Domestically, Yeltsin was highly popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, although his reputation was damaged by the economic and political crises of his presidency, and he left office widely unpopular with the Russian population. He received praise and criticism for his role in dismantling the Soviet Union, transforming Russia into a representative democracy, and introducing new political, economic, and cultural freedoms to the country. Conversely, he was accused of economic mismanagement, abuse of presidential power, autocratic behavior, corruption, and of undermining Russia's standing as a major world power.
Boris Yeltsin was born on 1 February 1931 in the village ofButka,Ural Oblast, then in theRussian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, one of the republics of theSoviet Union.[1] His family, who were ethnic Russians, had lived in this area of theUrals since at least the eighteenth century.[2] His father, Nikolai Yeltsin, had married his mother, Klavdiya Vasilyevna Starygina, in 1928.[3] Yeltsin always remained closer to his mother than to his father;[4] the latter beat his wife and children on various occasions.[5]
The Soviet Union was then under the leadership ofJoseph Stalin, who led theone-party state governed by theCommunist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Seeking to transform the country into asocialist society according toMarxist–Leninist doctrine, in the late 1920s Stalin's government had initiated a project ofmass rural collectivisation coupled withdekulakization. As a prosperous farmer, Yeltsin's paternal grandfather, Ignatii, was accused of being akulak in 1930. His farm, which was in Basmanovo (also known as Basmanovskoye), was confiscated, and he and his family were forced to reside in a cottage in nearby Butka.[6] There, Nikolai and Ignatii's other children were allowed to join the localkolkhoz (collective farm), but Ignatii himself was not; he and his wife, Anna, were exiled in 1934 toNadezhdinsk,[7] where he died two years later.[8]
As an infant, Yeltsin was christened in theRussian Orthodox Church;[1] his mother was devout, and his father unobservant.[9] In the years after his birth, the area was hit by thefamine of 1932–1933;[10] throughout his childhood, Yeltsin was often hungry.[11] In 1932, Yeltsin's parents moved toKazan,[12] where Yeltsin attendedkindergarten.[13] There, in 1934, theOGPU state security services arrested Nikolai, accused him ofanti-Soviet agitation, and sentenced him to three years in theDmitrov labor camp.[14] Yeltsin and his mother then were ejected from their residence and were taken in by friends; Klavdiya worked at a garment factory in her husband's absence.[15] In October 1936, Nikolai returned; in July 1937, the couple's second child, Mikhail, was born.[16] That month, they moved toBerezniki, inPerm Krai, where Nikolai got work on apotash combine project.[17] In July 1944, they had a third child, Valentina.[18]
Between 1939 and 1945, Yeltsin received a primary education at Berezniki's Railway School Number 95.[13] Academically, he did well at primary school and was repeatedly elected class monitor by fellow pupils.[19] There, he also took part in activities organized by theKomsomol andVladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization.[20] This overlapped withSoviet involvement in the Second World War, during which Yeltsin's paternal uncle, Andrian, served in theRed Army and was killed.[21] From 1945 to 1949, Yeltsin studied at the municipal secondary school number 1, also known asPushkin High School.[22] Yeltsin did well at secondary school,[23] and there took an increasing interest in sports, becoming captain of the school's volleyball squad.[24] He enjoyed playing pranks and in one instance played with a grenade, which blew off the thumb and index finger of his left hand.[25] With friends, he would go on summer walking expeditions in the adjacenttaiga, sometimes for many weeks.[26]
In September 1949, Yeltsin was admitted to theUral Polytechnic Institute (UPI) inSverdlovsk.[27] He took the stream in industrial and civil engineering, which included courses in maths, physics, materials and soil science, and draftsmanship.[28] He was also required to study Marxist–Leninist doctrine and choose a language course, for which he selected German, although never became adept at it.[28] Tuition was free and he was provided a small stipend to live on, which he supplemented by unloading railway trucks for a small wage.[29] Academically, he achieved high grades,[30] although temporarily dropped out in 1952 when afflicted withtonsillitis andrheumatic fever.[31] He devoted much time toathletics,[32] and joined the UPI volleyball team.[33] He avoided any involvement in political organizations while there.[32] During the summer 1953 break, he traveled across the Soviet Union, touring theVolga, central Russia,Belarus,Ukraine, andGeorgia; much of the travel was achieved by hitchhiking on freight trains.[34] It was at UPI that he began a relationship withNaina Iosifovna Girina, a fellow student who would later become his wife.[35] Yeltsin completed his studies in June 1955.[31]
Leaving the Ural Polytechnic Institute, Yeltsin was assigned to work with the Lower Iset Construction Directorate in Sverdlovsk; at his request, he served the first year as a trainee in various building trades.[36] He quickly rose through the organization's ranks. In June 1956 he was promoted to foreman (master), and in June 1957 was promoted again, to the position of work superintendent (prorab).[37] In these positions, he confronted widespread alcoholism and a lack of motivation among construction workers, an irregular supply of materials, and the regular theft or vandalism of available materials. He soon imposed fines for those who damaged or stole materials or engaged in absenteeism, and closely monitored productivity.[38] His work on the construction of a textile factory, for which he oversaw 1000 workers, brought him wider recognition.[39] In June 1958 he became a senior work superintendent (starshii prorab) and in January 1960 was made head engineer (glavni inzhener) of Construction Directorate Number 13.[40]
At the same time, Yeltsin's family was growing; in September 1956, he married Girina.[41] She soon got work at a scientific research institute, where she remained for 29 years.[42] In August 1957, their daughter Yelena was born, followed by a second daughter, Tatyana, in January 1960.[43] During this period, they moved through a succession of apartments.[44] On family holidays, Yeltsin took his family to a lake in northern Russia and theBlack Sea coast.[45]
In March 1960, Yeltsin became a probationary member of the governing Communist Party and a full member in March 1961.[46] In his later autobiography, he stated that his original reasons for joining were "sincere" and rooted in a genuine belief in the party's socialist ideals.[47] In other interviews he instead stated that he joined because membership was a necessity for career advancement.[48] His career continued to progress during the early 1960s; in February 1962 he was promoted chief (nachal'nik) of the construction directorate.[49] In June 1963, Yeltsin was reassigned to the Sverdlovsk House-Building Combine as its head engineer,[49] and in December 1965 became the combine's director.[49] During this period he was largely involved in building residential housing, the expansion of which was a major priority for the government. He gained a reputation within the construction industry as a hard worker who was punctual and effective and who was used to meeting the targets set forth by the state apparatus. There had been plans to award him theOrder of Lenin for his work, although this was scrapped after a five-story building he was constructing collapsed in March 1966. An official investigation found that Yeltsin was not culpable for the accident.[50]
Within the local Communist Party, Yeltsin gained a patron inYakov Ryabov [ru], who became the first secretary of the partygorkom in 1963.[51] In April 1968, Ryabov decided to recruit Yeltsin into the regional party apparatus, proposing him for a vacancy in theobkom's department for construction. Ryabov ensured that Yeltsin got the job despite objections that he was not a longstanding party member.[52] That year, Yeltsin and his family moved into a four-room apartment on Mamin-Sibiryak Street, downtown Sverdlovsk.[47] Yeltsin then received his secondOrder of the Red Banner of Labor for his work completing a cold-rolling mill at the Upper Iset Works, a project for which he had overseen the actions of 15,000 laborers.[53] In the late 1960s, Yeltsin was permitted to visit the West for the first time as he was sent on a trip to France.[54] In 1975, Yeltsin was then made one of the fiveobkom secretaries in the Sverdlovsk Oblast, a position that gave him responsibility not only for construction in the region but also for the forest and the pulp-and-paper industries. Also in 1975, his family relocated to a flat in the House of Old Bolsheviks on March Street.[55]
In 1976, Yeltsin was interviewed byLeonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party, who decided that he was an appropriate choice to become First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovskobkom.
