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Russian constitutional crisis of 1993

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   Boris Yeltsin was President of the Russian Federation at the time of
   the crisis.
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   Boris Yeltsin was President of the Russian Federation at the time of
   the crisis.

   The Russian constitutional crisis of 1993 began on September 21, when
   Russian President Boris Yeltsin dissolved the country's legislature (
   Congress of People's Deputies and its Supreme Soviet), which opposed
   his moves to consolidate power and push forward with unpopular
   neoliberal reforms. Yeltsin's decree of September 21 contravened the
   then-functioning constitution; on October 15, after the end of the
   crisis, he ordered a referendum on a new constitution.

   The Congress rejected the decree and voted to remove Yeltsin from
   presidency through impeachment. His estranged Vice President, Aleksandr
   Rutskoy, was sworn in in accordance with the existing constitution as
   Acting President. On September 28, public protests against Yeltsin's
   government began in earnest on the streets of Moscow where the first
   blood was shed. The army remained under Yeltsin's control, which
   determined the outcome of the crisis. The legislators found themselves
   barricaded inside the White House of Russia parliament building. For
   the next week, anti-Yeltsin protests grew, until a mass uprising
   erupted in the city on October 2. Russia was on the brink of civil war.
   At this point the security and military elites threw their support
   behind Yeltsin, besieged the parliament building, and through the use
   of tank artillery nearly destroyed the building and cleared it of the
   elected legislature. By October 5, armed resistance to Yeltsin had been
   crushed. The ten-day conflict had seen the most deadly street fighting
   in Moscow since the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917. According to
   government estimates, 187 had been killed and 437 wounded.

Origins of the crisis

The intensifying executive-legislative power struggle

   Yeltsin's reform program took effect on January 2, 1992 (see Russian
   economic reform in the 1990s for background information). Soon
   afterward prices skyrocketed, government spending was slashed, and
   heavy new taxes went into effect. A deep credit crunch shut down many
   industries and brought about a protracted depression. Certain
   politicians began quickly to distance themselves from the program; and
   increasingly the ensuing political confrontation between Yeltsin on the
   one side, and the opposition to radical economic reform on the other,
   became centered in the two branches of government.

   Throughout 1992, opposition to Yeltsin's reform policies grew stronger
   and more intractable among those concerned about the condition of
   Russian industry and among regional leaders who wanted more
   independence from Moscow. Russia's vice president, Aleksandr Rutskoy,
   denounced the Yeltsin program as "economic genocide." Leaders of
   oil-rich republics such as Tatarstan and Bashkiria called for full
   independence from Russia.

   Also throughout 1992, Yeltsin wrestled with the Supreme Soviet (the
   standing legislature) and the Russian Congress of People's Deputies
   (the country's highest legislative body, from which the Supreme Soviet
   members were drawn) for control over government and government policy.
   In 1992 the speaker of the Russian Supreme Soviet, Ruslan Khasbulatov,
   came out in opposition to the reforms, despite claiming to support
   Yeltsin's overall goals.

   The president was concerned about the terms of the constitutional
   amendments passed in late 1991, which meant that his special powers of
   decree were set to expire by the end of 1992 (Yeltsin expanded the
   powers of the presidency beyond normal constitutional limits in
   carrying out the reform program). Yeltsin, awaiting implementation of
   his privatization program, demanded that parliament reinstate his
   decree powers (only parliament had the authority to replace or amend
   the constitution). But in the Russian Congress of People's Deputies and
   in the Supreme Soviet, the deputies refused to adopt a new constitution
   that would enshrine the scope of presidential powers demanded by
   Yeltsin into law.

The seventh session of the Congress of People's Deputies (CPD)

   During its December 1992 session, the parliament clashed with Yeltsin
   on a number of issues, and the conflict came to a head on December 9
   when the parliament refused to confirm Yegor Gaidar, the widely
   unpopular architect of Russia's " shock therapy" market
   liberalizations, as prime minister. The parliament refused to nominate
   Gaidar, demanding modifications of the economic program and directed
   the Central Bank, which was under the parliament's control, to continue
   issuing credits to enterprises to keep them from shutting down.

   In an angry speech the next day on December 10, Yeltsin deemed the
   congress as a "fortress of conservative and reactionary forces."
   Parliament responded by voting to take control of the parliamentary
   army.

