Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected head of state in Russia's thousand-year history, ended the Soviet military occupation
of Eastern Europe, dissolved Russia's domestic empire, introduced a free-market economy and private property, and, most important, forged the most open and tolerant regime that Russia has ever known. In telling Yeltsin's story, the
author recounts the struggles of a great nation at one of its most fateful moments and chronicles the twentieth century's last great
revolution.
Leon Aron, who was raised in the Soviet Union, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and the author of its quarterly Russian Outlook.
Those who lead successful revolutions lend them their faces; they epitomize both the achievements and the limitations of the countries they forge. Along with Mikhail Gorbachev's face, Boris Yeltsin's is forever imprinted on the Fourth Russian Revolution. For years, perhaps decades, Yeltsin's story will help us understand the actions of the world's youngest nuclear superpower, post-Communist Russia, whose politics, economic system, and postimperial state he shaped decisively. Few protagonists are better suited for the man-and-his-times genre than Boris Yeltsin. He was both a bellwether of the gathering Russian storm and part of the storm itself.