanovo
Batalin, Yurii
Baturin, Yurii
Bayev, Vyacheslav
Belarus (Belorussia)
proposed union of Russia with
Belovezh’e Forest accord
impeachment charge over
renounced by State Duma
Belyakov, Yurii
Belyakovka River
Beregovaya
Berezniki Potash Combine
Berezniki
Yeltsin family in
Yeltsin family’s move to
Berezovskii, Boris
exile of
and 1996 election campaign
political influence of
Berlin, Yeltsin drinking incident in
Berlin, Isaiah
Bezrukov, Sergei
Bichukov, Anatolii
biography, neglect of in Russia
Black Tuesday
Bobykin, Leonid
Bocharov Ruchei. See Sochi
Bocharov, Mikhail
Bogdanov, Vladimir
Bogomyakov, Gennadii
Boiko, Maksim
Boldin, Valerii
Boldyrev, Yurii
Bolshevism, Yeltsinism compared with
Bonner, Yelena
Bordyuzha, Nikolai
Boris Yeltsin (Korzhakov)
Boris Yeltsin: The Man Who Broke Through the Wall
Boriska. See Kukly
Borodin, Pavel
alleged corruption of
and renovation of Kremlin
Bortsov, Valerii
Boutros Ghali, Boutros
Brakov, Yevgenii
Brezhnev, Leonid
approval of Yeltsin as Sverdlovsk leader
constitution of
cronies of
and demotion of Ryabov
personality cult of
and RSFSR
and Sverdlovsk
Brodskii, Igor
Bryntsalov, Vladimir
Budënnovsk
Burbulis, Gennadii
electoral activities of
and institutional changes
and shock therapy
on Yeltsin as arbitrator
on Yeltsin and KGB