Title: Boris Yeltsin | Biography & Facts | Britannica
Headings: 
Boris Yeltsin
president of Russia
Political rise and fall
Comeback and first term as president
Second term and resignation
Boris Yeltsin

Content: During the brief coup against Gorbachev by hard-line communists in August 1991, Yeltsin defied the coup leaders and rallied resistance in Moscow while calling for the return of Gorbachev. When the coup crumbled a few days after it had begun, Yeltsin emerged as the country’s most powerful political figure. In December 1991 he and the presidents of Ukraine and Belarus (Belorussia) established a new Commonwealth of Independent States that would replace the foundering U.S.S.R. When the Soviet Union collapsed after Gorbachev’s resignation as Soviet president on December 25, the Russian government under Yeltsin’s leadership then assumed many of the former superpower’s responsibilities for defense, foreign affairs, and finance. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now
As president of an independent Russia, Yeltsin set about the formidable task of transforming his country’s decaying command economy into one based on free markets and private enterprise. Early in 1992 he ended government price subsidies and controls over food and other consumer goods, while also allowing the unhindered growth of free markets in the cities. At the same time, Russia’s parliament, the Congress of People’s Deputies, had grown increasingly hostile toward his free-market reforms. Yeltsin and the Congress were also deeply divided over the question of the balance of powers in Russia’s proposed new constitution, which was needed to replace the obsolete 1978 Soviet-era Russian Constitution. On September 21, 1993, Yeltsin unconstitutionally dissolved the Congress and called for new parliamentary elections. In response, hard-line legislators attempted a coup in early October but were suppressed by army troops loyal to Yeltsin.