About Boris Yeltsin & the Soviet Union
Boris Yeltsin was the Russian political reformer in large part responsible for the dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the demise of the Communist Party. Originally very popular as the first democratically-elected president of Russia, he eventually lost favor because of economic and other hardships resulting from his time in power.
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History
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Yeltsin began his career as a construction engineer after graduating from Ural Polytechnic Institute in 1955, and achieved rapid advancement. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1961, and in 1969 became Chief of the Construction Department of the party's Sverdlovsk Region. In ensuing years he went on to ever bigger accomplishments with the government, although in the 1980s, he began criticizing the slow adoption of reforms for democracy and economic freedom initiated by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was in favor of limited democracy, but Yeltsin wanted to go further, to break the Communist Party's stranglehold on the people of the USSR, which had inhibited growth and talent, and caused disintegration of the nation's economy and international influence.
In July 1990, Yeltsin left the party. In August, Yeltsin and Gorbachev signed a declaration for a new economic program, with relations between the Soviet government and individual republics to be harmonized. Gorbachev withdrew his support of the program a few months later, however, and it never materialized. Yeltsin later called for Gorbachev's resignation in a televised address in February, 1991.
Significance
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On June 12, 1991, Russia held its first democratic presidential election. Yeltsin received over 57% of the votes, to defeat five other candidates.
In December, the presidents of three Soviet states -- Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine -- founded the Commonwealth of Independent States in a treaty that effectively dissolved the USSR and created a new confederation. Eight more states signed on to the confederation that month. On December 24, Russia took over the Soviet seat in the United Nations, and the next day, Gorbachev, who really had no other choice at the time, resigned. The Soviet Union had come to an end.
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Effects
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Yeltsin's ambitious economic reform goals were soon collapsing because of his own incompetence and seemingly contradictory ideas, and widespread corruption among those taking advantage of the privatization. Soon almost all the country's wealth wound up in the pocketbooks of a few persons with enormous political power. There were huge increases in crime, unemployment, alcoholism, and suicide. Living standards plummeted, and the poor, elderly and those with chronic health issues had an especially difficult time because of the lack of money available for social services. Education, health care, and police services suffered as well.
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Yeltsin also began a military operation in 1994 to subdue the small Muslim republic of Chechnya, where rebels had decided to break away from Russia. This move started a costly and prolonged war that also was one of the most vicious and bloodiest conflicts of the 20th century. Yeltsin later acknowledged regretting this action, saying he had been unable to tolerate seeing the Chechen rebels cause the disintegration of Russia.
Expert Insight
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Yeltsin resigned from the presidency at the end of 1999, choosing as his successor Vladimir Putin, a relatively unknown former KGB official. Putin was elected president the following March and has reversed many of the democratic gains.
Yeltsin died in April 2007, at the age of 76. He left a mixed legacy, being the man responsible for the democratization of the USSR, as well as the person blamed for most of the hardships after the Soviet dissolution and the overall demise of Russia.
Yeltsin and his cohorts proved successful at destroying Soviet power, but incapable of shaping the free society that followed.
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