Title: Boris Yeltsin - Wikipedia
Headings: Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
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Contents
Early life
Childhood: 1931–1948
University and career in construction: 1949–1960
Early membership of the Communist Party: 1960–1975
First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Oblast: 1976–1985
Relocation to Moscow
Head of the Moscow Gorkom: 1985
Resignation: 1987
President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
1991 presidential election
President of the Russian Federation
Yeltsin's first term
Radical reforms
Confrontation with parliament
Chechnya
Norwegian rocket incident
Privatization and the rise of "the oligarchs"
Korean Air Lines Flight 007
1996 presidential election
Yeltsin's second term
Attempted 1999 impeachment
Mabetex corruption
Resignation
Electoral history
Illness and suspected alcoholism
Life after resignation
Death and funeral
Ideology
Personal life
Reception and legacy
Honors and awards
Russian and Soviet
Foreign awards
Departmental awards
Religious awards
Titles
Bibliography
See also
Notes
References
Sources and further reading
External links

Content: bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈlaɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn] ( listen); 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism . Born in Butka, Sverdlovsk Oblast, to a peasant family, Yeltsin grew up in Kazan, Tatar ASSR. After studying at the Ural State Technical University, he worked in construction. Joining the Communist Party, which governed the Soviet Union as a one-party state according to Marxist–Leninist doctrine, he rose through its ranks and in 1976 became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Initially a supporter of the perestroika reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin later criticized them as being too moderate, calling for a transition to a multi-party representative democracy. In 1987 he was the first person to resign from the party's governing Politburo, establishing his popularity as an anti-establishment figure. In 1990, he was elected chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet and in 1991 was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Allying with various non-Russian nationalist leaders, he was instrumental in the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December that year, at which the RSFSR became the Russian Federation, an independent state.