Review: Yeltsin memoirs even-handed and revealing

"Midnight Diaries"
By Boris Yeltsin (translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick)
PublicAffairs
Memoir
336 pages

In this story: Amiable and open, allegedly Relationships with world leaders RELATED STORIES, SITES

By L.D. Meagher
Special to CNN Interactive

(CNN) -- The 1990s in Russia are already being described as the "Yeltsin decade" by, among others, Boris Yeltsin. It's hard to argue with the appellation. At each stage of the revolution that transformed Russia from the epicenter of a Communist empire to a partner of the world's industrial democracies, the country's first democratically elected president was at the center of the action. And, at each stage of that transformation, Yeltsin has published a first-hand account of events.

"Midnight Diaries" is the third installment of his memoirs. It covers the years 1996 to 2000, beginning with his campaign for re-election and ending with his abrupt, voluntary retirement from the presidency. In between, Yeltsin offers his take on the broad and diverse range of issues and confrontations he faced. Along the way, he offers insight into the way he operates, the way he thinks, and the way he views his contemporaries in the geopolitical sphere.

	EXCERPT
Excerpt: 'Midnight Diaries'

The title, "Midnight Diaries," is a bit misleading. Yeltsin habitually wrote down his thoughts about events of the day in the wee hours of the morning. The book is based on these "diary" entries, but they are rarely reproduced.

Instead, Yeltsin draws on his daily journal to recall sequences of events and his contemporaneous impressions. What emerges is a more cohesive narrative than the diary entries themselves might have offered.

The Yeltsin of "Midnight Diaries" is an amiable, seemingly open man. He shares his own self-image -- that of a physically and mentally powerful person who loves his family and his country -- in a cheerfully disarming manner. But he also exposes some less attractive sides of his personality -- the political manipulator, the hard-nosed executive, the resolute war-maker.

For all of his celebration of democratic processes now taking hold in Russia, Yeltsin also reveals himself as a product of the old Soviet political machinery. That side of his personality emerges during the final year of his presidency, when he apparently expended a lot of energy handpicking a successor and maneuvering him into place. As he discusses his actions, Yeltsin seems not to notice that they have a decidedly undemocratic bent.

Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin watches a parade in Red Square in early 2000

Yeltsin is remarkably even-handed in dealing with his political adversaries. He seldom impugns their integrity or patriotism (though he isn't quite so generous with Communist parliamentarians). He is less charitable to the leaders of Chechnya. He brands them as terrorists, extortionists and mobsters.

"A black hole of criminality had opened within Russia," he writes. " ... (I)t was only in Chechnya that ... banditry became a virtually legal form of income and a matter of civic pride. It's one thing when a state tries to fight organized crime ... It's another matter when the local government helps the bandits, and they can disappear with their cash, hostages and weapons into that black hole."

Such characterizations allow Yeltsin to rationalize the long war he authorized in Chechnya. And he sees no contradiction in his actions, at about the same time, aimed at preventing the NATO war in Yugoslavia.

His memories of dealing with other world leaders are refreshingly frank and occasionally humorous. He draws an almost comic portrait of former Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who indulged Yeltsin's passion for fishing without ever learning the proper technique for flycasting. French President Jacque Chirac and former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl became firm friends.

But a special relationship developed between Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton. Even during the strain of the Kosovo campaign, they remained on a first-name basis, and Clinton visited the Yeltsins' home after he resigned the Russian presidency.

Yeltsin found remarkable parallels between his own career and that of his American counterpart. They even faced impeachment at about the same time. "In my case," he notes, "our leftist Russian parliament blamed the Russian president for the collapse of the Soviet Union. But behind the smokescreen of ideology there was the same kind of settling of scores that occurred in Clinton's scandal. The political establishment ... could not forgive either Clinton or me for our toughness, decisiveness, and finally our stubborn focus on our goals. Clinton had so confounded his political rivals that they had nowhere to go. So they turned to exposure and provocation."

Much of "Midnight Diaries" presupposes that the reader is familiar with Yeltsin's two earlier books, and has been paying attention to Russian domestic politics for the past five years. Fortunately, translator Catherine A. Fitzpatrick has included a number of footnotes to help elucidate some of the more arcane references. Her translation makes the text easily understandable to English language readers, without sacrificing the distinctive rhythm and syntax of the original Russian text.

In many ways, Boris Yeltsin is trying to put his own "spin" on the events of his second term in office. But in other ways, "Midnight Diaries" provides an interesting, even unique, perspective on the events of those years, both within Russia and without. Yeltsin tells great stories and offers thought-provoking observations. He has produced an important historical document that is surprisingly easy to read. And it contains ample justification for declaring the 1990s in Russia as "the Yeltsin decade."

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Government of the Russian Federation
Britannica.com: Boris Yeltsin
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