10th July 1991: Boris Yeltsin is inaugurated as the first elected President of Russia

**Scott Allsop** (0:00)
On the 10th of July 1991, Boris Yeltsin took office as the first elected President of Russia, following his inauguration. Welcome to HistoryPod.
During the second half of the 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the policies of glasnost, or openness, and perestroika, restructuring. While these encouraged greater political debate and economic reform, they also weakened the centralized control that had characterised the Soviet system. Across the Union, republics demanded greater autonomy, while economic difficulties and growing public dissatisfaction reduced confidence in the Communist Party.
Boris Yeltsin, once a senior party official, soon became one of the most prominent advocates of democratic reform and stronger powers for the Russian Republic. On the 12th of June 1991, Russian voters took part in Russia's first presidential election, and elected Yeltsin president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with approximately 57% of the vote. This victory gave him an independent democratic mandate that contrasted with the authority of Gorbachev, who remained president of the Soviet Union. During his inauguration on the 10th of July, Yeltsin swore to uphold the constitution and protect the rights of Russian citizens, emphasising political reform and democratic institutions. However, only six weeks after the inauguration, hard-line communist officials attempted a coup in an effort to reverse Gorbachev's reforms. Yeltsin emerged as the leading figure opposing the coup, famously addressing crowds from atop a tank outside the Russian parliament building. The failure of the coup further weakened Soviet central authority and accelerated the breakup of the Union. Within months, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and on the 25th of December 1991, Yeltsin became the first president of the independent Russian Federation.