   On December 12, Yeltsin and parliament speaker Khasbulatov agreed on a
   compromise that included the following provisions: (1) a national
   referendum on framing a new Russian constitution to be held in April
   1993; (2) most of Yeltsin's emergency powers were extended until the
   referendum; (3) the parliament asserted its right to nominate and vote
   on its own choices for prime minister; and (4) the parliament asserted
   its right to reject the president's choices to head the Defense,
   Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Security ministries. Yeltsin nominated
   Viktor Chernomyrdin to be prime minister on December 14, and the
   parliament confirmed him.

   Yeltsin's December 1992 compromise with the seventh Congress of the
   People's Deputies temporarily backfired. Early 1993 saw increasing
   tension between Yeltsin and the parliament over the language of the
   referendum and power sharing. In a series of collisions over policy,
   the congress whittled away the president's extraordinary powers, which
   it had granted him in late 1991. The legislature, marshaled by Speaker
   Ruslan Khasbulatov, began to sense that it could block and even defeat
   the president. The tactic that it adopted was gradually to erode
   presidential control over the government. In response, the president
   called a referendum on a constitution for April 11.

The eighth session of the CPD

   The eighth Congress of People's Deputies opened on March 10, 1993 with
   a strong attack on the president by Khasbulatov, who accused Yeltsin of
   acting unconstitutionally. In mid-March, an emergency session of the
   Congress of People's Deputies voted to amend the constitution, strip
   Yeltsin of many of his powers, and cancel the scheduled April
   referendum, again opening the door to legislation that would shift the
   balance of power away from the president. The president stalked out of
   the congress. Vladimir Shumeyko, first deputy prime minister, declared
   that the referendum would go ahead, but on April 25.

   The parliament was gradually expanding its influence over the
   government. On March 16 the president signed a decree that conferred
   Cabinet rank on Viktor Gerashchenko, chairman of the central bank, and
   three other officials; this was in accordance with the decision of the
   eighth congress that these officials should be members of the
   government. The congress' ruling, however, had made it clear that as
   ministers they would continue to be subordinate to parliament.

The "special regime"

   The president's response was dramatic. On March 20 Yeltsin addressed
   the nation directly to declare that he intended to introduce a "special
   regime," under which he would assume extraordinary executive power
   pending the results of a referendum on the timing of new legislative
   elections, on a new constitution, and on public confidence in the
   president and vice president. Yeltsin also strongly opposed the
   parliament, accusing the deputies of trying to restore the Soviet-era
   order.

   Vice President Rutskoy, a key Yeltsin opponent, condemned Yeltsin's
   declaration as a grab for special powers. After the Constitutional
   Court ruled that Yeltsin had indeed acted unconstitutionally, Yeltsin
   backed down.

The ninth session of the CPD

   The ninth congress, which opened on March 26, began with an
   extraordinary session of the Congress of People's Deputies taking up
   discussions of emergency measures to defend the constitution, including
   impeachment of President Yeltsin. Yeltsin conceded that he had made
   mistakes and reached out to swing voters in parliament. Yeltsin
   narrowly survived an impeachment vote on March 28, votes for
   impeachment falling 72 short of the 689 votes needed for a 2/3
   majority.

National referendum

   The referendum would go ahead, but since the impeachment vote failed,
   the Congress of People's Deputies sought to set new terms for a popular
   referendum. The legislature's version of the referendum asked whether
   citizens had confidence in Yeltsin, approved of his reforms, and
   supported early presidential and legislative elections. The parliament
   voted that in order to win, the president would need to obtain 50% of
   the whole electorate, rather than 50% of those actually voting, to
   avoid an early presidential election.

   This time, the Constitutional Court supported Yeltsin and ruled that
   the president required only a simple majority on two issues: confidence
   in him, and economic and social policy; he would need the support of
   half the electorate in order to call new parliamentary and presidential
   elections.

   Yeltsin's gamble paid off in the referendum, on April 25. A majority of
   voters expressed confidence in the president and called for new
   legislative elections. Yeltsin termed the results a mandate for him to
   continue in power. Although this permitted the president to declare
   that the population supported him, not the parliament, he lacked a
   constitutional mechanism to implement his victory. As before, the
   president had to use the tactic of appealing to the people over the
   heads of the legislature elected by the same people.

The constitutional convention

   In an attempt to outmaneuver the parliament, Yeltsin decreed the
   creation of a large conference of political leaders from a wide range
   of government institutions, regions, public organizations, and
   political parties in June — a "special constitutional convention" to
   examine the draft constitution that he had presented in April. After
   much hesitation, the Constitutional Committee of the Congress of
   People's Deputies decided to participate and present its own draft
   constitution. Of course, the two main drafts contained contrary views
   of legislative-executive relations.

