This is the third lecture in a five year lecture series on Russian History. This lecture discussed the turnover in power from Gorbachev to Yelsin. It talks about Yelsin strong points and his problem areas and his place in History.

1. Russian History Gorbachev to
Putin – Year 5 Boris Yelsin
Gulf Coast State College
Encore
Adjunct Professor – Joe
Boisvert
Fall 2012 – Spring 2013

2. President of the Russian Federation
• Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Russian
politician and the first President of the
Russian Federation, serving from 1991
to 1999.
• Born: February 1, 1931, Butka
• Died: April 23, 2007, Moscow
• Party: Communist Party of the Soviet
Union
• Spouse: Naina Yeltsina (m. 1956–2007)
• Presidential terms: November 6, 1996 –
December 31, 1999, July 10, 1991 –
August 9, 1996, August 9, 1996 –
November 5, 1996More
• Children Tatyana Dyachenko

3. Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich
Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich, 1931–2007,
Soviet and Russian politician, president of Russia (1991–99).
Born in Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk)
Educated at the Urals Polytechnic Institute,
Yeltsin began his career as a construction worker (1953–68).
He joined the Communist party in 1961, becoming first secretary of the Sverdlovsk
region in 1976 and a member of the central committee in 1981.
In 1985 he was chosen by Mikhail Gorbachev as Moscow party boss, and in
1986 he was inducted into the party's ruling Politburo. In Oct., 1987, however,
he was ousted from his Moscow post after clashing with conservatives and
criticizing Gorbachev's reforms as inadequate. Attracting a large following as a
populist advocate of radical reform, Yeltsin won (1989) election to the USSR's
Supreme Soviet (parliament) as an opposition member.

4. Recruited by Gorbachev
• In 1985, Gorbachev brought Yeltsin to
Moscow, where he shook up the city’s party
hierarchy. The strapping, silver-haired
Yeltsin cut a popular figure, using buses
instead of a limousine, standing in long lines
in stores and loudly demanding why
managers stashed away food instead of
selling it to ordinary customers.
• For many Russians, he had the unpolished
charm of a “muzhik” — a tough peasant
with common sense and a fondness for
vodka.

5. Yelsin Recruited by Gorbachev

6. Putting Gorbachev
under House Arrest
• A bitter rivalry grew between him and the more
cautious Gorbachev. When Yeltsin criticized Gorbachev
at a party meeting in 1987, the Soviet leader fired him,
and he reportedly was hospitalized with heart problems.
• He stormed back to power in 1989, winning a
parliament seat in the first real election in 70 years. The
following year, Yeltsin quit the party.
• Yeltsin won Russia’s first popular presidential election in
a landslide in June 1991. Russia still was part of the
Soviet Union, but the central government had started
ceding power to the 15 republics.
• Kremlin hard-liners trying to stop that process launched
the failed coup in August, putting Gorbachev under
house arrest, but Yeltsin led protests by the democratic
opposition in Moscow and the putsch fell apart.

7. Yelsin Russia's first democratically
elected President
• In 1990, Yeltsin was elected to the Russian Republic's
Supreme Soviet, was elected Russian president by that
body, and resigned from the Communist party.
• He retained (1991) the presidency in a popular
election—in which he became Russia's first
democratically elected president—and assumed the
role of Gorbachev's chief liberal opponent. His
successful opposition to the August Coup (1991) against
Gorbachev shifted power to the reformers and
republics, and Yeltsin helped found (Dec. 8, 1991) the
Commonwealth of Independent States, ending
attempts to preserve the Soviet Union.
•

9. Yeltsin moved to End State Control of
the Economy
• As president of an independent Russia, Yeltsin moved to
end state control of the economy and privatize most
enterprises.
• However, economic difficulties and political opposition,
particularly from the Supreme Soviet, slowed his
program and forced compromises.
• In Sept., 1993, Yeltsin suspended parliament and called
for new elections. When parliament's supporters
resorted to arms, they were crushed by the army.
• Although Yeltsin won approval of his proposed
constitution, which guaranteed private property, a free
press, and human rights, in the Dec., 1993, voting, many
of his opponents won seats in the new legislature.
•

10. Good With One Hand Bad With the
Other
• In foreign affairs Yeltsin greatly improved
relations with the West and signed (1993) the
START II nuclear disarmament treaty with the
United States.
• In 1994, Yeltsin sent forces into Chechnya in order
to suppress a separatist rebellion, forcing Russia
into a difficult and unpopular struggle

11. Yeltsin sent forces into Chechnya
• In 1994, Yeltsin sent forces into Chechnya in
order to suppress a separatist rebellion,
forcing Russia into a difficult and unpopular
struggle

12. The Many Faces of Yelsin
• With heart problems and facing possible defeat by a
Communist challenger in 1996, Yeltsin marshaled his
energy to win re-election. The challenge transformed
the shaky convalescent into the spry, dancing
candidate.
• But Yeltsin was an inconsistent reformer who never
took much interest in the mundane tasks of
government and he blamed subordinates for Russia’s
many problems.
• He damaged his democratic credentials by using force
to solve political disputes, although he said it was
necessary to hold the country together.

