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I generally consider Gorbachev to be a leader who inherited a tottering empire, tried to fix it and only succeeded in making it fall completely apart -- then Gorbachev looked around and said, "I ... uh ... meant to do that."

Yeltsin, on the other hand, knew what he was doing, and succeeded in pushing communism off the stage in a very deliberate fashion. I respected Yeltsin. It's a shame that Putin is trying to revive the Bad Old Days.

Yeltsin gave Communist and the SU the coup de grace. His fortitude and bravery should be commended. Changing Russia was a monumental task. Yeltsin had to constantly fight off the Communists, who were still very strong, and idiots like Zorinosky. The oligarchs that took control simply too advantage of the privatization. I remember that the idea was “shock therapy.” Get privatization over with quickly, so that the Commies could reverse it if they came to power. I think his major mistake was picking the Chekist, Putin as his successor.