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: A year later, on May 29, 1990, the parliament of the Russian S.F.S.R. elected him president of the Russian republic against Gorbachev’s wishes. In his new role, Yeltsin publicly supported the right of Soviet republics to greater autonomy within the Soviet Union, took steps to give the Russian republic more autonomy, and declared himself in favour of a market-oriented economy and a multiparty political system. Yeltsin, Boris
Boris Yeltsin, 1990. © David Fowler/Dreamstime.com
In July 1990 Yeltsin quit the Communist Party. His victory in the first direct, popular elections for the presidency of the Russian republic (June 1991) was seen as a mandate for economic reform. 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.