14. Chechnya
• In December 1994, Yeltsin launched
a war against separatists in the
southern republic of Chechnya. Tens
of thousands of people were killed,
and a humiliated Russian army
withdrew at the end of 1996 — only
to return there in 1999.

16. Yeltsin survived an impeachment
attempt
• In 1996 Yeltsin again ran for the presidency against a
number of other candidates and won the first round,
garnering 35% of the vote to Communist Gennady
Zyuganov's 32%;
• Yeltsin won the runoff election. In the late 1990s, however,
a series of economic crises, frequent cabinet reshufflings,
and his own deteriorating health and alcoholism cast
doubt on his ability to rule; charges of corruption in his
family and among members of his inner circle also became
prominent. In May, 1999,
• Yeltsin survived an impeachment attempt spearheaded by
the Communist opposition

17. February 1999: Parliamentary panel
finalizes impeachment charges against
Yeltsin.

18. Russian GDP

19. Boris Yeltsin
• A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly
as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a
mean little flame.
Boris Yeltsin
•
We don't appreciate what we have until it's gone. Freedom is
like that. It's like air. When you have it, you don't notice it.
Boris Yeltsin
•
Let's not talk about Communism. Communism was just an idea,
just pie in the
Read more at
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/boris_yeltsin.ht
ml#YyUS3250fbJxzQzz.99

20. Summary of Yelsin’s Presidency
• As president, Yeltsin guaranteed free speech, private property and
multiparty elections, and opened the borders to trade and travel.
• He quickly launched economic reforms that freed prices, created a
private sector and allowed foreign investment, but inflation
skyrocketed and production plummeted. Millions were
impoverished when wages and pensions went unpaid for months.
He later said he regretted believing “that we could overcome
everything in one spurt.”
• Tensions with the Soviet-era parliament climaxed in fall 1993 when
Yeltsin disbanded it. An armed standoff and street riots followed,
and he turned tanks against the parliament building. Scores of
people were killed.
• Yeltsin later pushed through a constitution that guaranteed a strong
presidency, but he also dumped key reformers from his Cabinet,
alienating democratic forces.

21. Warm Relations with Western leaders.
• In foreign policy, he assured independence for
Russia’s Soviet-era satellites, oversaw troop and
arms reductions, and developed warm relations
with Western leaders.
• But he also struggled to preserve a role for the
former superpower to offset U.S. global clout,
and in 1999, he sent Russian troops to Kosovo —
ahead of NATO peacekeepers — to show that
Moscow would not be elbowed out of European
affairs.

22. second invasion of Chechnya
• A second invasion of Chechnya (1999), prompted
by a Chechen invasion of Dagestan and related
terrorist bombings in Russia, proved popular with
many Russians, and pro government parties did
well in the 1999 parliamentary elections. On Dec.
31, 1999, the long-ailing Yeltsin suddenly
announced his resignation; Prime Minister
Vladimir Putin succeeded him as acting president.

24. Yelsin Dies at 76
• MOSCOW — Former President Boris Yeltsin, who
hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union by
scrambling atop a tank to rally opposition against
a hard-line coup and later pushed Russia to
embrace democracy and a market economy, died
Monday at age 76.
• He died of heart failure at the Central Clinical
Hospital, news agencies quoted Sergei Mironov,
head of the presidential administration’s medical
center, as saying.

25. • Thanks to Boris Yeltsin’s will and direct
initiative, a new constitution was
adopted which proclaimed human rights
as the supreme value,” said President
Vladimir Putin, who was Yeltsin’s
handpicked successor. He said his former
mentor “gave people a chance to freely
express their thoughts, freely elect
authorities.”

26. Parting Thougths
• The first freely elected leader of Russia, Yeltsin was initially
admired abroad for his defiance of the monolithic
Communist system. But many Russians will remember him
mostly for presiding over the steep decline of their nation.
• Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, summed up
Yeltsin’s complex legacy Monday by referring to him as
one “on whose shoulders are both great deeds for the
country and serious errors.”
• The Kremlin said the funeral would be Wednesday, a day
of national mourning, and that Yeltsin would be buried at
Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, where many of Russia’s
most prominent figures are interred.

27. Movie Russian political elite hires American
consultants to help with President Yeltsin's re-
election campaign when his approval rating
is down to single digits.