A Legacy Filled With Contradictions

0

Boris Yeltsin will go down in history a good bit better remembered than he is today.


A bad heart problem and at times a bigger drinking problem, bad decisions on Chechnya and a bigger propensity to play a little bit too fast and loose with governance when it came to his survival made him a problematic figure at best.

No, he was not a Harry Truman, and his memory will not permit historians to sweep us off our feet with some new revelation about what he really did. But, in truth, he had a number of redeeming virtues that will make him a much better figure than he now seems, and not just because we turn kind on the death of a major leader in our remembrance, but because he was right.


The few things he did that were right were really big things, and he should be remembered for them, today, tomorrow and beyond.






Read the Forbes.com story

. (registration required)

No posts to display