Opinions of those who stick to negative assessment of Yeltsin’s personality and his work are not discussed in Russian public politics, as if those opinions do not exist at all, or as if those are obvious nonsense and lies, as if there never was DHS’s Directive 20/1 of 08.18.1948, executed in its major propositions with active involvement of Yeltsin, who allegedly returned the country to the main route of the development after 70 years of deception and evil actions of Soviet forces.

The worst that Putin could allow himself to say in public speeches was admitting that fall of the USSR was the greatest tragedy for many people and for which he was reproached by whole liberal community both in Russia and abroad. In all other cases Putin publicly acknowledged his adherence to the following version: “Boris Yeltsin is the founding farther of democratic Russia and an outstanding politician whose grateful memory should be kept for centuries”, although as an employee of Special Agencies Putin is bound to know about DHS’s Directive 20/1 of 08.18.1948 and many other facts that do not conform to the cult liberal myth about establishment of post-soviet states on former USSR territory. And neither Putin nor any other public politician or journalist bothered to look into algorithmic of that catastrophe, using facts that do not fit into sweet-liberal version of Russian history.

United States of America also have an “original sin” of their own: USA started as slave-ship state and functioned in those conditions for not less than hundred of years before legislative abolishment of slavery as a result of the North victory over the South during civil was of 1861-1865.

It is well known that slaves were massively imported from Africa, they were black and even founding furthers who wrote American Constitution and Bill of Rights themselves owned slaves. Now black people in America (in the majority descendants of slaves) are called African-Americans[15] and legislatively have the same rights as any white citizen of the US. But American historical past has such nature that US future is in many ways dependent on the question of whether or not their society can overcome “original sin” of American statehood, elaborating a common and uniting approach to the historic past of their country, which will be a sound foundation for building future America, free from flaws of the past and present one.

Barack Obama, who himself is not a descendent from African slaves (his farther immigrated from Kenia and his mother is Caucasian) freely deliberates on the problem of “original sin” of American statehood, focusing on the task of freeing society from its burden, in the way that he understands it. He is ready to dialogue with his opponents, but only if the talk is to the point, and not in some “abstract humanism” style deadly to people; and he does not hold grudge towards founding fathers of the US, who, although owned slaves, could however express ideals that can be supported by many millions, if not billions of people around the world. Barack Obama writes:

«I recognize the risks of talking this way, In an era of globalization and dizzying technological change, cutthroat politics and unremitting culture wars we don’t even seem to possess a shared language with which to discuss our ideals much less the tools to arrive to at some rough consensus about how, as a nation, we can work together to bring those ideals about. Most of us are wise to the ways of admen, pollsters, speechwriters and pundits. We know how high flying words can be deployed in the service of cynical aims, and how the noblest sentiments can be subverted in the name of power, expedience, greed, or intolerance. Even the standard high school history textbook notes the degree, to which, from its very inception, the reality of American life have strayed from its myths.” (p.8).

And never the less he insist on the truthfulness of ideals and necessity of bringing them about, despite all the mistakes and abuse of the past and despite the actions of those who make mistakes and abuse their power in present.

And this is precisely the key idea of the book, that gives an impression that Obama is not a talkative hypocrite, but sincere activist with good intentions, and then one can understand those Americans who trusted him with presidential power.

“ “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness“

Those simple words are our starting point as Americans; they describe not only the foundation of our government but the substance of out common creed. Not every American may be able to recite them; few, if asked, could trace the genesis of the Declaration of Independence to its roots in eighteenth-century liberal and republican thought. But the essential idea behind the Declaration – that we are born into this world free, all of us; that each of us arrives with a bindle of rights that can’t be taken away by any person or any state without just cause; that through our own agency we can, and must, make of our lives what we will – is one that every American understands. It orients us, sets our course each and every day.

Indeed, the value of individual freedom is so deeply ingrained in us that we tend to take it for granted. It is easy to forget that at the time of our nation’s founding this idea was entirely radical in its implications, as radical as Martin Luther’s posting on the church door. It is an idea that some portion of the world still rejects – and for which an even larger portion of humanity finds scant evidence in their daily lives.” (p.53)

Of course every nation has their own [16] and at times there are too many of them due to the particularities of historical development of events, but generally the majority of people will full heartedly agree with the above quoted words of Declaration of independence of the USA, because they would prefer to live in such society which will make those words reality.

However the problem is in the fact that the majority, including Americans, does not know how to bring those ideals about…

And therefore entire history of the USA is a consequence of their original sin: a gap, often abyss, between undoubtedly humanistic declarations and practical politics.

A bit further in the book Barack Obama looks in more details into Constitution of the USA and its role in life of the country throughout its entire history (obviously, talking about Constitution in a manner detached from life with its many realistic factors is nonsense):

In sum, the Constitution envisions a road map by which we marry passion to reason, the ideal of individual freedom to the demands of community. And the amazing thing is that it’s worked. Through the early days of the Union, through depressions and world wars, through the multiple transformations of the economy and Western expansion and the arrival of millions of immigrants to our shores, our democracy has not only survived but has thrived. It has been tested, of course, during times of was and fear, and it will no doubt be tested again in the future.

But only once has the conversation broken down completely, and that was over the one subject the Founders refused to talk about.

The Declaration of Independence may have been, in the words of historian Joseph Ellis, “a transformative moment in the world history, when all laws and human relationships dependent on coercion would be wept away forever”. But that spirit of liberty didn’t extend, in the minds of the Founders, to the slaves, who worked their fields, made their beds, and nursed their children.

The Constitution’s exquisite machinery would secure the rights of citizens; those deemed members of America’s political community. But it provided no protection to those outside to constitutional circle – the Native American whose treaties proved worthless before the court of the conqueror, or the black man Dred Scott, who would walk into the Supreme Court a free man and leave a slave.