In October 1976, Ryabov was promoted to a new position in Moscow. He recommended that Yeltsin replace him as the First Secretary of the Party Committee in Sverdlovsk Oblast.[56]Leonid Brezhnev, who then led the Soviet Union asGeneral Secretary of the party'sCentral Committee, interviewed Yeltsin personally to determine his suitability and agreed with Ryabov's assessment.[57] At the Central Committee's recommendation, the Sverdlovsk obkom then unanimously voted to appoint Yeltsin as its first secretary. This made him one of the youngest provincial first secretaries in the Russian SFSR, and gave him significant power within the province.[58]
Where possible, Yeltsin tried to improve consumer welfare in the province, arguing that it would make for more productive workers.[59] Under his provincial leadership, work started on various construction and infrastructure projects in the city of Sverdlovsk, includinga subway system, the replacement of its barracks housing, new theaters and a circus, the refurbishment of its 1912 opera house, and youth housing projects to build new homes for young families.[60] In September 1977, Yeltsin carried out orders to demolish theIpatiev House, the location where theRomanov royal familyhad been killed in 1918, over the government's fears that it was attracting growing foreign and domestic attention. He was also responsible for punishing those living in the province who wrote or published material that the Soviet government considered to be seditious or damaging to the established order.[61]
Yeltsin sat on the civil-military collegium of theUrals Military District and attended its field exercises.[62] In October 1978, theMinistry of Defence gave him the rank ofcolonel.[62] Also in 1978, Yeltsin was elected without opposition to theSupreme Soviet.[63] In 1979 Yeltsin and his family moved into a five-room apartment at the Working Youth Embankment in Sverdlovsk.[64] In February 1981, Yeltsin gave a speech to the26th CPSU Congress and on the final day of the Congress was selected to join the Communist Party Central Committee.[63]
Yeltsin's reports to party meetings reflected the ideologicalconformity that was expected within the authoritarian state.[65] Yeltsin played along with thepersonality cult surrounding Brezhnev, but he was contemptuous of what he saw as the Soviet leader's vanity and sloth. He later claimed to have quashed plans for a Brezhnev museum in Sverdlovsk.[47] While First Secretary, his world-view began to shift, influenced by his reading; he kept up with a wide range of journals published in the country and also claimed to have read an illegally printedsamizdat copy ofAleksandr Solzhenitsyn'sThe Gulag Archipelago.[66] Many of his concerns about the Soviet system were prosaic rather than ideological, as he believed that the system was losing effectiveness and beginning to decay.[54] He was increasingly faced with the problem of Russia's place within the Soviet Union; unlike other republics in the country, the RSFSR lacked the same levels of autonomy from the central government in Moscow. In the early 1980s, he and Yurii Petrov privately devised a tripartite scheme for reforming the Soviet Union that would involve strengthening the Russian government, but it was never presented publicly.[67]
By 1980, Yeltsin had developed the habit of appearing unannounced in factories, shops, and public transport to get a closer look at the realities of Soviet life.[68] In May 1981, he held a question-and-answer session with college students at the Sverdlovsk Youth Palace, where he was unusually frank in his discussion of the country's problems.[69] In December 1982 he then gave a television broadcast for the region in which he responded to various letters.[70] This personalised approach to interacting with the public brought disapproval from some Communist Party figures, such as First Secretary ofTyumen Oblast, Gennadii Bogomyakov, although the Central Committee showed no concern.[71] In 1981, he was awarded theOrder of Lenin for his work.[72] The following year, Brezhnev died and was succeeded byYuri Andropov, who in turn ruled for 15 months before his own death;[73] Yeltsin spoke positively about Andropov.[74] Andropov was succeeded by another short-lived leader,Konstantin Chernenko.[75] After his death, Yeltsin took part in the Central Committee plenum which appointedMikhail Gorbachev the newGeneral Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and thusde factoSoviet leader, in March 1985.[75]
1985: relocation to Moscow to become Head of Gorkom
Mikhail Gorbachev took office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1985; he soon promoted Yeltsin to a job in Moscow.
Gorbachev was interested in reforming the Soviet Union and, at the urging ofYegor Ligachyov, the organizational secretary of the Central Committee, soon summoned Yeltsin to meet with him as a potential ally in his efforts.[75] Yeltsin had some reservations about Gorbachev as a leader, deeming him controlling and patronizing, but committed himself to the latter's project of reform.[76] In April 1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin head of the Construction Department of the Party's Central Committee. Although it entailed moving to the capital city, Yeltsin was unhappy with what he regarded as a demotion.[77][78] There, he was issued anomenklatura flat at 54 Second Tverskaya-Yamskaya Street, where his daughterTatyana and her son and husband soon joined him and his wife.[79] Gorbachev soon promoted Yeltsin to secretary of the Central Committee for construction and capital investment, a position within the powerfulCPSU Central Committee Secretariat, a move approved by the Central Committee plenum in July 1985.[80][81]
With Gorbachev's support, in December 1985, Yeltsin was installed as the first secretary of theMoscow gorkom of the CPSU.[82] He was now responsible for managing the Soviet capital city, which had a population of 8.7 million.[83] In February 1986, Yeltsin became a candidate (non-voting) member of thePolitburo.[84] At that point he formally left the Secretariat to concentrate on his role in Moscow.[84] Over the coming year he removed many of the old secretaries of the gorkom, replacing them with younger individuals, particularly with backgrounds in factory management.[85] In August 1986, Yeltsin gave a two-hour report to the party conference in which he talked about Moscow's problems, including issues that had previously not been spoken about publicly. Gorbachev described the speech as a "strong fresh wind" for the party.[86] Yeltsin expressed a similar message at the27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986 and then in a speech at the House of Political Enlightenment in April.[87]
On 10 September 1987, after a lecture from hard-linerYegor Ligachyov at the Politburo for allowing two small unsanctioned demonstrations on Moscow streets, Yeltsin wrote a letter of resignation to Gorbachev who was holidaying on the Black Sea.[88] When Gorbachev received the letter he was stunned – nobody in Soviet history had voluntarily resigned from the ranks of the Politburo. Gorbachev phoned Yeltsin and asked him to reconsider.
On 27 October 1987 at the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of theCPSU, Yeltsin, frustrated that Gorbachev had not addressed any of the issues outlined in his resignation letter, asked to speak. He expressed his discontent with the slow pace of reform in society, the servility shown to the general secretary, and opposition to him from Ligachyov making his position untenable. He then requested that he be allowed to resign from the Politburo, adding that theCity Committee would decide whether he should resign from the post ofFirst Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party.[88] Aside from the fact that no one had ever quit the Politburo before, no one in the party had addressed a leader of the party in such a manner in front of the Central Committee sinceLeon Trotsky in the 1920s.[88] In his reply, Gorbachev accused Yeltsin of "political immaturity" and "absolute irresponsibility". Nobody in the Central Committee backed Yeltsin.[89]
Within days, news of Yeltsin's actions leaked and rumors of his "secret speech" at the Central Committee spread throughout Moscow. Soon, fabricatedsamizdat versions began to circulate – this was the beginning of Yeltsin's rise as a rebel and growth in popularity as an anti-establishment figure.[90] Gorbachev called a meeting of the Moscow City Party Committee for 11 November 1987 to launch another crushing attack on Yeltsin and confirm his dismissal. On 9 November 1987, Yeltsin apparently tried to kill himself and was rushed to the hospital bleeding profusely from self-inflicted cuts to his chest. Gorbachev ordered the injured Yeltsin from his hospital bed to the Moscow party plenum two days later where he was ritually denounced by the party faithful in what was reminiscent of aStalinist show trial before he was fired from the post ofFirst Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party. Yeltsin said he would never forgive Gorbachev for this "immoral and inhuman" treatment.[88]
Yeltsin was demoted to the position of First Deputy Commissioner for theState Committee for Construction. At the next meeting of the Central Committee on 24 February 1988, Yeltsin was removed from his position as a Candidate member of the Politburo. He was perturbed and humiliated but began plotting his revenge.[91] His opportunity came with Gorbachev's establishment of theCongress of People's Deputies.[92] Yeltsin recovered and started intensively criticizing Gorbachev, highlighting the slow pace of reform in the Soviet Union as his major argument.
