FORMER RUSSIAN PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, DEAD AT AGE 76.

While not US politics, the death of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin deserves to be the lead story because of the pivotal role he played in the downfall of Soviet communism. A dedicated communist, he rose through the Communist Party ranks by showing a rare populist streak. The charismatic regional leader saw his career quickly skyrocket once he was brought to Moscow, winning a spot on the powerful Politburo. Although some of his initial patrons were hardliners like Yegor Ligachev, Yeltsin soon broke free and showed an independent streak that troubled his colleagues.

While once a key ally in Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika reforms, the two men split when Gorbachev was pressured by hardliners to slow reforms and dump the troublesome Siberian. Yeltsin -- a flawed man who readily acknowledged he drank too much and suffered from serious bouts of depression -- was rousted from a hospital bed after a breakdown to be publicly humiliated and expelled from all his party posts at an open meeting. While Gorbachev may have started a sincere drive to truly reform the moribund Soviet Union, Gorbachev always intended -- like the doomed Czech leader Dubcek in 1968 -- merely to fix the system and make Marxism work in a positive way for the people. Gorbachev's start-and-stop timidity, however, undermined his reformist drive to failure.

Yeltsin's expulsion from the CPSU leadership was the best thing that could have happened to his career, as it made him a people's hero. Despite active KGB and CPSU efforts to scuttle Yeltsin's comeback, he first won a seat in the newly created Congress of People's Deputies with his frequent anti-Gorbachev speeches. He was then named by the Congress to a seat on the Supreme Soviet, a position he used to be elected chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR in 1990 over Gorbachev's open opposition. During this period, the George HW Bush Administration totally shunned Yeltsin, mistakenly tying US policy entirely to hopes for Gorbachev's survival. In June 1991, Yeltsin impressively won 57% of the vote over Gorbachev's endorsed candidate in Russia's first democratic Presidential election. Yeltsin took office in July 1991, right as Gorbachev's USSR was on the verge of a dangerous precipice.

Yeltsin, former Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, and former Gorbachev reform ally Alexander Yakovlev all openly and correctly warned in speeches of a coming "dictatorship," warning that Gorbachev had made too many concessions to hardliners in a Faustian bargain to maintain his shaky hold on power. In August 1991, the hardliners struck with an overnight coup that deposed Gorbachev and tried to reclaim control of the USSR. It was at this dark moment that Yeltsin rose to greatness, bravely using his personal popularity to resist the coup. At the risk of his life, Yeltsin drove in the early morning from his dacha outside the city to the government complex at the center of Moscow. Working to rally the pro-democracy demonstrators, he empowered them when he boldly climbed atop a Soviet tank and convinced the crew to turn their guns away from the building. He then addressed the crowds from atop the tank, rallying the democracy forces. From that moment forward, he guaranteed the strong resistance of the people and the swift collapse of the coup. That moment brought the collapse of not only the coup but of Soviet communism entirely. Within months, the Soviet Union itself was consigned to the dustbin of history, Gorbachev was out of power, the CPSU was outlawed, and Yeltsin was the most powerful man in the nation.

Yeltsin had to use military tanks to turn back a coup attempt against his government in 1993, led by his own Vice President and a key secret conspirator from the failed 1991 hardliner coup. This time, Yeltsin had the tanks open fire on the Congress, killing many rebels and arresting the surviving conspirators.

Yeltsin's Presidency was marked by ups and downs, including a rise of widespread corruption, a messy transition to a market economy, and the emergence of the Mafia-state. The economy languished, he was largely passive due to bad health in his second term, and he ultimately tapped the despotic former KGB leader Vladimir Putin as his successor. Putin today is turning Russia back into an authoritarian nation, albeit a capitalist one. Still, despite all his flaws, it was Yeltsin -- possibly even more than Gorbachev -- who ensured the collapse of the feared Soviet Union and freed millions of people from state tyranny. The cause of freedom owes Boris Yeltsin a debt of gratitude.