   Some 200 representatives at the conference ultimately adopted a draft
   constitution on July 12 that envisaged a bicameral legislature and the
   dissolution of the congress. But because the convention's draft of the
   constitution would dissolve the congress, there was little likelihood
   that the congress would vote itself into oblivion. The Supreme Soviet
   immediately rejected the draft and declared that the Congress of
   People's Deputies was the supreme lawmaking body and hence would decide
   on the new constitution.

   The parliament was active in July, while the president was on vacation,
   and passed a number of decrees that revised economic policy in order to
   "end the division of society." It also launched investigations of key
   advisers of the president, accusing them of corruption. The president
   returned in August and declared that he would deploy all means,
   including circumventing the constitution, to achieve new parliamentary
   elections.

Clashes of power in September

   The president launched his offensive on September 1 when he attempted
   to suspend Vice President Rutskoy, a key adversary. Rutskoy, elected on
   the same ticket as Yeltsin in 1991, was the president's automatic
   successor. A presidential spokesman said that he had been suspended
   because of "accusations of corruption." On September 3, the Supreme
   Soviet rejected Yeltsin's suspension of Rutskoy and referred the
   question to the Constitutional Court.

   Two weeks later he declared that he would agree to call early
   presidential elections provided that the parliament also called
   elections. The parliament ignored him. On September 18, Yeltsin then
   named Yegor Gaidar, who had been forced out of office by parliamentary
   opposition in 1992, a deputy prime minister and a deputy premier for
   economic affairs. This appointment was unacceptable to the Supreme
   Soviet, which emphatically rejected it.

Yeltsin dissolves parliament

   On September 21, 1993, Yeltsin responded to the impasse in
   legislative-executive relations by repeating his announcement of a
   constitutional referendum, but this time he followed the announcement
   by dissolving the parliament and announcing new legislative elections
   for December. He also scrapped the constitution, replacing it with one
   that gave him extraordinary executive powers. (According to the new
   plan, the lower house would have 450 deputies and be called the State
   Duma, the name of the Russian legislature before the Bolshevik
   Revolution in 1917. The Federation Council, which would bring together
   representatives from the 89 subdivisions of the Russian Federation,
   would play the role of an upper house.)

   Yeltsin claimed that by dissolving the Russian parliament in September
   1993 he was clearing the tracks for a rapid transition to a functioning
   market economy. With this pledge, he received strong backing from the
   leading capitalist powers of the West and the other Soviet successor
   states. Yeltsin's biggest political asset has always been his close
   relationship to the Western powers, particularly the United States, but
   this has left him open to charges in Russia of being an agent of
   foreign interests and of groveling before the West.

Parliament invalidates Yeltsin's presidency

   Rutskoy called Yeltsin's move a step toward a coup d'etat. The next
   day, the Constitutional Court held that Yeltsin had violated the
   constitution and could be impeached. During an all-night session,
   chaired by Khasbulatov, parliament declared the president's decree null
   and void. Rutskoy was proclaimed president and took the oath on the
   constitution. He dismissed Yeltsin and the key ministers Pavel Grachev
   (defense), Nikolay Golushko (security), and Viktor Yerin (interior).
   Russia now had two presidents and two ministers of defense, security,
   and interior. It was dual power in earnest. Although Gennady Zyuganov
   and other top leaders of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
   did not participate in the events, individual members of communist
   organizations actively supported the parliament.

   On September 24, an undaunted Yeltsin announced presidential elections
   for June 1994. The same day, the Congress of People's Deputies voted to
   hold simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections by March
   1994. Yeltsin scoffed at the parliament backed-proposal for
   simultaneous elections, and responded the next day by cutting off
   electricity, phone service, and hot water in the parliament building.

Mass protests in Moscow

   Yeltsin also sparked popular unrest with his dissolution of a
   parliament increasingly opposed to his neoliberal economic reforms.
   Between September 21-24, the general atmosphere changed in favour of
   the defenders of the parliament. Moscow saw what amounted to a
   spontaneous mass uprising of anti-Yeltsin demonstrators numbering in
   the tens of thousands marching in the streets resolutely seeking to aid
   forces defending the parliament building. However, the army leaders
   remained faithful to Yeltsin.