Yeltsin as candidate for the Congress of People's Deputies in 1989
Yeltsin's criticism of the Politburo and Gorbachev led to a smear campaign against him, in which examples of Yeltsin's awkward behavior were used against him. Speaking at the CPSU conference in 1988, Yegor Ligachyov stated, "Boris, you are wrong". An article inPravda described Yeltsin as drunk at a lecture during his visit to the United States in September 1989,[93] an allegation which appeared to be confirmed by a TV account of his speech; however, popular dissatisfaction with the regime was strong, and these attempts to smear Yeltsin only added to his popularity. In another incident, Yeltsin fell from a bridge. Commenting on this event, Yeltsin hinted that he was helped to fall by the enemies ofperestroika, but his opponents suggested that he was simply drunk.[94]
Between 1988 and 1991, Yeltsin established himself as the hero of theanti-communist opposition in the Soviet Union.[95] On 26 March 1989, Yeltsinwas elected to theCongress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union as the delegate from Moscow district with a decisive 92% of the vote,[80] and on 29 May 1989, he was elected by theCongress of People's Deputies to a seat on theSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. On 19 July 1989, Yeltsin announced the formation of the radical pro-reform faction in the Congress of People's Deputies, theInter-Regional Group of Deputies, and on 29 July 1989 was elected one of the five co-chairmen of the Inter-Regional Group.[80] Following these victories, Yeltsin had become a charismatic leader with legendary and almost mythical authority both at home and abroad and earned a reputation of an anti-communist revolutionary.[95]
On 16 September 1989, duringa tour of the United States, Yeltsin toured a medium-sized grocery store (Randalls) inTexas.[96] Leon Aron, quoting a Yeltsin associate, wrote in his 2000 biography,Yeltsin, A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin's Press): "For a long time, on the plane to Miami, he sat motionless, his head in his hands. 'What have they done to our poor people?' he said after a long silence." He added, "On his return to Moscow, Yeltsin would confess the pain he had felt after the Houston excursion: the 'pain for all of us, for our country so rich, so talented and so exhausted by incessant experiments'." He wrote that Mr. Yeltsin added, "I think we have committed a crime against our people by making their standard of living so incomparably lower than that of the Americans." An aide, Lev Sukhanov, was reported to have said that it was at that moment that "the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed" inside his boss.[97] In his autobiography,Against the Grain: An Autobiography, written and published in 1990, Yeltsin hinted in a small passage that after his tour, he made plans to open his line of grocery stores and planned to fill it with government-subsidized goods to alleviate the country's problems.[citation needed]
President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
A part of this power struggle was the opposition between the power structures of the Soviet Union and the RSFSR. In an attempt to gain more power, on 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR adopted a declaration of sovereignty. On 12 July 1990, Yeltsin resigned from the CPSU in a dramatic speech before party members at the28th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, some of whom responded by shouting "Shame!"[100]
During May 1991Vaclav Havel invited Yeltsin toPrague where the latter unambiguously condemned the Soviet intervention in 1968.[101][102]
On 12 June Yeltsin won 57% of the popular vote in the democraticpresidential elections for the Russian republic, defeating Gorbachev's preferred candidate,Nikolai Ryzhkov, who got just 16% of the vote, and four other candidates. In his election campaign, Yeltsin criticized the "dictatorship of the center", but did not suggest the introduction of a market economy. Instead, he said that he would put his head on the railtrack in the event of increased prices. Yeltsin took office on 10 July, and reappointedIvan Silayev asChairman of theCouncil of Ministers of the Russian SFSR. On 18 August 1991, acoup against Gorbachev was launched by the government members opposed to perestroika. Gorbachev was held inCrimea while Yeltsin raced to theWhite House of Russia (residence of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) in Moscow to defy the coup, making a memorable speech from atop the turret of a tank onto which he had climbed. The White House was surrounded by the military, but the troops defected in the face of mass popular demonstrations. By 21 August most of the coup leaders had fled Moscow and Gorbachev was "rescued" from Crimea and then returned to Moscow. Yeltsin was subsequently hailed by his supporters around the world for rallying mass opposition to the coup.[citation needed]
Although restored to his position, Gorbachev had been destroyed politically. Neither union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands as support had swung over to Yeltsin. By September, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside of Moscow. Taking advantage of the situation, Yeltsin began taking over what remained of the Soviet government, ministry by ministry—including the Kremlin. On 6 November 1991, Yeltsin issued a decree banning all Communist Party activities on Russian soil. In early December 1991,Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union. A week later, on 8 December, Yeltsin met Ukrainian presidentLeonid Kravchuk and the leader ofBelarus,Stanislav Shushkevich, inBelovezhskaya Pushcha. In theBelovezha Accords, the three presidents declared that the Soviet Union no longer existed "as a subject of international law and geopolitical reality", and announced the formation of a voluntaryCommonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.[103][104]
On 17 December, in a meeting with Yeltsin, Gorbachev accepted thefait accompli and agreed todissolve the Soviet Union. On 24 December, by mutual agreement of the other CIS states (which by this time included all of the remaining republics except Georgia), the Russian Federation took the Soviet Union's seat in the United Nations. The next day, Gorbachev resigned and handed the functions of his office to Yeltsin.[105] On 26 December, theCouncil of the Republics, the upper house of the Supreme Soviet, voted the Soviet Union out of existence, thereby ending the world's oldest, largest and most powerful Communist state.[104] Economic relations between the former Soviet republics were severely compromised. Millions of ethnic Russians found themselves in newly formed foreign countries.[106]
Initially, Yeltsin promoted the retention of national borders according to the pre-existing Soviet state borders, although this left ethnicRussians as a majority in parts of northernKazakhstan, eastern Ukraine, and areas ofEstonia andLatvia.[107]
Just days after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin resolved to embark on a programme of radical economic reform. Surpassing Gorbachev's reforms, which sought to expand democracy in the socialist system, the new regime aimed to completely dismantle socialism and fully implement capitalism, converting the world's largest command economy into a free-market one. During early discussions of this transition, Yeltsin's advisers debated issues of speed and sequencing, with an apparent division between those favoring a rapid approach and those favoring a gradual or slower approach. On 1 February 1992, Yeltsin signed accords with U.S. presidentGeorge H. W. Bush, declaring theCold War officially over after nearly 47 years.[108] A visit to Moscow from Havel in April 1992 occasioned the written repudiation of the Soviet intervention and the withdrawal of armed forces from Czechoslovakia.[102] Yeltsin laid a wreath during a November 1992 ceremony inBudapest, apologized for the1956 Soviet intervention in Hungary and handed over to presidentÁrpád Göncz documents from the Communist Party andKGB archives related to the intervention.[102] A treaty of friendship was signed in May 1992 withLech Wałęsa'sPoland, and then another one in August 1992 withZhelyu Zhelev'sBulgaria.[102]
On 2 January 1992, Yeltsin, acting as his ownprime minister, began amajor economic and administrative reform ordered the liberalization offoreign trade,prices, and currency. At the same time, Yeltsin followed a policy of "macroeconomic stabilization", a harsh austerity regime designed to control inflation. Under Yeltsin's stabilization programme, interest rates were raised to extremely high levels to tightenmoney and restrictcredit. To bring state spending and revenues into balance, Yeltsin raised new taxes heavily, cut back sharply on government subsidies to industry and construction, and made steep cuts to state welfare spending.
