Boris Yeltsin

Motive For Murder: Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev disagreed on many subjects. The most prominent of these disagreements is the rate at which they wanted social reform to occur. Gorbachev prefered a slower pace to his reform, easing into it carefully. Yeltsin however, was very much the opposite and this caused conflict between the politicians, “Yeltsin proved an able and determined reformer, but he estranged Gorbachev when he began criticizing the slow pace of reform at party meetings, challenging party conservatives, and even criticizing Gorbachev himself” . Yeltsin was unhappy with the speed of the reform. Eliminating the conductor of the reform who is purposely slowing it is a quick way to fix the problem however, this was not reason…

Yeltsin’s ambitious plans expected to produce a short recession, but the recession did not end when expected and the country was left in a state of disarray. Yeltsin oversaw a decrease of approximately fifty percent in gross domestic product and industrial output (World Development Indicators). The newly wealthy were moving billions of rubles out of the country, the death rate skyrocketed and millions plunged into poverty (Huygen). With investors pulling out of Russia’s sinking economy, most…

party, and corrupt officials and their friends were able obtain billions of dollars worth of state property paying pennies on the ruble. “Gorbachev had recreated the formal position of the general secretary in the presidency, but he had no substitutes for the bygone cult of the general secretary, the lost presence of the Communist Party organizations throughout all institutions, or the cohesion once provided by Communist ideology and party ‘discipline’.” (Kotkin, p. 147) The reforms by…

In a high-quality democracy, a stronger institution is expressed in countries having participation in participation not limited by government officials. To measure these phenomena, this paper will compare periods in Russian history in which GDP was low. It is also important to note, the two countries I will analyze are the Yeltsin Era and the Putin Era. What causes the breakdown of authoritarianism and foster democratic consolidation? To understand most of these debates, the logic of comparison…

Ukraine again, but it was too late. Mister Putin won’t backup so easily. Not after the reinforcement of Russian troops and heavy machinery guns. Russian military were able to strangle a revolt less than in a week. Crimea left with no other chances than follow Kremlin’s orders. So why would 96% of population vote for the approval of referendum and 6 month later radically change their desertion? The answer is simple: Putin’s New Soft-power Media Machine, propaganda. In Russia, treads of…

leaders with the support of Boris Yeltsin the President of the Russian Federation attempted a coup against Gorbachev. Gorbachev signed the Union Treaty with the presidents of “ten of the fifteen republics” in the Soviet Union that would “give them sovereignty over most domestic policy issues” (Hauss, 234). In September of 1991, the Baltic Republics were granted independence and soon following that “the remaining Soviet republics declared themselves sovereign” (Hauss, 213). With all the republics…

government. This led to them refusing to pay taxes, control over their local economy, and rejection of union-wide legislation. This fight ended up having supply lines disrupted and had the Soviet economy decline further. The breakup of the Soviet Union had Russia break out into fights and ended up causing political problems. After the collapse of the USSR, Russia’s struggle to westernize and to capitalize was unsuccessful under the leadership of the new president Boris Yeltsin. His plan to get…

By 1994, Russian forces had invaded Chechnya, beginning the first Russo-Chechen war. Miriam Matejova characterizes this war as a “‘war of communist secession’ as its outbreak was triggered by the dissolution of the Soviet Empire.” The war resulted in a stalemate, with Chechen rebels and Russian military rebels signing the Khasavyurt ceasefire agreement, which was then followed by a formal peace treaty between President Boris Yeltsin and the Chechen president at the time, Aslan Maskhadov. Three…

However, perestroika did not occur without consequences. The privatization movement of the perestroika reform allowed for the formation of a new class the oligarchs. The lack of legal safeguards of privatization allowed the mafia, which had the financial means and the political connections, to gain ownership and control over key industries of the Russian economy. “The problem is the economic liberalization in Russia, even in the narrowest sense of legalizing private business activity, is far…

When the Soviet Union officially dissolved in December, 1991, many Westerners, Soviet dissidents, and Russian citizens believed that the feared Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (KGB) would be dismantled forever. Russian and Western observers viewed the toppling of the “Iron Felix” Dzerzhinsky statue in August 1991 as the symbolic end of the era of Soviet political police repression. Subsequently, Gorbachev appointed Vadim Bakatin to reform the KGB. But what constituted reform? In December…