For me, as for all Russians, these were the toughest days. There are no words to describe my compassion for the people who"ve lost their children in the Beslan tragedy. I believe every adult in Russia feels partially responsible for what"s happened. We have failed at protecting our children, at guarding them... This is our common fault and our common grief.

Yeltsin belonged neither to the Soviet Union nor to the West.

What are we to make of Boris Yeltsin,the man who led post-Soviet Russia in its first nine years?

At no time in the last eight years has the "de-Bolshevization of Russia"--which Boris Yeltsin embraced as his paramount goal in September 1991--seemed so secure.

Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first democratically elected leader in the federation’s thousand-year history, died on April 23, 2007. During his presidency, Yeltsin institutionalized the vital liberties that Mikhail Gorbachev had granted only provisionally and often by default: freedom from government censorship of speech and of the press; free elections; freedom of...

Leon Aron available for comment on the death of Boris Yeltsin.

Like all great modern revolutions, Russia's anti-Communist upheaval was precipitated by merciless moral self-scrutiny and a search for a more dignified, more honorable, and more moral life. There followed a wholesale rejection of the key norms and values of the ancien régime. The emerging new ideals became increasingly incompatible with...

As we approach the March 26 Russian elections, Russia is at a crossroads again. After the eight revolutionary and tumultuous years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency, will Russia continue to cope with the dizzying change without sacrificing political and personal liberties, or will the yearning for stability again lead to...