In early 1992, prices skyrocketed throughout Russia, and a deep credit crunch shut down many industries and brought about a protracted depression. The reforms devastated the living standards of much of the population, especially the groups dependent on Soviet-era state subsidies and welfare programs.[109] Through the 1990s, Russia's GDP fell by 50%, vast sectors of the economy were wiped out, inequality and unemployment grew dramatically, whilst incomes fell.Hyperinflation, caused by theCentral Bank of Russia's loose monetary policy, wiped out many people's personal savings, and tens of millions ofRussians were plunged into poverty.[110][111]
Most of Yeltsin's time as president was plagued by economic contraction.Crude oil prices continued to fall during the 1990s, following the trend during the late 1980s.
Some economists argue that in the 1990s, Russia suffered an economic downturn more severe than the United States orGermany had undergone six decades earlier in theGreat Depression.[109] Russian commentators and even some Western economists, such asMarshall Goldman, widely blamed Yeltsin's economic programme for the country's disastrous economic performance in the 1990s. Many politicians began to quickly distance themselves from the programme. In February 1992, Russia's vice president,Alexander Rutskoy denounced the Yeltsin programme as "economic genocide".[112] By 1993, conflict over the reform direction escalated between Yeltsin on the one side, and the opposition to radical economic reform in Russia's parliament on the other.
Reporter Fred Kaplan, who served as the Moscow Bureau chief of theBoston Globe from 1992 to 1995, noted that when he arrived in Moscow and tried to find places where bottom-up democracy was being built, soon discovered that there weren't any: despite press freedoms, Yeltsin's government had remained top-down.[113]
Throughout 1992 Yeltsin wrestled with theSupreme Soviet of Russia and theCongress of People's Deputies for control over government, government policy, government banking, and property. In 1992, the speaker of the Russian Supreme Soviet,Ruslan Khasbulatov, came out in opposition to the reforms, despite claiming to support Yeltsin's overall goals. In December 1992, the 7th Congress of People's Deputies succeeded in turning down the Yeltsin-backed candidacy ofYegor Gaidar for the position ofRussian Prime Minister. An agreement was brokered byValery Zorkin,president of the Constitutional Court, which included the following provisions: anational referendum on the new constitution; parliament and Yeltsin would choose a new head of government, to be confirmed by the Supreme Soviet; and the parliament was to cease makingconstitutional amendments that change thebalance of power between the legislative and executive branches. Eventually, on 14 December,Viktor Chernomyrdin, widely seen as a compromise figure, was confirmed in the office.
The conflict escalated soon, however, with the parliament changing its prior decision to hold a referendum. Yeltsin, in turn, announced in a televised address to the nation on 20 March 1993, that he was going to assume certain "special powers" to implement his programme of reforms. In response, the hastily called 9thCongress of People's Deputies of Russia attempted to remove Yeltsin from the presidency throughimpeachment on 26 March 1993. Yeltsin's opponents gathered more than 600 votes for impeachment but fell 72 votes short of the required two-thirds majority.[114]
Yeltsin during the signature ceremony of theSTART II in Moscow, 3 January 1993
During the summer of 1993, a situation ofdual power developed in Russia. From July, two separate administrations of theChelyabinsk Oblast functioned side by side, after Yeltsin refused to accept the newly elected pro-parliament head of the region. The Supreme Soviet pursued its foreign policies, passing a declaration on the status ofSevastopol. In August, a commentator reflected on the situation as follows: "The President issues decrees as if there were no Supreme Soviet, and the Supreme Soviet suspends decrees as if there were no President." (Izvestia, 13 August 1993).[115]
On 21 September 1993, in breach of the constitution, Yeltsin announced in atelevised address his decision to disband the Supreme Soviet and Congress of People's Deputies by decree. In his address, Yeltsin declared his intent to rule by decree until the election of the new parliament and a referendum on a new constitution, triggering theconstitutional crisis of October 1993. On the night after Yeltsin's televised address, the Supreme Soviet declared Yeltsin removed from the presidency for breaching the constitution, and Vice-presidentAlexander Rutskoy was sworn in as acting president.[114]
Between 21 and 24 September, Yeltsin was confronted by popular unrest. Demonstrators protested the terrible living conditions under Yeltsin. Since 1989, GDP had declined by half. Corruption was rampant, violent crime was skyrocketing, medical services were collapsing, food and fuel were increasingly scarce and life expectancy was falling for all but a tiny handful of the population; moreover, Yeltsin was increasingly getting the blame. By early October, Yeltsin had secured the support ofRussian Armed Forces andMinistry of Internal Affairs. In a massive show of force, Yeltsin called up tanks to shell theRussian White House (parliament building). The attack killed 187 people and wounded almost 500 others.[114]
As the Supreme Soviet was dissolved, elections to the newly established parliament, theState Duma, were held in December 1993. Candidates associated with Yeltsin's economic policies were overwhelmed by a huge anti-Yeltsin vote, the bulk of which was divided between theCommunist Party and ultra-nationalists. However, the referendum held at the same time approved the new constitution, which significantly expanded the powers of the president, giving Yeltsin the right to appoint the members of the government, to dismiss the prime minister and, in some cases, to dissolve the Duma.[116] This led to thede facto establishment of a super-presidential system.[117][118][119]
Boris Yeltsin initially prioritized relations with the West, paying little attention to relations with China. During a visit to China, Russian Foreign MinisterAndrei Kozyrev criticized China's human rights policies. Russia also moved to strengthen unofficial ties with Taiwan. The CCP in turn considered Yeltsin as a traitor andanti-communist, but decided to maintain pragmatic ties; a leakedPolitburo meeting in January 1992 said that "Even if Yeltsin is very reactionary we can internally curse him and pray for his downfall, but we shall still have to maintain normal state relations with him".[120]: 492
By summer of 1992, Yeltsin started pursuing a less pro-Western foreign policy.[120]: 487-488 China invited Yeltsin to visit China in March 1992.[120]: 491 On 23 December 1992, Yeltsin made his first official visit to China, where he met withCCP general secretaryJiang Zemin and Chinese presidentYang Shangkun.[121] Former leaderDeng Xiaoping refused to meet with Yeltsin.[120]: 492 Yeltsin and Yang announced a joint declaration, which said that China and Russia were "friendly countries" and "good-neighborly and mutually beneficial".[122] Yeltsin also noted that "the ideological barrier" had been removed. The two countries also signed twenty-five documents ranging from cooperation in technology to space exploration.[120]: 488
During the 1990s, cooperation between China and Russia was facilitated by the two countries' mutual desires to balance the influence of the United States and establish a multi-polar international system.[123]: 248 Yeltsin moved Russian foreign policy towards one that balanced the East and the West, while Russian foreign policy discussions were divided onliberals that favored more alignment with the West andEurasianists that sought closer ties with China.[120]: 488 Tensions between Russia and NATO also contributed to Yeltsin's shift towards China. The relationship between the two countries were upgraded from "friendly countries" to a "constructive partnership" in September 1994, and was further upgraded to a "strategic partnership of equality and mutual trust for the 21st century" in April 1996.[120]: 491
TheU.S. Department of State seemed to confuse Yeltsin overGerman re-unification and dismemberment of theHelsinki Final Act and ensuingPartnership for Peace (PfP) push forNATO expansion. There is some question as to the involvement of his Minister of Foreign AffairsAndrei Kozyrev, who in August 1993 was painted byLech Wałęsa as a saboteur of Polish aspirations for NATO membership but was regarded by domestic opponents as suborned by the United States.[102] In Yeltsin's letter toBill Clinton dated 15 September 1993 he strongly favored "a pan-European security system" instead ofNATO and warned:[124]
Not only the opposition, but moderate circles as well [in Russia], would no doubt perceive this as a sort of neo-isolation of our country in diametric opposition to its natural admission into Euro-Atlantic space.
