Boris Yeltsin

The most dramatic event was shown just past noon, when the recently elected president of the Russian Republic, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, came out of the White House and climbed on one of the few tanks that had come to defend it. Yeltsin read his recently drafted proclamation denouncing the illegal takeover and called for resistance against the putschists. The huge crowd cheered the Russian president. Suddenly, Boris Yeltsin had become the symbol of resistance against the conspirators.

Until that date, Gorbachev had been the darling of the Western world. He was also the hero of the recently liberated former Soviet satellites. But on August 19, 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia, captured the imagination of the world and in Gorbachev's absence he emerged as the de facto leader of democratic forces in the Soviet Union. While Gorbachev was universally admired abroad for introducing major domestic reforms, perestroika and glasnost, and significantly reducing tension between East and West, by the late 1980s, he was seriously losing credibility at home. His glasnost, openly discussing mistakes and criticizing domestic and foreign policies, had succeeded beyond expectations; but perestroika, the restructuring and overhauling of the economy, faltered. Years had passed and the Russian people did not see the promised improvements.

In the West, Boris Yeltsin was viewed as a foil to Gorbachev. In 1985, when he was made first secretary of the Moscow City Communist Party Committee, he received some positive notices by Western journalists. It was pointed out that under his jurisdiction municipal services improved, stores were better supplied, and Yeltsin himself was seen riding on buses and on the metro. It was reported that he was making personal inspections and holding corrupt managers responsible. In those days, Gorbachev got credit for bringing new and energetic leaders into the party's top echelons.

Boris Yeltsin did not resurface in the Western media until 1987, when it was reported that at the plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Yeltsin harshly criticized the lack of progress of the perestroika and the bureaucratic party leadership. This criticism resulted in his falling out of Gorbachev's favor and eventual dismissal from his Moscow party post in 1987, as well as his removal from the Politburo in February 1988.

In 1989, Boris Yeltsin reasserted himself in politics and became a thorn in Gorbachev's side. The pro-Gorbachev media viewed Yeltsin as a spoiler. Yeltsin's visit to the United States in September 1989 also did not earn him accolades. In 1991, as the representative of the Russian Republic's Parliament, he sought to establish direct relations with the European Parliament, and later, when he asked for Gorbachev's resignation, he was reprimanded by the European Union and severely criticized by the press.

However, as Gorbachev's popularity was waning at home, Boris Yeltsin's star was rising. As elected chairman of Russian Supreme Soviet in 1990, and elected president of the Russian Republic, Yeltsin, in fact, set up an alternate power structure to Gorbachev's leadership of the Soviet Union. After August 19, 1991, Yeltsin prevailed beyond doubt.

Yeltsin's Russia, although shorn from the ethnic republics, but with a territory encompassing eleven time zones, a population of 147 million, and an enormous nuclear arsenal, emerged in place of the Soviet Union.The West, in spite of its proGorbachev sympathies, had to accept the fact that it had to deal with Russia's elected president, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin. Since that time, Boris Yeltsin became the dominant factor in Russia's relations with the West.