
 
from FRONTLINE's interviews with Russians, Russian observers and U.S.
policymakers: Jonas Bernstein, Lilia Shevtsova, Pavel Voschanov, Strobe
Talbott, Thomas Graham, Boris Fyodorov, Wayne Merry.

 
In this epilogue from his biography, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life, Leon
Aron outlines the duality and contradictions of Boris Yeltsin which make it
difficult to arrive at a coherent and final judgment on him. In the end,
however, Aron maintains that Yeltsin was the instrument of a great
transformation of post-Cold War Russia: "...at almost every critical juncture,
despite the mistakes that preceded the decision, he moved in the direction of
greater political liberty over authoritarian constraints; market over state
control...society over state; and integration into the world, peace and
accommodation over autarky, militarism and revanchism."

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