On April 23, 2007, Boris Yeltsin, the former President of the Russian Federation, died of heart failure at age 76. His funeral took place two days later at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow, which was attended by dignitaries worldwide, including former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mikhail Gorbachev, the Communist ruler preceding Yeltsin, and the current Russian president Vladimir Putin were also in attendance. Most of Russia found Yeltsin’s long-expected death tragic, save for his Communist enemies, who refused to pay their respects to the man they claimed was the “destroyer of the fatherland.”
Yeltsin was the first elected president of Russia in 1991. He was extremely popular in his early presidency, and is credited for the end of Communism in the Russian government. While Gorbachev was still in power, Yeltsin (the mayor of Moscow at that time) criticized the reforms Gorbachev was making in the Communist government as too slow and incomplete. His extremist demand for change contrasted with Gorbachev’s lukewarm policy, which still tried to hold on to Communism while only making minor adjustments.
However, Yeltsin’s popularity was short-lived after his reforms plunged the country into economic turmoil. Russians who were used to the welfare system used in the country’s Communist days suddenly found themselves poorer than ever. Businesses, which used to be dominated by the government, didn’t market well. Yeltsin was also accused of instability and was criticized for his drinking. In 1994 he led an extremely unpopular invasion of the region of Chechnya, which ended in 1996. In December of 1999, on the eve of the new millennium, Yeltsin resigned his presidency in favor of Vladimir Putin. He was quoted as follows: “Today, on the last day of the outgoing century, I resign. I am stepping down ahead of term. I understand that I must do it, and Russia must enter the new millennium with new politicians, with new faces, with new intelligent, strong, energetic people, and we who have been in power for many years must go.”

Yeltsin’s resignation led to changes for Russia. Though Putin claimed to continue Yeltsin’s policies, some say he was leading the country back towards Communism. Yeltsin spoke out against some of the decisions Vladimir Putin was making, but generally supported him as his “democratic successor.” Now that Yeltsin is dead, there may be a shift in the Russian government towards a more socialistic stance.

From a Christian missionary’s point of view, the change that Yeltsin brought about in Russia in the early 1990s was an extremely positive one. Yeltsin was definitely the man for the hour, as he opened Russia to freedom of religion and a greater freedom to witness in a land that had been previously closed to missionaries. David Brant Berg (founder of the Children of God) spoke favorably of Yeltsin several times, and distinguished his importance in the sequence of events prophesied in the Bible about the Last Days. Yeltsin’s changes certainly allowed “the gospel of the Kingdom to be preached in all the world” (Matthew 24: 14) more completely. In a prophecy given by Jesus in early 2000, He described Putin as a man groomed for this current hour in the world. He said another time that Yeltsin’s removal from power would be “the finger removed from the dike” that would unleash the prophetic forces at work in Russia. Perhaps Yeltsin’s death could also signify an increase of speed in the race toward the end of time, and, more immediately, the rise of the Antichrist.

Author: Michael Young (US2319) Age 15
Words: 584