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Yeltsin, Boris (politician)
Outstanding Russian politician, first President of Russia
Born on February 1, 1931, at the village of Butka, Talitsa District, Sverdlovsk Region.
In 1955, graduated from the Building Department of the Ural Polytechnic Institute. Worked as a builder, section chief, chief engineer, construction board chief.
In 1961, joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In 1968, took up a full-time party job, becoming head of the construction section at the CPSU Regional Committee.
In 1975, was promoted to Secretary and next year to First Secretary of the CPSU Sverdlovsk Regional Committee. In April 1985, was appointed section chief at the CPSU Central Committee.
In 1986, was promoted to Candidate Member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.
In 1987, broke radically with Mikhail Gorbachev over the USSR's domestic and foreign policies.
After the October 1987 plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, Yeltsin was demoted to chairman of the State Committee for Construction and became the head of the democratic opposition to the authorities. In 1990, quit the CPSU.
On June 12, 1991, won the general election and became President of Russia.
In August 1991, headed resistance to an anti-democratic attempted coup d'etat staged by the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP).
In December 1991, jointly with the heads of Byelorussia and Ukraine, signed the agreement on the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and on the dissolution of the USSR.
On December 25, 1991, following the official promulgation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Mikhail Gorbachev went on the air with an address to the nation, relinquishing the USSR presidency "for considerations of principle." He also signed a decree turning over the control of the USSR's strategic nuclear weapons to Boris Yeltsin.
Starting from 1992, Yeltsin presided over economic and political reforms in Russia. In September 1993, Yeltsin's Decree "On the Phased Constitutional Reform in the Russian Federation" dissolved the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and eliminated the system of Soviets. Yeltsin came up with the initiative to draw up a new Constitution of the Russian Federation (approved December 1993).
In June 1996, Boris Yeltsin was elected for another presidential term.
On November 5, 1996, he underwent by-pass heart surgery.
On December 31, 1999, he announced in a televised address that he was resigning his powers as President of the Russian Federation and turning them over to acting President Vladimir Putin.
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