After his August visit to Warsaw, Yeltsin saw the explosion of fright over NATO in the old guard and thereafter the window of détente slammed shut.[102] By December 1994, the month in which theBudapest Memorandum was signed, Clinton began to understand that Russia had concluded he was "subordinating, if not abandoning, integration [of Russia] to NATO expansion". In July 1995, by which time the Russians had signed up to PfP, Yeltsin said to Clinton, "we must stick to our position, which is that there should be no rapid expansion of NATO.. it's important that theOSCE be the principal mechanism for developing a new security order in Europe. NATO is a factor, too, of course, but NATO should evolve into a political[-only] organization."[124]
In December 1994, Yeltsin ordered the military invasion ofChechnya in an attempt to restore Moscow's control over the republic. Nearly two years later, Yeltsin withdrew federal forces from the devastated Chechnya under a1996 peace agreement brokered byAlexander Lebed, Yeltsin's then-security chief. The peace deal allowed Chechnya greater autonomy but not full independence. The decision to launch the war in Chechnya dismayed many in the West.Time magazine wrote:
Then, what was to be made of Boris Yeltsin? He could no longer be regarded as the democratic hero of Western myth. But had he become an old-style communist boss, turning his back on the democratic reformers he once championed and throwing in his lot with militarists and ultranationalists? Or was he a befuddled, out-of-touch chief being manipulated, knowingly or unwittingly, by—well, by whom exactly? If there were to be a dictatorial coup, would Yeltsin be its victim or its leader?[125]
In 1995, aBlack Brant sounding rocket launched from theAndøya Space Center caused a high alert in Russia, known as theNorwegian rocket incident. The Russians were alerted that it might be anuclear missile launched from an Americansubmarine. The incident occurred in the post-Cold War era, where many Russians were still very suspicious of the United States andNATO.[126] A full alert was passed up through the military chain of command to Yeltsin, who was notified and the "nuclear briefcase" (known in Russia asCheget) used to authorize nuclear launch was automatically activated. Russian satellites indicated that no massive attack was underway and he agreed with advisors that it was a false alarm.[127]
Yeltsin andBill Clinton share a laugh in October 1995
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin promotedprivatization as a way of spreading ownership of shares in former state enterprises as widely as possible to create political support for his economic reforms. In the West, privatization was viewed as the key to the transition from Communism in Eastern Europe, ensuring a quick dismantling of the Soviet-era command economy to make way for "free market reforms". In the early 1990s,Anatoly Chubais, Yeltsin's deputy for economic policy, emerged as a leading advocate ofprivatization in Russia.
In late 1992, Yeltsin launched a programme of free vouchers as a way to give mass privatization a jump-start. Under the programme, all Russian citizens were issued vouchers, each with a nominal value of around 10,000 rubles, for the purchase of shares of select state enterprises. Although each citizen initially received a voucher of equal face value, within months the majority of them converged in the hands of intermediaries who were ready to buy them for cash right away.[128]
Boris Yeltsin and the country's leadership on theLenin Mausoleum tribune during the celebration of the 50th anniversary ofVictory, 9 May 1995
In 1995, as Yeltsin struggled to finance Russia's growing foreign debt and gain support from the Russian business elite for his bid in the 1996 presidential elections, the Russian president prepared for a new wave of privatization offering stock shares in some of Russia's most valuable state enterprises in exchange for bank loans. The programme was promoted as a way of simultaneously speeding up privatization and ensuring the government a cash infusion to cover its operating needs.[106]
However, the deals were effectively giveaways of valuable state assets to a small group of tycoons in finance, industry, energy, telecommunications, and the media who came to be known as "oligarchs" in the mid-1990s. This was because ordinary people sold their vouchers for cash. The vouchers were bought by a small group of investors. By mid-1996, substantial ownership shares over major firms were acquired at very low prices by a handful of people.Boris Berezovsky, who controlled major stakes in several banks and the national media, emerged as one of Yeltsin's most prominent supporters. Along with Berezovsky,Mikhail Khodorkovsky,Vladimir Potanin,Vladimir Bogdanov,Rem Viakhirev,Vagit Alekperov,Alexander Smolensky,Viktor Vekselberg,Mikhail Fridman and a few years laterRoman Abramovich, were habitually mentioned in the media asRussia's oligarchs.[129]
On 5 December 1991,Senator Jesse Helms, ranking member of the Minority on theU.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, wrote to Yeltsin concerning U.S. servicemen who were POWs or MIAs: "The status of thousands and thousands of American servicemen who are held by Soviet and other Communist forces, and who were never repatriated after every major war this century, is of grave concern to the American people."[130]
Yeltsin responded with a statement made on 15 June 1992, whilst being interviewed on board his presidential jet en route to the United States, "Our archives have shown that it is true— some of them were transferred to the territory of the USSR and were kept in labour camps... We can only surmise that some of them may still be alive."[130] On 10 December 1991, five days after Helms had written to Yeltsin regarding American servicemen, he again wrote to Yeltsin, this time concerningKorean Air Lines Flight 007 (KAL 007) requesting information concerning possible survivors, including Georgia CongressmanLarry McDonald, and their whereabouts.
One of the greatest tragedies of the Cold War was the shoot-down of the Korean Airlines Flight 007 by the Armed Forces of what was then the Soviet Union on 1 September 1983... The KAL-007 tragedy was one of the most tense incident of the entire Cold War. However, now that relations between our two nations have improved substantially, I believe that it is time to resolve the mysteries surrounding this event. Clearing the air on this issue could help further to improve relations.
— SenatorJesse Helms, writing to Yeltsin, 10 December 1991
In March 1992, Yeltsin handed over KAL 007'sblack box without its tapes to South Korean PresidentRoh Tae-woo at the end of the plenary session of the South Korean National Assembly, saying "We apologize for the tragedy and are trying to settle some unsolved issues." Yeltsin released the tapes of the KAL 007's black box (its digital flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder) to theInternational Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on 8 January 1993.[131] For years the Soviet authorities had denied possessing these tapes. The openness of Yeltsin about POW/MIA and KAL 007 matters may also have signaled his willingness for more openness to the West. In 1992, which he labeled the "window of opportunity", he was willing to discuss biological weapons with the United States and admitted that theSverdlovsk anthrax leak of 2 April 1979 (which Yeltsin had originally been involved in concealing) had been caused as the result of a mishap at a military facility.[132][133] The Russian government had maintained that the cause was contaminated meat. The true number of victims in the anthrax outbreak at Sverdlovsk, about 850 miles (1,368 km) east of Moscow, is unknown.
In February 1996, Yeltsin announced that he would seek a second term in the1996 Russian presidential election in the summer. This announcement came after weeks of speculation that Yeltsin's political career was nearing its end because of his health problems and growing unpopularity in Russia. At the time, Yeltsin was recuperating from a series of heart attacks, and both domestic and international observers had noted his occasionally erratic behavior. By the time campaigning began in early 1996, Yeltsin's popularity was close to being non-existent.[134] Meanwhile, the oppositionCommunist Party had already gained significant ground in theparliamentary elections held on 17 December 1995. Its candidate,Gennady Zyuganov, boasted a strong grassroots organization, especially in the rural areas and small towns, and effectively appealed to nostalgia for the Soviet Union's international prestige and the domestic order under state socialism.[135] At the same time, during and after the elections, the Communist Party secured the stability of Yeltsin and his regime, who relied on anti-communist rhetoric and on the fear of a resurgence of a strong communist party.[95] During the elections, Yeltsin positioned himself as the only credible anti-communist candidate, able to prevent a new revolution and civil war and lead Russia toward stability and peace.[136] The pro-government and pro-Yeltsin forces launched an anti-communist propaganda campaign in the media and established a special anti-communist newspaperNe Dai Bog [ru] ("God forbid") promoting Yeltsin.[137]
Panic struck the Yeltsin team when opinion polls suggested that the ailing president could not win; some members of his entourage urged him to cancel the presidential elections and effectively rule as a dictator from then on.[138] Instead, Yeltsin changed his campaign team, assigning a key role to his daughter,Tatyana Dyachenko, and appointing Chubais as campaign manager. Chubais, acting as both Yeltsin's campaign manager and adviser on Russia's privatization programme, used his control of the privatization programme as an instrument of Yeltsin's re-election campaign.
