Boris Yeltsin's presidency began with his first inauguration on 10 July 1991, and ended on 31 December 1999 when he announced his resignation. A referendum held on 17 March 1991 approved the creation of the post of president of Russia; Yeltsin was elected Russia's first president in a presidential election held on 12 June 1991.
During his first term, Yeltsin implemented reforms including economic shock therapy and nationwide privatization to transform Russia's command economy into a market economy. The country faced a severe economic downturn following the reforms as well as persistent low oil and commodity prices, the emergence of currencies which replaced the Soviet rouble in the former Soviet Union, and an increase in public debt with the depreciation of the Russian rouble. These issues affected not only Russia, but the economies of other post-Soviet states. Within a few years of his presidency, many of Yeltsin's initial supporters started to criticize his leadership, including then vice president Alexander Rutskoy. Tensions with the Russian parliament culminated in the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis after Yeltsin ordered the unconstitutional dissolution of the parliament; as a result the parliament attempted to impeach Yeltsin. In October 1993, troops loyal to Yeltsin stopped an armed uprising outside of the parliament building, following which a new constitution was introduced and Yeltsin deepened his efforts to transform the economy. In 1994, Yeltsin launched a war against Chechen separatists in an attempt to restore federal control of the region, which ended in a Russian withdrawal two years later.
During his second term, the government defaulted on its debt and the rouble collapsed in the 1998 Russian financial crisis. On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin announced his resignation, with his chosen successor, then prime minister Vladimir Putin, succeeding him as acting president who then was elected to his first presidential term following an election held on 26 March 2000. Yeltsin left office widely unpopular with the Russian population.
The election and inauguration
On 12 June 1991, Yeltsin was elected as the first president of the Russian Federation, receiving 45,552,041 votes, representing 57.30 percent of the number who took part in the vote, and well ahead of Nikolai Ryzhkov, who, despite the support of the federal authorities, received only 16.85%. Together with Boris Yeltsin was elected a vice-president, Alexander Rutskoi. After the elections, Boris Yeltsin began the struggle with the privileges of the range and the maintenance of Russia's sovereignty within the USSR.
These were the first in the history of Russian national presidential elections. On 10 July 1991, Boris Yeltsin brought an oath of allegiance to the people of Russia and the Russian Constitution and assumed the position of President of the Russian Federation. After taking the oath, he made a keynote speech, which began energetically and emotionally, understanding the solemnity of the time.
The first decree, which was signed by Yeltsin, was the decree "On urgent measures for the development of education in the Russian Federation." The document, prepared with the active participation of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, headed by ED Dnieper, outlined a number of measures to support, financially, the system of education, which were explicit declarative. Much of the declared in the decree have not been fulfilled, for example, promise to "send abroad each year for training, internships, training not less than 10 thousand students, post-graduate students, teachers and academic staff".
On 20 July 1991, Boris Yeltsin signed a decree No. 14 "On the termination of activity of organizational structures of political parties and mass social movements in state bodies, institutions and organizations of the Russian Federation", which has become one of the final chords policy of partization and dedeologization. Yeltsin began to negotiate the signing of a new union treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev and the leaders of other Soviet republics.
First term
State Committee on the State of Emergency
On 19 August 1991, after the announcement of the creation of the State Committee on the State of Emergency and the isolation of Gorbachev in the Crimea, Yeltsin led the resistance to the Emergency Committee and made the Russian House of Soviets ("The White House") as the center of resistance. On the first day of events Yeltsin, speaking from a tank outside the White House, called the actions of the State Emergency Committee a coup, then issued a number of decrees on non-recognition of the State Emergency Committee action. On 23 August, Yeltsin signed a decree suspending the activities of the RSFSR, and on 6 November, on the termination of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
After the failure of the Emergency Committee, and Gorbachev has returned to Moscow to negotiate a new Union Treaty are deadlocked, and Gorbachev finally began to lose control levers, which are gradually retreating to Yeltsin and heads of other union republics.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
In December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, Soviet president Gorbachev held a secret meeting with Ukrainian President, Leonid Kravchuk, and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, which led to negotiations on the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Ukraine, Russia and the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus signed the Belavezha Agreement on creation of the CIS, which states that "the USSR, as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality ceased to exist". The agreement was signed despite the referendum on preserving the Soviet Union, which took place 17 March 1991.
