Comments by "" (@TheDavidlloydjones) on "Boris Yeltsin - The Making of a Leader (2001 Documentary)" video.

@Zeus-bc8fv No, he wasn't a puppet of the West. I've heard that in various crude forms from other Russians enough to know that he has enemies spreading that particular slander, but it's just not true. What you have to realise is that after a generation of Brezhnev -- on top of the foundational unworkability of the Soviet system -- any change at all had to be change in the direction of the West. The only other direction was off the edge of everything into nothing but chaos. The non-Western direction was represented only by the anti-Gorbachev clown-parade. The drunk part, however, you may have pretty much correct, some of the time and at the end at least. As with the slanders above, though, it seems likely that his drunkennes has been exaggerated at every opportunity by his enemies.
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