The results of the second round of the 1996 elections. Grey highlighted regions where Yeltsin won.
In mid-1996, Chubais and Yeltsin recruited a team of a handful of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guarantee favorable media coverage to the president on national television and in leading newspapers.[139] In return, Chubais allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia's most valuable state-owned assets.[140] Led by the efforts ofMikhail Lesin, the media painted a picture of a fateful choice for Russia, between Yeltsin and a "return to totalitarianism". The oligarchs even played up the threat of civil war if a Communist was elected president.[141]
U.S. presidentBill Clinton also threw his support behind Yeltsin's campaign.[142] At the White House's direction, American advisors were sent to join the campaign team of the sitting Russian president to teach new electoral techniques. Several European governments also showed their support for Yeltsin. French Prime MinisterAlain Juppé visited Moscow on 14 February, the day Yeltsin's candidacy was announced, and said he hoped the election campaign would be "an opportunity to highlight the achievements of President Yeltsin's reform policy". On the same day, German ChancellorHelmut Kohl visited Moscow, describing Yeltsin as "an absolutely reliable partner who has always respected his commitments".[143]
Yeltsin presidential campaign
Yeltsin campaigned energetically, dispelling concerns about his health and maintaining a high media profile. To boost his popularity, Yeltsin promised to abandon some of his more unpopular economic reforms, boost welfare spending, end the war in Chechnya, and pay wage and pension arrears. Yeltsin had benefited from the approval of a US$10.2 billionInternational Monetary Fund loan to Russia,[144] which helped to keep his government afloat.[145][146]
Zyuganov, who lacked Yeltsin's resources and financial backing, saw his early lead gradually erode. After the first round of voting on 16 June, Yeltsin appointedAlexander Lebed, a popular candidate who had finished in third place in the first round, as secretary of theSecurity Council of Russia. At Lebed's behest, Yeltsin fired defense ministerPavel Grachev and, on 20 June, sacked a number of hissiloviki, one of them being his chief of presidential securityAlexander Korzhakov, viewed by many as Yeltsin'séminence grise. In the run-off on 3 July, with a turnout of 68.9%, Yeltsin won 53.8% of the vote and Zyuganov 40.7%, with the rest (5.9%) voting "against all".[147]
Yeltsin (right) meeting with PresidentBill Clinton (left) and PresidentMartti Ahtisaari (middle) in Helsinki, Finland on 21 March 1997
Yeltsin underwent emergencyquintuple heart bypass surgery in November 1996, and remained in the hospital for months. During his presidency, Russia received US$40 billion in funds from theInternational Monetary Fund and other international lending organizations. However, his opponents allege that most of these funds were stolen by people from Yeltsin's circle and placed into foreign banks.[148][149]
Anti-Yeltsin protests
From 1997, Yeltsin started to meet regularly with Chinese leaderJiang Zemin. Yeltsin visited Beijing in November 1997, while Jiang visited Moscow in 1998. Relations were further strengthened by the joint opposition to theNATO intervention in Yugoslavia.[120]: 491 In 1998, a political and economic crisis emerged whenKiriyenko's government defaulted on its debts, causing financial markets to panic and theruble to collapse in the1998 Russian financial crisis. During the1999 Kosovo War, Yeltsin strongly opposed theNATO military campaign againstYugoslavia,[150] and warned of possible Russian intervention if NATO deployed ground troops to Kosovo. In televised comments, he stated: "I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans: Don't push us towards military action. Otherwise, there will be a European war for sure and possibly a world war."[151][152] Yeltsin said thatNATO's bombing of Yugoslavia "trampled upon the foundations of international law and the United Nations charter".[153]
On 9 August 1999, Yeltsin fired his Prime Minister,Sergei Stepashin, and for the fourth time, fired his entire Cabinet. In Stepashin's place, he appointedVladimir Putin, relatively unknown at that time, and announced his wish to see Putin as his successor. In late 1999, Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton openly disagreed on the war in Chechnya. At the November meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton pointed his finger at Yeltsin and demanded he halt bombing attacks that had resulted in many civilian casualties. Yeltsin immediately left the conference.[154]
In December, whilst visiting China to seek support on Chechnya, Yeltsin replied to Clinton's criticism of a Russian ultimatum to citizens ofGrozny. He bluntly pronounced: "Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia. It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that." Clinton dismissed Yeltsin's comments stating: "I didn't think he'd forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo." It fell to Putin to downplay Yeltsin's comments and present reassurances about U.S. and Russian relations.[155]
On 15 May 1999, Yeltsin survived another impeachment attempt, this time by the democratic andcommunist opposition in theState Duma. He was charged with several unconstitutional activities, including the signing of theBelovezha Accords dissolving theSoviet Union in December 1991, thecoup-d'état in October 1993, and initiating thewar inChechnya in 1994. None of these charges received the two-thirds majority of the Duma required to initiate the process ofimpeachment.[156][157]
Yeltsin on the day of his resignation, together with Putin andAleksandr Voloshin
WithPavel Borodin as the Kremlin property manager, Swiss construction firmMabetex was awarded many important Russian government contracts. They were awarded the contracts to reconstruct, renovate and refurbish the formerRussian Federation Parliament, the Russian Opera House,State Duma and theMoscow Kremlin.
In 1998, the prosecutor general of Russia,Yuri Skuratov, opened a bribery investigation against Mabetex, accusing its chief executive officerBehgjet Pacolli of bribing Yeltsin and his family. Swiss authorities issued an international arrest warrant for Pavel Borodin, the official who managed the Kremlin's property empire.[158] Stating that bribery was a common business practice in Russia, Pacolli confirmed in early December 1999 that he had guaranteed five credit cards for Yeltsin's wife, Naina, and two daughters, Tatyana and Yelena.[158] Yeltsin resigned a few weeks later on 31 December 1999, appointing Vladimir Putin as his successor. Putin's first decree as president was lifelong immunity from prosecution for Yeltsin.[159]
Boris Yeltsin's 1999 new year address in which he announced his resignation
On 31 December 1999, during a televisedNew Year address, Yeltsin issued his resignation[160] on the state-ownedORT channel.[161] In the speech, he praised the advances in cultural, political, and economic freedom that his administration had overseen although apologized to Russia's people for "not making many of your and my dreams come true. What seemed simple to do proved to be excruciatingly difficult."[162][163] Yeltsin additionally announced that Vladimir Putin, by-then the most popular politician in the country, would be serving as acting president for the remaining three months until thenext presidential election on 26 March 2000.[164][161]
Yeltsin's approval ratings had been estimated to have been at their lowest by the time he left office, having plummeted to as low as 2–4%.[159][165] Polling also suggests that a majority of the Russian population were pleased by Yeltsin's resignation.[166]
Yeltsin suffered fromheart disease during his first term as President of Russia, probably continuing for the rest of his life. He is known to have suffered heart problems in March 1990, just after being elected as a member of parliament.[167] It was common knowledge that, in early 1996, he was recuperating from a series ofheart attacks and, soon after, he spent months in hospital recovering from a quintuple bypass operation (see above).