On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet of Russia. The Russian parliament ratified the document by a large majority: 188 votes "for" with 6 votes "against", and 7 votes were "abstained". The legitimacy of the ratification caused doubts among some members of the Russian parliament, since according to the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the RSFSR in 1978 consideration of the documents are in the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress of People's Deputies, as it affects the character of the Republic as part of USSR and thus entailed changes in the Russian constitution. On 21 December, the majority of the union republics joined to the Commonwealth after they signed the Alma-Ata Declarations and the Protocol to the Agreement on the establishment of the CIS.
Alexander Lukashenko believes that the most negative consequence of the collapse of the USSR was the formation of a unipolar world. According to Stanislav Shushkevich in 1996, Yeltsin said that he regretted signing the Bialowieza agreements. On 24 December, the President of the Russian Federation informed the Secretary General of the United Nations that the membership of the Soviet Union replacing by the Russian Federation which continues the membership in all organs of the United Nations (including membership in the UN Security Council). Thus, Russia is considered an original member of the United Nations (since 24 October 1945), along with Ukraine (SSR) and Belarus (Byelorussian SSR).
On 25 December 1991, Boris Yeltsin, was full of presidential power in Russia in connection with the resignation of Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and the actual collapse of the USSR. Following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin had transferred his residence from the Russia's White House to the Kremlin and he received the so-called nuclear suitcase.
In April 1992, 4th Congress of People's Deputies three times refused to ratify Belovezhskoe agreement and deleted from the text of the Russian Constitution mention of the constitution and laws of the USSR, which subsequently became one of the causes of the confrontation of the Congress of People's Deputies with President Yeltsin and later led to the dispersal of the Congress in October 1993. The USSR Constitution and laws of the USSR continued to be referred to in articles 4, 102 and 147 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation – Russian (RSFSR) in 1978 up to 25 December 1993, when in force adopted by a referendum the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which contained no mention of the Constitution and laws of the USSR.
In September 1992, a group of People's Deputies, headed by Sergei Baburin sent to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation a petition to examine the constitutionality of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of 12 December 1991 "On ratification of the Agreement establishing the Commonwealth of Independent States".
Russian constitutional crisis
On 10 December 1992, the day after the Congress of People's Deputies did not approve the candidacy of Yegor Gaidar as Prime Minister, Boris Yeltsin issued a sharp criticism of the Congress of People's Deputies and tried to disrupt their work, calling on his supporters to leave the meeting hall. A political crisis began. After the talks, Boris Yeltsin and Ruslan Khasbulatov, Valery Zorkin and multi-voting, the Congress of People's Deputies on 12 December, adopted a resolution on the stabilisation of the constitutional system and Viktor Chernomyrdin was appointed as Prime Minister.
After the eighth Congress of People's Deputies, which quashed the decision of the stabilisation of the constitutional system and the decisions that undermine the independence of the government and the Central Bank, on 20 March 1993, Boris Yeltsin, delivered a televised address to the nation, he announced that it has signed a decree on the introduction of "special operation mode". The next day, the Supreme Council appealed to the Constitutional Court, calling Yeltsin's appeal "an attack on the constitutional foundations of the Russian state". The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, still not having signed the decree, and Yeltsin found the actions associated with the televised address, unconstitutional, and found that the reasons for his dismissal. The Supreme Council convened IX (Extraordinary) Congress of People's Deputies. However, as it turned out after a few days, in fact, it signed another decree contains no gross violations of the Constitution. On 28 March, the Congress attempted to remove Yeltsin from his office as president. Speaking at a rally on Vasilyevsky Spusk, Yeltsin vowed not to implement the decision of the Congress if it will still be accepted. However, over the impeachment only 617 deputies has voted out of 1033, with the necessary 689 majority votes.
The next day, after failing impeachment Congress of People's Deputies appointed 25 April, All-Russian referendum on four issues: the confidence to President Yeltsin, on the approval of its socio-economic policies of the early presidential elections and early elections of people's deputies. Boris Yeltsin called on his supporters to vote "yes four" themselves supporters were inclined to vote "yes-no-yes." According to the results of the referendum of confidence he received 58.7% of votes, while 53.0% voted in favor of the economic reforms. On the issue of early presidential elections and people's deputies "for" votes, respectively, 49.5% and 67.2% took part in the vote, however, legally significant decisions on these matters have been adopted (as, according to the laws in force, for this " for "we had to speak out more than half of all eligible voters). Contradictory results of the referendum were interpreted by Yeltsin and his entourage in their favor.