Abstract:
Boris Yeltsin, Russia's president during the 1990s, passed away earlier this week. It is tempting to point out that Russia was far freer and more democratic under Yeltsin in the 1990s than it has become under his successor, Vladimir Putin. Yet while some of Yeltsin's accomplishments were positive, others were quite negative. Indeed, Yeltsin did much to lay the groundwork for the revival of authoritarianism under Putin.