According to numerous reports, Yeltsin was alcohol dependent until 1996, when his worsening health made him give up heavy drinking.[168][169] The topic made headlines abroad during Yeltsin's visit to the U.S. in 1989 for a series of lectures on social and political life in the Soviet Union. A report in the Italian newspaperLa Repubblica, reprinted byPravda, reported that Yeltsin often appeared drunk in public. His alcoholism was also the subject of media discussion following his meeting withU.S. Deputy Secretary of StateStrobe Talbott following Clinton's inauguration in 1993 andan incident during a flight stop-over atShannon Airport, Ireland, in September 1994, when the waiting Irish prime minister,Albert Reynolds, was told that Yeltsin was unwell and would not be leaving the aircraft. Speaking to the media in March 2010, Yeltsin's daughter,Tatyana Yumasheva, claimed that her father had suffered a heart attack on the flight from the United States to Moscow and was therefore not in a position to leave the plane.[170]
According to former deputy prime minister of RussiaBoris Nemtsov, the bizarre behavior of Yeltsin resulted from "strong drugs" given to him by Kremlin doctors, which were incompatible even with a small amount of alcohol. This was discussed by journalistYelena Tregubova from theKremlin pool in connection with an episode during Yeltsin's visit to Stockholm in 1997, when Yeltsin suddenly started talking nonsense (he allegedly told his bemused audience thatSwedish meatballs reminded him ofBjörn Borg's face),[171][172] lost his balance, and almost fell down on the podium after drinking a single glass of champagne.[173]
In his memoirs, Yeltsin claimed no recollection of the event but did make a passing reference to the incident when he met Borg a year later at the World Circle Kabaddi Cup in Hamilton, Ontario, where the pair had been invited to present the trophy.[174] He made a hasty withdrawal from the funeral of KingHussein of Jordan in February 1999 to use the facilities.[173]
After Yeltsin's death, Michiel Staal, a Dutch neurosurgeon, said that his team had been secretly flown to Moscow to operate on Yeltsin in 1999. Yeltsin suffered from an unspecified neurological disorder that affected his sense of balance, causing him to wobble as if in a drunken state; the goal of the operation was to reduce the pain.[173]
Former U.S. PresidentBill Clinton claimed that on a 1995 visit to Washington, Yeltsin was found on Pennsylvania Avenue, drunk, in his underwear and trying to hail a taxi cab to find pizza.[175]
Yeltsin's personal and health problems received a great deal of attention in the global press. As the years went on, he was often viewed as an increasingly drunk and unstable leader, rather than the inspiring figure he was once seen as. The possibility that he might die in office was often discussed. Starting in the last years of his presidential term, Yeltsin's primary residence was theGorki-9 presidentialdacha west of Moscow. He made frequent stays at the nearby government sanatorium inBarvikha.[173] In October 1999, Yeltsin was hospitalized with theflu and a fever, and in the following month, he was hospitalized withpneumonia, just days after receiving treatment forbronchitis.[176]
Yeltsin looking on as his successor Putin is taking the presidential oath (7 May 2000)Yeltsin with his wifeNaina on his 75th birthday, 2006
Yeltsin maintained a low profile after his resignation, making almost no public statements or appearances. He criticized his successor Putin in December 2000 for supporting the reintroduction of the tune of theSoviet-era national anthem, albeit with different lyrics.[177] In January 2001, he was hospitalized for six weeks withpneumonia resulting from a viral infection.[178] On 13 September 2004, following theBeslan school hostage crisis and nearly concurrent terrorist attacks in Moscow, Putin launched an initiative to replace the election of regional governors with a system whereby they would be directly appointed by the president and approved by regional legislatures. Yeltsin, together with Mikhail Gorbachev, publicly criticized Putin's plan as a step away from democracy in Russia and a return to the centrally-run political apparatus of the Soviet era.[179]
In September 2005, Yeltsin underwent a hip operation in Moscow after breaking hisfemur in a fall while on holiday in the Italian island ofSardinia.[180] On 1 February 2006, Yeltsin celebrated his 75th birthday.
Yeltsin was the first Russian head of state in 113 years to be buried in a church ceremony, after EmperorAlexander III.[187] He was survived by his wife,Naina Iosifovna Yeltsina, whom he married in 1956, and their two daughters Yelena andTatyana, born in 1957 and 1960, respectively.[114]
Yeltsin's Presidency has inscribed him forever in Russian and in world history. ...
A new democratic Russia was born during his time: a free, open and peaceful country. A state in which the power truly does belong to the people. ... the first President of Russia’s strength consisted in the mass support of Russian citizens for his ideas and aspirations. Thanks to the will and direct initiative of President Boris Yeltsin a new constitution, one which declared human rights a supreme value, was adopted. It gave people the opportunity to freely express their thoughts, to freely choose power in Russia, to realize their creative and entrepreneurial plans. This Constitution permitted us to begin building a truly effective Federation. ... We knew him as a brave and a warm-hearted, spiritual person. He was an upstanding and courageous national leader. And he was always very honest and frank while defending his position. ...
[Yeltsin] assumed full responsibility for everything he called for, for everything he aspired to. For everything he tried to do and did do for the sake of Russia, for the sake of millions of Russians. And he invariably took upon himself, let it in his heart, all the trials and tribulations of Russia, peoples' difficulties and problems.[189]
Shortly after the news broke, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev issued a statement, saying:
"I express my profoundest condolences to the family of the deceased, who had major deeds for the good of the country as well as serious mistakes behind him. It was a tragic destiny."[190]
During the late Soviet period, Yeltsin's ideological worldview began to shift.[60] Colton argued thatpopulism and "a non-ethnic Russianism" had begun to enter Yeltsin's thinking while he was First Secretary of Sverdlovsk.[191] In the late 1980s, Yeltsin told the Athens daily newspaperKathimerini that "I regard myself as a social democrat", despite his economic privatisation programs, adding: "Those who still believe in communism are moving in the sphere of fantasy."[192]
Linking Yeltsin with "liberal Russian nationalism",[193] Alfred B. Evans described Yeltsin as having "exerted a crucial influence on the development of Russian nationalism".[194] Yeltsin helped to channel the aspirations ofRussian nationalism in ways that did not lead to clashes with the nationalisms of other national groups within the Soviet Union.[194] As head of theRussian SFSR, he stressed the specific interests of the Russian republic within the broader Soviet Union.[195] Evans compared Yeltsin's turn away from the "empire-building" of the Soviet Union to the ideas of the writer and dissidentAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who had called in the 1980s for Russia to extricate itself from the Soviet Union.[196] However, Evans thought that Yeltsin still appeared to believe by 1990 that the Ukrainians and Belarusians, as fellow East Slavic nationalities, would want to remain politically united with Russia in federal form. By 1991, it was obvious that this would not occur as the Ukrainian population favored full independence.[197] Over the course of his presidency, he made increasing concessions to right-wing ethnic Russian nationalism by expressing growing concern over the fate of ethnic Russians in neighboring countries.[198]
Colton described Yeltsin as a man who "teemed with inner complexities",[199] who exhibited both a "mathematical cast of mind" and a "taste for adventure",[200] noting that Yeltsin had "the intuition for grasping a situation holistically".[201] Colton thought Yeltsin could be bullheaded,[202] and restless.[13] Evans noted that in Yeltsin's autobiography, the leader appeared to view himself as more of a Soviet person than a Russian.[196] Throughout his life, Yeltsin sustained a number of health problems which he would usually try to conceal.[203] As a child, he sustained both a broken nose and a maimed hand, physical attributes he remained self-conscious about;[204] in public he would often conceal his left hand under the table or behind his tie.[205] He was also deaf on the right side due to a middle-ear infection.[206] Although his mother was a devout Orthodox Christian, Yeltsin did not grow up as a practitioner, only becoming so in the 1980s and 1990s.[9]
