For centuries, Russian rulers have taken power in different ways. For the tsars, it was hereditary — though not without the occasional conspiracy. Lenin came to power through revolution, while the general secretaries of the Soviet Communist Party climbed the ranks of the party hierarchy to reach the top. The only exception was Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first president, who won a competitive election in 1991 with 57.3% of the vote. (Will 2011) However, soon after, Yeltsin revived the old tradition by handing power to Vladimir Putin.
Yeltsin seemed to choose the former KGB officer as his successor to bury Russia’s post-Soviet democracy and take revenge for what he once called the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" — the collapse of the USSR. It is no coincidence that while Putin holds deep-seated resentment toward Gorbachev, he is far more forgiving of Yeltsin. The reason is simple: Putin believes that Gorbachev destroyed the Soviet Union, whereas Yeltsin came to realize that liberalism had weakened Russia — and chose Putin to save the state. In other words, Yeltsin was not the founder of Russian democracy but its gravedigger.
“Yeltsin was the first Russian politician whose legitimacy rested on the genuine popular support of the masses -- and he brought public politics to a country where for centuries politics had been confined to the czars' court intrigues and Politburo fights behind the curtain.
Unlike his predecessor Mikhail Gorbachev and his successor, Vladimir Putin, Yeltsin was able to overcome his Soviet background. After rising to a high-ranking position in the Communist Party, he reformed into a staunch anti-communist and associated himself with Russia's liberals and Westernizers, including prominent Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Yeltsin was a statesman with a clear vision and a strong sense of purpose: He committed himself to ridding Russia of communism and attaining freedom for his country, whose people had always lived in fear of the state.
Yeltsin achieved both goals: He made his victory over communism irreversible, and he turned Russia into a free nation. The coup in 1991 was above all a revolution -- even if it proved short-lived -- of public attitudes. The Russian people overcame their fear, they came to believe in freedom and in themselves, and they united to change the country's direction.” (Lipman 2007)
This is just one of the many laudatory views expressed about Yeltsin. In reality, however, the architect of modern Putinism is none other than Yeltsin’s Russia. In this article, the Khar Center expert group will analyze that period from this particular perspective.
Introduction
While there is some truth to the positive assessments of Yeltsin, in reality, he never fully shed his Homo Sovieticus identity nor severed ties with the post-Soviet nomenklatura. As a result, he made numerous mistakes — some inevitable, others avoidable. In the end, he chose to surrender to the idea of the 'Great Russian identity' and hand power over to a young representative of the post-Soviet elite: Vladimir Putin.
The hardships and upheavals of the early post-communist years left the Russian people disillusioned, and they soon began to long for the Soviet order. Lacking experience with freedom and democracy, they were unable to use their newly gained rights to improve their lives and came to see liberalism as the source of their failures. As a result, Yeltsin fulfilled Russian society’s desire for a “strong ruler” and a “firm hand” by transferring power to a former KGB officer. Instead of doing so through a competitive, contested election, he appointed a successor — just as Peter the Great did with his 1722 decree on the inheritance of the throne. (Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library n.d.) (Claire 2007)
Why Putin? Because as director of the Federal Security Service, he helped neutralize Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov, who had been investigating corruption involving Yeltsin’s inner circle, including some of his family members. By providing compromising material against Skuratov, Putin demonstrated his loyalty and devotion to the president. In return, Yeltsin promoted him to secretary of the Russian Security Council. After becoming president, Putin accomplished what Yeltsin could not — removing the prosecutor general from office. (Jamestown Foundation 1999) The successor then systematically dismantled the political achievements of the Yeltsin era, rolling back democratic institutions and political freedoms, steering Russia back onto its traditional path.
Post-Soviet Russia: The irony of the Yeltsin era
In 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was great hope for the victory of liberalism in Russia in 1992. Boris Yeltsin’s team aimed to implement rapid economic and political reforms that would transform the country into a Western-style liberal democracy based on a free market economy. (Weigle 2003) Liberal political figures held key positions in government, and liberal-oriented political organizations garnered significant public support.
In the final months of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia’s first president in July 1991, pushed the reforms initiated under Gorbachev onto a more liberal track. (Voennoe Obozrenie 2017) In his view, the only way out for Russia, left in the ruins of the USSR, was the rapid establishment of liberalism, the complete opposite of Sovietism. Especially interested in the global themes of the period, such as the “Washington Consensus,” Yeltsin was keen to implement his country’s liberalization process in line with programs developed by international institutions. (Irwin and Ward 2021) The programs, prepared by the IMF and the World Bank for the relevant countries and supported by the United States, involved the liberalization of trade and markets and a full transition to a market economy, with prices determined by the free market.
