 |
 |
 |
|
Latest News: Bill Clinton Isn't Done Lying About the 1990s [History Of Lies]
Best Known As:
Political Figure
Gist: Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (; ) (1 February 1931 23 April 2007) was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.
Yeltsin came to power with a wave of high expectations. On 12 June 1991 he was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president. But Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s. The Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, economic collapse, and enormous political and social problems. By the time he left office, Yeltsin had an approval rating of two percent by some estimates.[{{cite web|title=Transcripts of 'Insight' on CNN|publisher=CNN|date=2002-10-07|accessdate=2007-07-17|url=]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Yeltsin, vowing to transform Russia's socialist command economy into a free market economy, endorsed price liberalization and privatization programs. Due to corruption and other factors, a good deal of the national wealth fell into the hands of a small group of people.[{{cite web|last=Åslund|first=Anders|authorlink=Anders Åslund|title=Russia's Collapse|work=Foreign Affairs|publisher=Council on Foreign Relations|date=September/October 1999|accessdate=2007-07-17|url= ]
In August 1991, Yeltsin won international plaudits for casting himself as a democrat and defying the August coup attempt of 1991 by the members of Soviet government opposed to perestroika. He left office widely unpopular with the Russian population as an ineffectual and ailing autocrat.[Paul J. Saunders, "U.S. Must Ease Away From Yeltsin", Newsday, 14 May 1999. [ He either acted as his own prime minister (until June 1992) or appointed men of his choice, regardless of parliament. His confrontations with parliament climaxed in the October 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, when Yeltsin called up tanks to shell the Russian White House, blasting out his opponents in parliament. Later in 1993, Yeltsin imposed a new constitution with strong presidential powers, which was approved by referendum in December.]
Just hours before the first day of 2000, Yeltsin made a surprise announcement of his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of Vladimir Putin.
 read more about Boris Yeltsin
Stories that mention Boris Yeltsin
see more
|
|
 |
 |
Fameball TOP 10 RSS
Digg!
Facebook
MySpace
LinkedIn
Mixx