It was an emotional and moving speech. Yeltsin asked to be pardoned by those who “believed that we could, in one big swing, in one thrust, jump from a gray, totalitarian past into a bright, rich and civilized future. I believed this myself. . . . It seemed one thrust, and we would do it. We did not. . . . I’ve done all I could. A new generation is coming to replace me—a generation of those who can do more and better.”