Examining the newly established political system of Yeltsin’s era reveals that the first Constitution of the Russian Federation established a 'strong presidency' regime, synthesized from the constitutions of the USA, Germany, and France. For the first time in Russian history, this Constitution enshrined broad political freedoms, pluralism, and democratic institutions — key elements in adapting to the Western political system. Yeltsin's goal was not simply a smooth transition from Sovietism to liberalism, but rather a rapid shift through radical reforms.
The political elite, shaped by a mindset of state socialism, and the service economy with a weak understanding of competition, were unable to adapt to the rapid reforms, making it impossible to create the necessary functionality for the transition to the new system. This rapid transformation (shock therapy) in a country with insufficient infrastructure led to widespread corruption and a chronic crisis, while also causing a social depression in Russian society, which was unfamiliar with individualism in its mindset. (Rosalsky 2022) The failure of these brief 'liberalization' attempts became a strong argument for Russia's return to authoritarianism. Yeltsin's swift liberalism was soon followed by an equally rapid shift back to neosovietism.
In 1991, when Yeltsin came to power, he gained considerable prestige both domestically and internationally for his resolute stance against the GKChP coup and his early liberal policies. However, shortly thereafter, his personal order to dissolve the State Duma and arrest opposition deputies marked the beginning of a shift toward authoritarianism and led to a loss of his international standing.
As noted above, Yeltsin’s reforms also paved the way for oligarchic capitalism. Blaming the Duma for hindering economic reforms, Yeltsin declared a state of emergency in Moscow in October 1993 and dissolved the democratically elected Duma, effectively ending the short-lived democratic period by centralizing power. Russia soon began its transformation into an autocratic presidential regime that only retained the appearance of democracy.
Notably, Yeltsin’s authoritarian turn did not provoke strong opposition among the Russian people. On the contrary, most believed that, in the neoliberal era, tough governance was the only solution to problems like rampant corruption, organized crime, and unemployment. In the early years of Yeltsin’s rule, crime in Russia escalated dramatically — and it was ordinary citizens who bore the brunt of it.
After the dissolution of the USSR, the "Russian mafia" ran rampant across the vast Eurasian space, now home to 15 independent republics. Taking full advantage of the visa-free travel and lax customs regulations of the CIS, this criminal network orchestrated the illegal trade of narcotics and precious metals, stretching from the Caspian Sea to the Baltic and beyond, spreading across Europe. The term "Russian mafia" broadly refers to the criminal networks operating in Russia and other former Soviet republics. Its roots date back to the Tsarist era, but it was during the Soviet period that this network solidified its power, particularly within the prison system. There, under the title of "thieves in law" (vor v zakone), a rigid criminal hierarchy emerged, with these figures reigning at the top of the underworld structure. (Serio and Razinkin 1995)
This network secured a significant share of the expanding black market and managed to infiltrate the political leadership of many post-Soviet states. By the mid-1990s, two-thirds of Russia’s economy had fallen under the mafia’s control. (Krugosvet Encyclopedia n.d.) The public largely blamed this dire situation on the spread of liberalism and democracy, and for this reason, Yeltsin’s shift toward stricter governance was welcomed with the hope that it would restore order and end the lawlessness. Alongside increasing authoritarianism, hardline nationalism — Russian chauvinism — gained significant momentum in society under the patronage of the Russian Orthodox Church. Ideals of Byzantine imperial heritage, the ‘Great Russia’ concept (Velikaya Rossiya), and Soviet nostalgia also found growing support.
Chauvinist circles, who saw the collapse of the USSR as a Western conspiracy against Russia, loudly claimed that the country had fallen under neoliberal occupation and lost its self-determination. The old Soviet people — once leftist and internationalist — suddenly shifted, giving rise to "Slavophile," "neo-Stalinist," and "proto-fascist" movements. After the 1995 Duma elections, it became increasingly difficult to speak of democratic parliamentarianism in Russia. Independent media and political opposition had been significantly weakened. At the same time, President Yeltsin’s authority was crumbling.