   The demonstrators were protesting against the new and terrible living
   conditions under Yeltsin. Since 1989 GDP had declined by half.
   Corruption was rampant, violent crime was skyrocketing, medical
   services were collapsing, food and fuel were increasingly scarce and
   life expectancy was falling for all but a tiny handful of the
   population; moreover, Yeltsin was increasingly getting the blame.
   Outside Moscow, the Russian masses overall were confused and
   disorganized. Nonetheless, some of them also tried to voice their
   protest. Sporadic strikes took place across Russia.

   On September 28, Moscow saw the first bloody clashes between the
   special police and anti-Yeltsin demonstrators. This repression of the
   mass demonstrations in Moscow had a comparable effect to that meted out
   by the French police to the students in the May 1968 rebellion that
   nearly culminated in the fall of Charles de Gaulle. It rallied them for
   a mass protest action, but one that the popular demonstrators would
   ultimately lose.

   Also on September 28, the Interior Ministry moved to seal off the
   parliament building. Barricades and wire were put around the building.
   On October 1, the Interior Ministry estimated that 600 fighting men
   with a large cache of arms had joined Yeltsin's political opponents in
   the parliament building. On September 30, the first barricades were
   built.

   The leaders of parliament were still not discounting the prospects of a
   compromise with Yeltsin. The Russian Orthodox Church acted as a host to
   desultory discussions between representatives of the parliament and the
   president. The negotiations with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch as
   mediator continued until October 2. On the afternoon of October 3,
   however, Moscow police failed to control a demonstration near the White
   House, and the political impasse developed into armed conflict.

The storming of the television premises

   October 2 and October 3 were the culmination of violent clashes with
   the police. On October 2, supporters of parliament constructed
   barricades and blocked traffic on Moscow's main streets. On the
   afternoon of October 3, armed opponents of Yeltsin successfully stormed
   the police cordon around the White House territory (where the Russian
   parliament was barricaded). Paramilitaries from the Russian National
   Unity and Labour Russia movements, as well as a few units of the
   internal military (armed forces normally reporting to the Ministry of
   Interior), supported the parliament.

   Aleksandr Rutskoy, barricaded inside the White House, hailed the
   protesting crowd. Rutskoy greeted the crowds from the White House
   balcony, and urged them to go on to seize the national television
   centre at Ostankino. Khasbulatov also called for the storming of the
   Kremlin. With some people already dead on the streets, Yeltsin declared
   a state of emergency in Moscow.

   On the evening of October 3, after taking the mayor's office,
   anti-Yeltsin demonstrators marched toward Ostankino, the television
   centre. But the pro-parliament crowds were met at the television
   complex by Interior Ministry units. A pitched battle followed. Part of
   TV centre was significantly damaged. Television stations went off the
   air and 62 people were killed. Before midnight, the Interior Ministry's
   units had turned back the parliament loyalists.

   When broadcasting resumed late in the evening, Yegor Gaidar called on
   television for a meeting in support of President Yeltsin. Several
   hundred of Yeltsin's supporters spent the night in the square in front
   of the Moscow City Hall preparing for further clashes, only to learn in
   the morning of October 4 that the army was on their side.

The storming of the Russian White House

   Between October 2-4, the position of the army was the deciding factor.
   The military equivocated for several hours about how to respond to
   Yeltsin's call for action. By this time dozens of people had been
   killed and hundreds had been wounded.

   Rutskoy, as a former general, appealed to some of his ex-colleagues.
   After all, many officers and especially rank-and-file soldiers had
   little sympathy for Yeltsin. But the supporters of the parliament did
   not send any emissaries to the barracks to recruit lower-ranking
   officer corps, making the fatal mistake of attempting to deliberate
   only among high-ranking military officials who already had close ties
   to parliamentary leaders. In the end, a prevailing bulk of the generals
   did not want to take their chances with a Rutskoy-Khasbulatov regime.
   Some generals had stated their intention to back the parliament, but at
   the last moment moved over to Yeltsin's side.

   By sunrise, October 4, the Russian army encircled the parliament
   building, and a few hours later army tanks began to shell the White
   House. By noon, troops entered the White House and began to occupy it,
   floor by floor. Hostilities were stopped several times to allow some in
   the White House to leave, but Khasbulatov and Rutskoy stayed to the
   bitter end before surrendering. Many in the building, including Rutskoy
   and Khasbulatov, were taken away in the end in buses. By mid-afternoon,
   popular resistance in the streets was completely suppressed, barring an
   occasional sniper's fire.