Yeltsin stated that his "style of management" was "tough" and that he "demanded strict discipline and fulfilment of promises".[207] Yeltsin was a workaholic;[208] at UPI university, he developed the habit of sleeping for only four hours at night.[209] He was punctual and very strict regarding the tardiness of his subordinates.[207] He had an excellent memory,[210] and enjoyed reading; by 1985 his family had around 6000 volumes in their possession.[60] At UPI university, he was known for enjoying practical jokes.[211] He enjoyed listening to folk songs and pop tunes,[212] and from youth could play thelozhki spoons.[13] Until poor health stopped him in the 1990s, Yeltsin enjoyed swimming in icy water, and throughout his life started each day with a cold shower.[200] He also loved using thebanya steambath.[13] Yeltsin also enjoyed hunting and had his own collection of hunting guns.[213] He liked to give watches and other keepsakes to his employees, often as a means of motivating them to work harder.[214] He disliked people swearing,[215] and when frustrated or angry, he was known to often snap pencils in his hand.[79]
Yeltsin had a high tolerance for alcohol, and by the 1980s he was drinking alcohol at or above the average for the party elite.[216] Yeltsin's favorite writer wasAnton Chekhov,[217] although he also enjoyed the work ofSergei Yesenin andAlexander Pushkin.[212] Colton described Yeltsin as having a "husky baritone" voice.[218]
Doder and Branson noted that Yeltsin was "a hero for young Russians, a cult figure to those who were not necessarily anticommunists but who were filled with bitterness and apathy" from the Brezhnev years.[219] They noted he was "ebullient, almost outrageously open",[220] and also "charismatic".[219] They added that Yeltsin presented himself as "a true working-class hero" when challenging the Soviet administration.[221]
Yeltsin had nevertheless always wanted a son.[210]Yelena briefly married a school friend, Aleksei Fefelov, against her parents' wishes. They had a daughter, Yekaterina, in 1979, before separating.[206] Yelena then married anAeroflot pilot, Valerii Okulov, with whom she had a second daughter, Mariya, in 1983.[206] Yeltsin's other daughter, Tatyana, married fellow student Vilen Khairullin, an ethnic Tatar, while studying at Moscow State University in 1980. In 1981 they had a son, named Boris after his grandfather, but soon separated.[206] Tatyana then married again, to Leonid Dyachenko, and for a while they lived with Yeltsin at his Moscow apartment during the mid-1980s.[79] Yeltsin was loyal to his friends.[45] As friends, Yeltsin selected individuals he deemed to be professionally competent and morally fastidious.[45] Aron noted that Yeltsin could be "an inexhaustible fount of merriment, exuberance and hospitality" among his friends.[45]
Yeltsin certainly deserves credit for monumental achievements. On his watch, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was destroyed, the largest empire on earth was peacefully dismantled, and electoral democracy was introduced into a country with a thousand-year history of autocratic rule....Yeltsin invites and eludes a ringing assessment. Was he a heroic revolutionary, or an erratic reformer? An astute politician and a committed democrat, or a populist improviser with little interest in the hard work of coalition building? Was he a daring economic reformer, or a blundering tool of the oligarchs? ...Does he emerge as a larger-than-life leader who rose to unprecedented challenges, or as a figure overwhelmed by the enormity of change? The answer, not surprisingly, is that Yeltsin was all of the above.[222]
Colton suggested that "Yeltsin leaves nobody indifferent. He needs to be understood if we are to understand the age we inhabit".[223] Aron characterised him as "Russia's first modern leader".[224] Colton understood him as "a hero in history", albeit one who was "enigmatic and flawed".[225] He expressed the view that Yeltsin was part of "the global trend away from authoritarianism and statism" that occurred in the 1990s, comparing him toNelson Mandela,Lech Wałęsa,Václav Havel andMikhail Gorbachev.[226]
Observers[who?] have described Russia's government under Yeltsin as ahybrid orilliberal democratic regime,[227][119][228][229] citing his frequent abuses of presidential power which led to hyper-presidentialism in Russia.[230]
In the years following his presidency, there was comparatively little interest among biographers and historians in researching Yeltsin's life.[231]
During his career as a figure in the Soviet Union, Yeltsin received ten medals and awards for his service to the state.[72] In April 2008, a new memorial to Yeltsin was dedicated in Moscow'sNovodevichy cemetery, to mixed reactions. At the memorial service, a military chorus performedRussia's national anthem – an anthem that was changed shortly after the end of Yeltsin's term, tofollow the music of theold Soviet anthem, with lyrics reflecting Russia's new status.[232][233]
Ryabov, who was formerly a close ally of Yeltsin's, claimed that his actions in the 1990s revealed that he was aturncoat.[234]
In 2013, a memorial sculpture in relief, dedicated to Yeltsin, was erected on Nunne street, at the base of the Patkuli stairs in Tallinn, for his contribution to the peaceful independence of Estonia during 1990–1991.[235]
Yeltsin's legacy has remained a controversial topic in Russia.[237][238][239] AVCIOM survey carried out in 2001, over two years after Yeltsin's resignation, showed the public's mostly negative perception of the former president at the time:
Nationwide VCIOM Survey: What is your general attitude to Yeltsin?
Admiration
0%
Respect
7%
Fondness
7%
Indifference
23%
Dislike
38%
Fear
1%
Revulsion
21%
Doesn't know
3%
Date: 20–23 April 2001.Sample size: 1600.Source:[240]
Another VCIOM survey, carried out in 2010, showed the continuing unpopularity of Yeltsin three years after his death:
In historical perspective, do you think the Yeltsin epoch brought more good or more bad to Russia?
More bad
59%
More good
19%
Doesn't know
22%
Date: 17–21 December 2010.Sample size: 1611.Source:[241]
Russia: Medal – "In memory of the army as a volunteer" (March 2012, posthumous) – for a high contribution to the remembrance of the Great Patriotic War, with respect for the history of the Russian state, and for his contribution to the preservation of names of victims in conflicts in defence of the homeland[247]
Foreign awards
Belarus:Order of Francysk Skaryna (31 December 1999) – for his great personal contribution to the development and strengthening of Belarusian-Russian cooperation[242]
Ukraine:Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise, 1st class (22 January 2000) – for his significant personal contribution to the development of Ukrainian-Russian cooperation
^Сивилов, Ал. (2025).Лидери, авторитаризъм и преходи по примери на Русия и Чили [Leaders, Authoritarianism, and Transitions: Examples from Russia and Chile] (in Bulgarian). Книжен плъх ООД. p. 61.ISBN978-619-92784-5-1.
^abcArchie Brown (25 January 2013).Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin: Political Leadership in Russia's Transition. Brookings Institution Press. p. 57-58, 81.ISBN9780870033285.
^Spero, Joshua (1992). "The Budapest-Prague-Warsaw triangle: Central European security after the Visegrad summit".European Security.1:58–83.doi:10.1080/09662839208407069.
^abcdefghSnow, Philip (2023).China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord. New Haven.ISBN978-0300166651.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Chronology of principal defence and security-related agreements and initiatives involving the Russian Federation and Asian countries, 1992–99
^Turcsanyi, Richard J. (2023). "Relations with the Europe and Russia". In Kironska, Kristina; Turscanyi, Richard Q. (eds.).Contemporary China: a New Superpower?.Routledge.ISBN978-1-03-239508-1.
^The Rhetorical Rise and Demise of "Democracy" in Russian Political Discourse, Volume 2. Academic Studies Press. 2022.ISBN9781644696521.
^McFaul, Michael (1997).Russia's 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics. Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University. pp. 22, 31.ISBN9780817995034.
^See, e.g.,Sutela, Pekka (1994). "Insider Privatization in Russia: Speculations on Systemic Changes".Europe-Asia Studies.46 (3):420–21.doi:10.1080/09668139408412171.
^Charles Babington (19 November 1999). "Clinton Spars With Yeltsin on Chechnya, President Denounces Killing of Civilians".The Washington Post. p. A01.
^Michael Laris (10 December 1999). "In China, Yeltsin Lashes Out at Clinton Criticisms of Chechen War Are Met With Blunt Reminder of Russian Nuclear Power".The Washington Post. p. A35.
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