The 1998 financial crisis, the most severe economic collapse in modern Russian history, did not push Yeltsin to return power to its source — the people — but instead to search for a successor. This search ended in 1999 with the appointment of Vladimir Putin as prime minister. (Blant 2023) Following this appointment, Putin’s success in the Second Chechen War significantly boosted his standing within the Russian political elite. On December 31, 1999, just hours before the New Year, Yeltsin resigned as president, making Putin the de jure head of state. In a statement on January 5, 2000, Putin revealed that he had known about Yeltsin’s resignation ten days prior and that the first president had asked him to "take care of Russia’s future." (Yeni Şafak 2000) (Evrensel 2000)
The neoliberal policies initiated by Gorbachev and continued by Yeltsin aimed to limit state power and strengthen the private sector. However, within just a few years, Yeltsin, lacking the resolve to continue these policies, dissolved the democratic Duma, laying the foundation for Putin's future authoritarianism and his 'strong state, strong army' strategy. (TUİÇ Akademi n.d.)
With Yeltsin’s backing, Putin was elected president, and his political strategy became clear from the very beginning: his vision was to restore Russia’s foreign influence to its Soviet-era levels and return to a model of a strong state with authoritarian governance. His success in Chechnya earned him significant public support for his hardline domestic policies. As soon as Putin took power, he significantly weakened the influence of the Duma, subjected independent media to intense pressure, and cracked down on independent political opposition parties. In short, Putin’s path involved dismantling the indispensable institutions of democracy in the name of building a strong state.
Under Putin, the centralisation of power in the hands of the state accelerated and became more systematic. His fixation on state authority and bureaucratic expansion is starkly reflected in the numbers: when he assumed power in 2000, Russia had 1.16 million state and local officials; by 2021, this figure had risen to 2.25 million. Over two decades, the country’s population shrank by 2 million, yet the number of those governing it nearly doubled.
This centralised authoritarianism, however, did not mirror the Soviet-era single-party model. Instead, it preserved the façade of a multiparty political system, tolerated pseudo-opposition, and entrenched a state capitalist economic framework.
In the early years of his presidency, Putin launched a sweeping campaign against oligarchs to consolidate centralised power and entrench state capitalism. A prime example of this policy was the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the transfer of his mega-corporation, Yukos Oil, to the state-owned Rosneft. Broadly speaking, the companies brought under state control spanned strategic sectors such as energy (oil, gas, coal) and arms manufacturing. Putin’s “anti-oligarch” policy ultimately culminated in the effective restoration of a state monopoly over nearly all economic spheres. (Shevtsova 2003) However, this was not a revival of the USSR’s socialist economy but a new model of state capitalism tailored to authoritarian Russia’s ambitions.
The state capitalism strategy significantly strengthened Putin’s leverage in foreign policy. Having cemented his image as an authoritarian strongman, Putin began deploying state-controlled energy companies as an "energy weapon" in diplomacy, using them to resolve international tensions in ways that served Russia’s interests. (Basin 2007) On multiple occasions, he defused Western pressure against Russia by threatening to cut off natural gas supplies to Europe. (Inosmi 2018)
The ideological currents that emerged in post-Soviet Russia were not confined to debates over Western integration or Russian nationalism. Alongside these, Russian imperialism and Soviet nostalgia also commanded significant attention. The latter’s evolution into state policy can be broadly framed as “Eurasianism”—a doctrine that crystallised in the mid-1990s as a strategic counterweight to pro-Western Euro-Atlanticism. Championed by communists, hardline nationalists, and factions of the former Soviet nomenklatura—alongside bureaucratic and academic elites shaping Russia’s political trajectory—Eurasianism sought to redefine the nation’s identity and ambitions.
Under Putin, this ideology has synthesised pan-Slavism, Orthodox supremacy, claims of a “Greater Russian” cultural sphere, Soviet-era nostalgia, and aspirations of a Eurasian “brotherhood.” The conceptual glue binding these seemingly contradictory elements is largely attributed to the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. At the heart of Dugin’s worldview lies a blunt assertion: Russia cannot exist as a great power without reclaiming its imperial destiny. For him, this desired empire must transcend a mere “regional state” or “nation-state,” instead manifesting as a “state-empire” capable of consolidating geopolitical, cultural, and territorial resources under a unified authority. (Dugin 1997)
Putin has carefully crafted an image as Russia’s saviour — a leader who resurrected a nation brought to its knees. In reality, however, his policies directly continue the chaos of the post-Soviet era. The road to today’s regime began in 1993, when Boris Yeltsin was granted extraordinary presidential powers. As soon as Yeltsin’s ‘shock therapy’ economic reforms began in January 1992, political resistance erupted against them. The heart of this opposition lay in the Russian parliament, which sought to stall Yeltsin’s radical economic agenda.