   Crushing the "second October Revolution," which, as mentioned, saw the
   deadliest street fighting in Moscow since 1917, cost hundreds of lives.
   Police said, on October 8, that 187 had died in the conflict and 437
   had been wounded. Unofficial sources named much higher numbers, up to
   1500 dead, mostly inside the White House. In any event, nearly all
   victims were killed by troops loyal to Yeltsin. Russian Army and
   Interior Ministry lost 12 soldiers, at least 9 of which were
   accidentally killed by their own men. It had been a close call; Yeltsin
   owed his victory to the military, the former KGB, and the Ministry of
   Interior, not to support from the regions or a popular base of support.

   But he was backed by the military only grudgingly, and at the eleventh
   hour. The instruments of coercion gained the most, and they would
   expect Yeltsin to reward them in the future. A paradigmatic example of
   this was General Pavel Grachev, who had demonstrated his loyalty during
   this crisis. Grachev became a key political figure, despite many years
   of charges that he was linked to corruption within the Russian
   military.

   The crisis was a strong example of the problems of
   executive-legislative balance in Russia's presidential system, and,
   moreover, the likelihood of conflict of a zero-sum character and the
   absence of obvious mechanisms to resolve it. In the end, this was a
   battle of competing legitimacy of the executive and the legislature,
   won by the side that could muster the support of the ultimate
   instruments of coercion.

Public opinion on crisis

   The Russian public opinion research institute VCIOM (VTsIOM) conducted
   a poll in the aftermath of October 1993 events and found out that 51%
   of those polled thought that the use of military force by Yeltsin was
   justified and 30% thought it was not justified. The support for
   Yeltsin's actions declined in the later years. When VCIOM-A asked the
   same question in 2003, only 20% agreed with the use of the military,
   with 57% opposed.

   When asked about the main cause of the events of October 3-4, 46% in
   the 1993 VCIOM poll blamed Rutskoy and Khasbullatov. However, ten years
   following the crisis, the most popular culprit was the legacy of
   Mikhail Gorbachev with 31%, closely followed by Yeltsin's policies with
   29%.

   In 1993, a majority of Russians considered the events of September 21 –
   October 4 as an attempt of Communist revanche or as a result of Rutskoy
   and Khasbulatov seeking personal power. Ten years thereafter, it became
   more common to see the cause of those events in the resolution of
   Yeltsin’s government to implement the privatization program, which gave
   large pieces of national property to a limited number of tycoons (later
   called “oligarchs”), and to which the old Parliament (Supreme Soviet)
   was the main obstacle.

Yeltsin's consolidation of power

The end of the first constitutional period

   On December 12, Yeltsin managed to push through his new constitution,
   creating a strong presidency and giving the president sweeping powers
   to issue decrees. (For details on the constitution passed in 1993 see
   the Constitution and government structure of Russia.)

   However, the parliament elected on the same day (with a turnout of
   about 53%) delivered a stunning rebuke to his neoliberal economic
   program. Candidates identified with Yeltsin's economic policies were
   overwhelmed by a huge protest vote, the bulk of which was divided
   between the Communists (who mostly drew their support from industrial
   workers, out-of-work bureaucrats, some professionals, and pensioners)
   and the ultra-nationalists (who drew their support from disaffected
   elements of the lower middle classes). Unexpectedly, the most
   surprising insurgent group proved to be the Liberal Democratic Party
   (LDPR). It gained 23% of the vote while the Gaidar led 'Russia's
   Choice' received 15.5% and the Communist Party of the Russian
   Federation, 12.4%. LDPR leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, alarmed many
   observers abroad with his neo-fascist, chauvinist declarations.

   Nevertheless, the referendum marked the end of the constitutional
   period defined by the constitution adopted by the Russian SFSR in 1978,
   which was amended many times while Russia was a part of Mikhail
   Gorbachev's Soviet Union. (For further details on the democratization
   of the former Soviet Union, see History of the Soviet Union
   (1985–1991).) Although Russia would emerge as a dual
   presidential-parliamentary system in theory, substantial power would
   rest in the president's hands. Russia now has a prime minister who
   heads a cabinet and directs the administration, but the system is an
   example of presidentialism with the cover of a presidential prime
   minister, not an effective semipresidential constitutional model. (The
   premier, for example, is appointed, and in effect freely dismissed, by
   the president.)
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