Boris Yeltsin

Boris Yeltsin was a charismatic Russian who emerged to challenge Gorbachev’s leadership. Yeltsin had been a popular mayor of Moscow and was a powerful member of the parliament. In June 1991 the voters elected Yeltsin as president of a new Russian Republic.

Communists were angry and determined to stop Yeltsin’s challenge. In August 1991, they ordered the soldiers to kill Yeltsin. Providence must have intervened, because the troops refused the order. Rarely, if ever, do troops refuse orders like this. In a communist country such refusal was unheard of. Gorbachev promptly resigned as head of the Communist Party, and then Latvia, Estonia and other Soviet republics declared their independence as Lithuania had. On Christmas Day, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as president of the Soviet Union.