Tensions between parliament and the president escalated into open violence, culminating in pro-parliament forces storming Moscow’s main television station. On 4 October 1993, Yeltsin responded by ordering tanks to shell the parliament. Many liberal intellectuals applauded the move. Just days before the assault, during a meeting with Yeltsin, a delegation of Russian writers urged the president to act decisively. One of the participants, the writer Andrey Nuykin, said: “We call on you, Boris Nikolayevich, not to confine yourself to constitutional solutions… It seems the very idea of prioritising legitimacy has been cunningly forced upon us by those who spit on it.” (Ellison 2006)
Following the October 1993 events, Russia adopted a new constitution that established what some have called a “super-presidency.” Putin did not create this system — he inherited it. As Yegor Gaidar, a key liberal figure of the Yeltsin era and former prime minister, noted at the time, it became immediately clear that democracy itself was the first casualty of [the assault on parliament]:
“On the morning of October 3, President Yeltsin was still one among many players on Russia’s political stage. By the morning of October 5, all power in the country lay in his hands. We had leapt from dual authority to de facto authoritarianism…”
Over time, Yeltsin’s role as the architect of Putinism was quietly erased, replaced by narratives casting him as Putin’s unintended victim.
Russia’s younger generation, unlike Yeltsin’s admirers, has begun to harshly scrutinise his era — the very source of the Putinist blight — recognising how the calamities that have plagued Russia for 30 years — and the betrayals of the 1990s — have shaped the country's present. (Zharkov 2024) In the eyes of most Russians, the very concepts of democracy and liberalism have been tainted by the Yeltsin years. If Russian liberalism fell victim to an authoritarian state, the old liberals must bear significant blame for having helped build that state.
An open evaluation of this period is crucial to reviving the fragile hope for freedom and justice that emerged, half-formed, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At the forefront of this shift is the documentary “Traitors”, in which Maria Pevchikh exposes the failures of the Russian government in the 1990s. The film carries an impact comparable to Nikita Khrushchev’s landmark speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, where he denounced Stalin’s cult of personality. For Russia to build a democratic future, any such effort must confront the mistakes of that fateful decade—mistakes that paved the way for today’s harsh authoritarian regime.
In his secret speech, “On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,” Khrushchev accused the late General Secretary of abusing his authority and deviating from the fundamental “Leninist principles” underpinning the socialist project. (Khrushchev 1956)
Pevchikh’s film focuses sharply on the personal role and responsibility of Yeltsin and his inner circle — particularly his protégé, Valentin Yumashev — abandoning the core principles of a legal and democratic state in the new Russia.
We are currently witnessing the beginning of a difficult and painful generational shift among Russian democrats. For a long time, the discussion of the mistakes and crimes of this period was monopolised by a narrow circle of individuals who built their careers in state-run and oligarch-controlled television and radio. Any critical thoughts about the harsh experiences of the 1990s were dismissed. Young voices in Russian politics have long been striving to break through this silence. Mikhail Zygar’s book “All are Free” and Alexei Navalny’s open letter “My Fear and Hatred” have brought global attention to this issue.
The new generation is now breaking through this wall of silence, simultaneously dismantling the myth that Putin’s Russia marks a departure from the Yeltsin era. They are trying to show that the 1990s were less a decisive move towards democracy and more a shift from a one-party dictatorship to personalist rule. The conversion of the abandoned Ministry of Health building into a home for Yeltsin and his inner circle was a telling indication of his view of Russia as his personal estate.
Conclusion
Two years before the start of radical economic reforms in Russia, British sociologist Theodore Shanin published an article titled “The Western Experience or the Danger of Reverse Stalinism.” He warned of the danger of turning the contradictory experiences of Western European countries into a view of capitalism taken from Soviet textbooks, and of distorting the concept of the free market. (Shanin 1990)
The sociologist, known for his sympathy towards Russia, questioned the popular notion during the perestroika period that the transition to capitalism required a “final and flawless” programme. He argued that implementing such a programme would inevitably lead to the collapse of society. Unless the course chosen by the reformers was balanced with the interests and desires of others, it risked repeating the danger of “reverse Stalinism”—which is exactly what happened. Yeltsin's “liberalism” ultimately gave rise to a new Stalinism in the form of Putin.
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