By Lynne Ann Hartnett, Villanova University
Mikhail Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine in 1988. Without Moscow’s military support, the communist regimes of Eastern Europe fell in quick succession. And soon, the Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuanian, and Estonia asserted their national sovereignty: a threat more severe and immediate than the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc had been.
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin, who had been elected to the Congress of People’s Deputies in March 1989, led a radical reform faction. He brilliantly used nationalist sentiment to stake a claim to authority apart from Mikhail Gorbachev. His populist rhetoric gave the Soviets an alternative in which to believe.
As additional republics began to pull away from Moscow’s control, Gorbachev tried to salvage the union by accommodating popular sentiment. He increasingly liberalized his policies to stave off threats from both hardline communists and nationalists like Yeltsin.
But in May 1990—two months after Gorbachev had been named president of the Soviet Union—Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Republic, the state’s largest political entity. And if the two men had ever been allies, they weren’t any longer.
Yeltsin cleverly championed the primacy of the Russian Republic over the authority of the Soviet Union. Once he did, other republics followed suit.
This article comes directly from content in the video series Understanding Russia: A Cultural History. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Gorbachev Placed Under House Arrest
Gorbachev was under pressure from other factions as well. Communist hardliners placed him under house arrest in August 1991 and transferred power to the vice president. But the plotters had failed to arrest Yeltsin, and as news spread that Gorbachev was being held, Yeltsin made his way to the White House—the building that housed the Russian Parliament—to organize a popular defense against the coup.
Images of Yeltsin standing on top of a tank and rallying support for popular visions of democracy were beamed throughout the country and around the world. Within three days, the putsch had failed. The counter-revolution was over.
End of the USSR
In the immediate aftermath, the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies was disbanded, as was the Communist Party, and individual Soviet republics declared their independence from the USSR, one after the other. So, there was no longer any Soviet Union left for Gorbachev to lead. On December 25, 1991, he resigned. The era of the USSR had come to an end.
When the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time from the top of the Kremlin—and the tri-color flag of the Russian Federation was raised in its place—there was no jubilant crowd. Newspaper reports described a sense of uncertainty, as a small group of onlookers watched this historic moment unfold. Some felt more than a little regret.
Transition from Communism to Capitalism
As we now know, the transition from communism—and the culture of a one-party state—to capitalism and democracy would prove to be exponentially more difficult than exchanging one flag for another.
Communist apparatchiks didn’t suddenly become liberal democrats. They had a vested interest in maintaining their prerogatives of power and influence. Many had exploited the system, and even pilfered from the state for years. Decades of economic atrophy, corruption, bribery, secrecy, and privileged access also lingered.
So, when communism and the Soviet state fell, many former elites became the new oligarchs. They “built their fortunes on the ruins of the Soviet economy and then used their wealth to obtain political power,” according to expatriate journalist Masha Gessen.
Yeltsin’s Thirst for Power
But more troubles lay ahead. Boris Yeltsin’s demeanor as a man of the people—who rode a bus to work—soon seemed a charade. His virtue receded behind a drunken haze, in both private and public, and he fell prey to cronyism, corruption, and his own thirst for power. Once a defender of Russian democracy—having stood atop that tank before the White House two years earlier—in 1993, Yeltsin directed tanks to fire on the Russian Parliament. In doing so, he set the stage for a new round of authoritarian rule that would rival that of the Romanov tsars and Soviet Commissars.
Russian parliamentarians drafted constitutional amendments that would limit Yeltsin’s power, but he used force to maintain control. He also expressed a communist leader’s typical unfamiliarity with capitalism. Although Yeltsin embraced economic reforms as a sort of shock therapy to transition to a market economy, these led to horrible inflation and privations for the people.
About the only Russians who saw their material fortunes improve as the 1990s progressed were the new oligarchs. Yeltsin and his allies gave away Soviet state companies at bargain prices to former communist-era insiders. The price? Their political loyalty.
Common Questions about End of the USSR and the Rise of Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin cleverly championed the primacy of the Russian Republic over the authority of the Soviet Union. Once he did, other republics followed suit.
After Mikhail Gorbachev‘s house arrest, the Soviet Congress of People’s Deputies was disbanded, as was the Communist Party, and individual Soviet republics declared their independence from the USSR, one after the other. So, there was no longer any Soviet Union left for Gorbachev to lead, and on December 25, 1991, he resigned.
Boris Yeltsin fell prey to cronyism, corruption, and his own thirst for power. Once a defender of Russian democracy, in 1993, Yeltsin directed tanks to fire on the Russian Parliament. Russian parliamentarians drafted constitutional amendments that would limit Yeltsin’s power, but he used force to maintain control. Although Yeltsin embraced economic reforms as a sort of shock therapy to transition to a market economy, these led to horrible inflation and privations for the people.
