ABSTRACT
Assuming the presidency of the Russian Federation when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin led the democratic forces that overthrew communism in 1991. In 1985 party General Secretary mikhail gorbachev brought him to Moscow to help promote the policy of per-estroika; within a year Yeltsin had become a candidate member of the Politburo. His radical approach to reform, which included a public resignation from the Communist Party in 1990, soon put him and his patron at odds. His efforts to establish a free market by means of radical economic “shock therapy,” however, soon provoked a revolt by the democratically elected Congress of Peoples Deputies. Yeltsin's leadership of the former Soviet Union in the 1990s helped establish a constitutional system of government in Russia. Nevertheless, deep economic and political problems were left to his successor. His greatest achievement was the consolidation of a constitutional system of government in a country that had few democratic traditions.
