Yeltsin's Ghost

Fire of Liberty

As Boris Yeltsin's body is returned to the ground(Hopefully his soul to heaven- I hope he found some religion), I would like to offer a hearty thanks for his casting off the chains of Communism(at least publicly) and shoveling the final clump of dirt on the Soviet Union in 1991, after some heavy lifting by folks like Reagan, Thatcher, John Paul II and the failed efforts of Gorbachev to reform the unreformable beast of Communism. Aside from that little footnote in history, I'd say that Yeltsin will leaves a sad legacy of transferring power from the totalitarian Communism to the corrupt and strongman rule of the oligarchy(Who still reserved their admiration of the USSR) that we see under Putin. If you want to fully understand the legacy of Yeltsin, then I suggest you read the following pieces here and here.

*I'd also recommend that you check out this interesting piece by Alvaro Vargas Llosa over at TCS Daily on how the current state of affairs in Russia and that of Latin America are similar(The Latin American countries are drifting towards the Russian model but not quite to there yet) and could pose some problems to the US and our neighbors in our southern hemisphere. I just hope that such a trend is reversed before things get way out of hand.