 |
 RussiaDissolution of the USSRGorbachev's promised reforms began to falter, and he soon had a formidable political opponent agitating
for even more radical restructuring. Boris Yeltsin, president of the
Russian SSR, began challenging the authority of the federal government and
resigned from the Communist Party along with other dissenters in 1990. On
Aug. 29, 1991, an attempted coup d'état against Gorbachev was
orchestrated by a group of hard-liners. Yeltsin's defiant actions during
the coup—he barricaded himself in the Russian parliament and called
for national strikes—resulted in Gorbachev's reinstatement. But from
then on, power had effectively shifted from Gorbachev to Yeltsin and away
from centralized power to greater power for the individual Soviet
republics. In his last months as the head of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev
dissolved the Communist Party and proposed the formation of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which, when implemented, gave
most of the Soviet Socialist Republics their independence, binding them
together in a loose, primarily economic federation. Russia and ten other
former Soviet republics joined the CIS on Dec. 21, 1991. Gorbachev
resigned on Dec. 25, and Yeltsin, who had been the driving force behind
the Soviet dissolution, became president of the newly established Russian
Republic.
At the start of 1992, Russia embarked on a series of dramatic economic
reforms, including the freeing of prices on most goods, which led to an
immediate downturn. A national referendum on confidence in Yeltsin and his
economic program took place in April 1993. To the surprise of many, the
president and his shock-therapy program won by a resounding margin. In
September, Yeltsin dissolved the legislative bodies left over from the
Soviet era.
The president of the southern republic of Chechnya accelerated his
region's drive for independence in 1994. In December, Russian troops
closed the borders and sought to squelch the independence drive. The
Russian military forces met firm and costly resistance. In May 1997, the
two-year war formally ended with the signing of a peace treaty that
adroitly avoided the issue of Chechen independence.
|
|
Previous
