Breaking Communism's Neck

If you read only one obituary of Boris Yeltsin read The Economist's.

The country he inherited had few features of a state: no functioning institutions, no money, no food in the shops and, worst of all, a brainwashed people. He surrounded himself with young reformers, half his age and with twice his knowledge, who began to dismantle a planned economy that was rotten to the core.

For millions of Russians, it seemed that Mr Yeltsin's liberalisation of prices in 1992—not the bankruptcy of the Soviet Union—had plunged them into poverty. He refused to back off. Unlike Mr Gorbachev, he did not want to reform the communist system. He wanted to break its neck.

Masterfully written.