February 1, 1931 - Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin presents an unusual case for this catalog — his inclusion reflects not a record of deliberate cruelty but the vast, often chaotic harm that flowed from his tenure over a collapsing superpower. His presidency oversaw the economic shock therapy of the 1990s, the catastrophic first Chechen war, and the rise of oligarchic power structures that reshaped Russian society for decades. The scale of institutional damage and human cost during his rule places him among figures whose legacies demand serious reckoning, even where intent remains contested.

From Wikipedia

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism.

Yeltsin was born in Butka, Ural Oblast. Growing up in Kazan and Berezniki, he worked in construction after studying at the Ural State Technical University. After joining the Communist Party, he rose through its ranks, and in 1976, he became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Yeltsin was initially a supporter of the perestroika reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He later criticized the reforms as being too moderate and called for a transition to a multi-party representative democracy.

⚠ Report a problem with this article