Yeltsin, Boris (1931–)

Soviet and Russian politician and president of Russia from 1991 to 1999, who struggled to lead his country through the troubled years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Boris Yeltsin was born in 1931 in Yekaterinburg, a city several hundred miles east of Moscow near the Ural Mountains. Yeltsin began his career as a construction worker and did not join the Communist Party until 1961. In 1985, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev chose him as Moscow party boss, and in 1986, Yeltsin was inducted into the Communist Party's ruling Politburo.

In October 1987, Yeltsin's career took the first of several fateful turns. After opposing party conservatives and criticizing Gorbachev's perestroika and glasnost reforms as inadequate, he was removed from his Moscow post. His stance against the ruling elite cast him as a populist advocate of radical reform and attracted a large constituency of followers.

When a group of conservative plotters attempted a coup d'état and struck out against Gorbachev in August 1991, Yeltsin led the opposition against the plot. His successful opposition shifted power from the party elite to the reformers and individual Soviet republics. Soon after, Yeltsin renounced the Communist Party and helped to found the Commonwealth of Independent States, a loose federation of Soviet republics. Yeltsin's political savvy and personal resolve during this crisis helped to end attempts by conservative Communists to preserve the Soviet Union. His leadership and example [Page 827]carried him into office as Russia's first popularly elected president later that same year.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin moved to end state control of the economy and to privatize most enterprises. However, his presidency eventually came under assault as economic difficulties and political opposition mounted. When the legislature, the Supreme Soviet, resorted to open conflict, Yeltsin used the army to crush the revolt. Although Yeltsin continued to advocate human rights, a free press, and the guarantee of private property, many of his opponents later returned to office through the support of a population that was dissatisfied with the conditions of a struggling economy and longed for the security and glory of the old days.

In foreign affairs, Yeltsin enjoyed marginally greater success. He significantly improved relations with the West and signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the United States in 1993. Yet his attempts to secure more than a restricted amount of economic aid from multilateral institutions and other industrialized countries fell short. In 1994, he dispatched forces to the Russian region of Chechnya, where a separatist revolt had erupted. Suppression of this separatist rebellion continued to be an unpopular and unyielding struggle that lasted beyond Yeltsin's tenure as leader of Russia.

During his second term as president, Boris Yeltsin's hold on power appeared to fade away. The Russian economy lumbered along spasmodically, and Yeltsin's judgment, and even his health, fell into question. After repeated cabinet reshuffling, Yeltsin settled on the little-known Vladimir Putin as prime minister in August 1999. That December, Yeltsin resigned abruptly. He named Putin as his successor and quietly departed from public life after a career marked by crises, challenges, and monumental historical events.

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