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On tenth anniversary of his historic resignation, Gorbachev slams Yeltsin

By Associated Press, 12/25/2001 07:33

LONDON (AP) Ten years after he stepped down as president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev called the man who replaced him in the Kremlin an untrustworthy liar, saying Boris Yeltsin even had his phone tapped.

''While Yeltsin was in office, he tried to control everything I did,'' Gorbachev told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview televised Tuesday, on the anniversary of his resignation, which put an end to the Soviet Union.

''My phones were bugged, regional governors were told not to meet me, I was even banned from appearing on live television,'' said Gorbachev, who ceded power to Yeltsin, the Russian president.

The enmity between the two men goes back to the 1980s, when Gorbachev brought Yeltsin to Moscow as party chief and then fired him in a dispute over the pace of reforms. In the interview, Gorbachev recited a bitter litany of complaints about Yeltsin.

''He always said he was against the idea of privileges, but Russian czars didn't have the kind of privileges that Yeltsin had,'' Gorbachev said. ''Yeltsin is a strange man, full of tricks, and he's a liar, you just can't trust him.''

Like many Russians who see Yeltsin as an ineffectual leader who let corruption thrive, Gorbachev praised Yeltsin's hand-picked successor, President Vladimir Putin.

He said Putin has helped bring stability to a battered Russia and praised his moves toward a warmer relationship with the United States as bold.

Gorbachev also suggested his own relationship with Putin is warmer than his soured connection to Yeltsin, who sometimes seemed eager to ignore or humiliate him after his resignation. Under Putin, he said, he even got a special hot line he can use to call the Kremlin.

''Putin is clearly a talented and mature politician he's cautious, and he knows how to listen,'' Gorbachev said. ''Sometimes he and I get together to discuss different issues.''

The last leader of the Soviet Union recalled his resignation as ''the most dramatic day of my life.''

''In human terms it was a real blow,'' he said. ''I had to keep calm but inside I was full of emotion.''

-- Anonymous, December 25, 2001

Answers

In my opinion, Gorbachev is one of the truly great men of the century.

-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001