By: Arthur Hall
Submitted: 2010-06-14 21:13:49 | Word Count: 870
At the end of the 1980s – the beginning of the 1990s Russia and the whole world witnessed what was called by journalists “the Yeltsin phenomenon” (qtd. in Dunlop 1995: 44) – a rapid advance of Yeltsin on the political arena with the growing people’s support. Why Yeltsin won so many sympathies? What kind of politician he was? To what extent did his rhetoric about human rights and civil society help him gain his popularity? The present paper will delve into these questions by examining the evolution of Yeltsin as a politician at the early stages of his career – starting with his arrival to Moscow in 1985 and up to December 1991 when Gorbachev resigned his office and the Soviet Union ceased to exist de facto after many of the former republics proclaimed independence. Through the analysis of Yeltsin’s activity, it will become obvious that his proclaimed concern about building a civil society gained him electorate’s sympathies.
Yeltsin first appeared on the Soviet political scene in December 1985 when he was appointed as first secretary of the Moscow city Party committee. At that time he didn’t have any clear conception of reforms or political platform, and was silent at Party’s meetings (Brown 1997: 162). However, he was very active on his post of the major Moscow official: he had a task of cleaning the city from the corruption of his predecessor Grishin and his retinue, and he got down to business with great enthusiasm having fired 60% of district party chiefs within a year and a half (Breslauer 2002: 112). Despite this work, Yeltsin was aware that the corruption is still powerful and that it is almost impossible to fight it effectively in the existing conditions. His dissatisfaction found its expression in his speech at the 27th Party Congress where he openly demanded that the Central Committee kept out of his purges and let him do his job. At that stage, Yeltsin already had courage to enter the struggle with influential officials thanks to which he actually was promoted from his local post and took his seat in Moscow’s Party committee. Breslauer called this type of leadership the “stormer” (2002: 110). Yeltsin’s activity on the position of Moscow’s “big boss” gained support from the populace due to his attempts to ease the burden of bureaucratic apparatus and attacks on the privileges of nomenklatura, who had at their disposal special shops, sanatoria, hospitals, school, etc.
In October 1987, Yeltsin made the speech that seemed revolutionary at that time – he attacked the slow pace of perestroika, the obstructionist behavior of Party apparatus, and Gorbachev’s indecisive leadership of the process. He also decided to resign from Politburo. Soon after that Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin as a deputy minister for construction but also warned him that he would never let him back into the politics (Breslauer 2002: 118-119). During the subsequent period, Yeltsin was rethinking his views and tactics as his straightforwardness proved unsuccessful in the capital’s back rooms. In the meanwhile, things that he was talking about on meeting of the Central Committee in October 1987 lost their revolutionary context and became rather common with the rise of social organizations. The Party Conference in June 1988 gave Yeltsin the opportunity to remind the public of himself, especially taking into account that it was televised nationwide. Yeltsin renewed his fight and took the word at the conference even despite the fact that it was not officially allowed to speak, and the whole country witnessed the controversies and rivals inside the Party. This was a kind of shock for many since before that, all things were discussed behind closed doors and the Party appeared publicly with a consolidated opinion.
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88 conference adopted a resolution under which the elections to a national legislative body would take place in March 1989, and Yeltsin won the elections with 89.4% of the vote (Breslauer 2002: 122). The major emphasis of Yeltsin’s election platform was the issue of social justice and the basic needs of ordinary people (Dunlop 1995: 44). His convincing victory proves that the emphasis was put on the right thing. From this time, the victorious march of Yeltsin in Russian politics began. During 1990 – 1991, he was elected to the parliament of the RSFSR, became a chair of the Supreme Soviet, left the Communist Party, initiated a referendum on the establishment of a Russian presidency, and finally became the President of RSFSR in June 1991. At that time, Gorbachev was still the President of the Soviet Union, but after resign in December 1991 Yeltsin remained alone at the head of Russia. Yeltsin gained even more support after his participation in destroying the plans of putschists. He managed to ride from his dacha to the “White House” despite the fact that it was surrounded by troops and took the lead over resistance issuing decrees that countermanded those of the putschists (Kotkin 2003: 100). One of the Western diplomats in Moscow called this Yeltsin’s style the ability “to create the illusion of power with willpower” (qtd. in Dunlop 1995: 213). Of course, active participation in the settlement of this crisis could not but win more love for Yeltsin.
