How did Boris Yeltsin become the first leader of the Russian Federation?

1 Answer
May 12, 2016

Six months before the Soviet Union broke up, he was elected as the regional president of Russia.

Explanation:

In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin--an opponent of Mikhail Gorbachev and the first person ever to resign in protest from the Soviet Politburo-was elected President of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). This was a regional office, not a national one, somewhat akin to being the Governor of all the states East of the Mississippi and Southwest of Missouri combined but not quite President of the United States.

When the Soviet Union dissolved six months later, each president of one of the former Soviet republics was suddenly the head of state of a newly independent country. All but four of the former Soviet republics--Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia--immediately joined the loosely-associated Commonwealth of Independent States, with Russia and Yeltsin as the default initial leader.