Ever since he was brought by Mikhail Gorbachev into the Soviet Politburo in December 1985, no Soviet political figure has been as irreverently outspoken about Soviet life or as ambitious to change it as Boris Yeltsin, 58, a heavyset, 6-ft. 2-in. man from Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains. Appointed to clean up the corrupt Moscow party committee, he quickly fired hundreds of bureaucrats and barnstormed the city, criticizing food shortages and general incompetence. But his reforming zeal and a bitter public debate with Politburo conservative Yegor Ligachev led to his public censure and ouster from the Moscow party position in November...
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