Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the creation of legislature and its role in the momentous upheaval which brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. It examines the role of parliamentary institutions in the bitter struggles which have marked the first years of the independent Russian Federation, the largest state to emerge from the rubble of that collapse. On 11 March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev had become the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and chairman of its Politburo. When Gorbachev took power the system was virtually unchallenged. Organized opposition was unthinkable; individual dissenters had been forced into prison, into exile, or into silence. Boris Yeltsin was a personality of another order. He proclaimed himself a man set apart by fate, a rebel, but at the same time a man destined to rule.