People of the Revolution and the USSR

Russian Federation state institutions Liberalism and republicanism 1931–2007 ○ Natural causes

The man who climbed onto the tank

In a New Year's address broadcast at 12:00 Moscow time on 31 December 1999: "I am resigning. I have done everything I could. … I want to ask you for forgiveness, because many of our hopes have not come true."

Born in Butka in the Urals in 1931 to a peasant family ruined as kulaks in collectivisation, he died in Moscow in 2007. A construction engineer who joined the party in 1961, he served as first secretary of the Sverdlovsk regional party (1976–85) and Moscow city party chief (1985–87), and was removed after criticising the leadership at the Central Committee plenum of 21 October 1987. He became an RSFSR people's deputy in 1990 and then chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet (1990–91), winning the presidency in June 1991 and serving until 1999.

Liberalism and republicanism 1934–2023 ○ Natural causes

A liberal economist who helped design the transition from a planned to a market economy

In 1968, watching Soviet tanks crush the Prague Spring, Yasin later recalled: 'It all became clear to me in 1968.'

Yevgeny Yasin was an economist who developed reform proposals for moving the late Soviet planned economy toward a market economy. As a co-author in the Shatalin group’s 500 Days programme, he helped formulate a blueprint for rapid market transition, then worked in the reforming Russian state after the Soviet collapse. As Yeltsin’s economy minister, he represented the liberal reform line while confronting disputes over the transition’s social costs and the state’s capacity. He later shaped economic policy education and public debate through the Higher School of Economics and the Liberal Mission Foundation.