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Excerpts from Boris Yeltsin and Russia’s Democratic Transformation

DECENTRALISM FILE

Boris Yeltsin

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (“The Liberator”) (1931-2007) was born to a peasant family in Butka, studied at Ural State Technical University, and became a construction manager, and First Secretary of the Sverdlovsk Communist Party. After rising through the Party ranks and backing Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms, he resigned in 1987 because he decided the Party was not moving quickly enough toward a multi-party democracy.

In 1991, a popular leader for democracy, he was elected president of Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RFSFR), and the successor independent Russian Federation upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

During his presidency newly democratic Russia was rocked by economic turmoil, charges of corruption and a rigged election., and Yeltsin’s (failed) impeachment. He was reelected in 1996, but resigned at the end of 1999, opening the way to the presidency of Vladimir Putin. The story is told in detail in Herbert J. Ellison, Boris Yeltsin and Russia’s Democratic Transformation (University of Washington Press, 2006.):

Throughout his crucial years of power, Yeltsin showed himself to be a sturdy advocate of democratic institutions and practices, even though he confronted recurrent opposition-dominated legislatures and, in the presidential election of 1996, the serious possibility of being replaced as president by a communist leader who intended to reverse his major reforms. His tenacious pursuit of constitutional reform and commitment to democratic practice eventually produced a stable constitutional order despite the chaotic conditions of post-Soviet Russia.” (Ellison @71).

“Yeltsin destroyed the communist dictatorship, freed the national republics of the Soviet Union, launched a vast program to create a market economy, and then, in 1993, replaced a non-functional communist constitution with one modeled on that of a Western democracy. Three parliamentary and two presidential elections at the national level and a vast decentralization of power to elected regional and local governments followed these events. And although one cannot ignore the many shortcomings of the reform process – particularly in the economy – his successor Vladimir Putin would have had scant hope of realizing his own program for Russia without the Yeltsin legacy.” (Ellison @ 139-40)

In his wide-ranging news conference on May 30, 1990, on his first day as chairman of the RFSFR (Russian) republic, Yeltsin extemporaneously addressed the issue of the relations between the “center” (the central government in Moscow) and the fifteen newly sovereign constituent republics.

Celestine Bohlen of the New York Times reported thus (from Moscow 5/31/90):

EVOLUTION IN EUROPE; YELTSIN TAKES AIM AT CENTRAL RULE

MOSCOW— In his first day as President of the Russian republic, Boris N. Yeltsin put the Kremlin on notice today with an aggressive program to free Russia from ”the dictates of the center.” Mr. Yeltsin said he expected the Russian Parliament to pass a declaration of sovereignty for the Russian republic before President Mikhail S. Gorbachev of the Soviet Union returned from the United States next week.

”This pyramid must be turned upside down,” Mr. Yeltsin said, using the occasion of a news conference in the Grand Kremlin Palace to describe his proposal to thwart the nation’s strong centralist traditions and to turn power over to the local and republic levels. The head of the giant Russian republic, the largest and most populous of the 15 in the Soviet Union, the maverick politician poses a formidable challenge to Mr. Gorbachev…Mr. Yeltsin said his formula for greater independence for the Russian republic would not weaken but rather reinforce the Soviet Union as a federation of autonomous republics. ”The more independent the constituent republics will be, the stronger our union,” he said. ”There is work to do,” he said. ”We should reject the previous forms of government that stipulated that everything be done to build up a powerful center.”

…..

Yeltsin’s extemporaneous remarks, as replies to reporter’s questions, are available in the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS-SOV-90—106 of 6/1/90). The need for decentralizing the Soviet Union is referred to repeatedly, but not in an organized fashion. Selections:

“The next step is the sovereignty of Russia – in the very broad sense of the term, moreover. We must hold out against the diktats of the Center… then proceeding on the basis of the declaration on sovereignty and the basic principles that will be passed here [in Moscow] and subsequently the adoption of the relevant laws, Russia will be independently adopting the decisions on everything. Russian laws must be above Union ones. The Russian Constitution must be adopted prior to the Union Constitution and then, if there are any discrepancies, let the relevant constitutional commissions pinpoint them and issue proposals on how to get out of the situation. Then here will be the relevant conclusion of treaties with foreign states, bypassing he Center, and above all with our neighbors….”

“If the Center quarrels with Russia, then there’s no knowing what it’s to lead [to]. And the right of the Russian Federation to sovereignty, to self-determination, and to secede from the Union remains in the Constitution. I am not saying that Russia ought to secede, but the Union, but the Union must constantly bear in mind that there is such a possibility. And it should not quarrel with Russia but find some common points of contact, find compromises, and I think that the Russian leadership will also strive to find out where these compromises are, and not go out for confrontation, including with the president or with the government of the country.”

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