The USSR collapsed on 25 December 1991. Boris Yeltsin, already president of Russia, now had to build an entirely new country almost overnight — a market economy and a democracy, out of 70 years of communism.
It did not go smoothly.
Continuity & change: This is one of the biggest debates in this whole regional study: did Russia genuinely try democracy in the 1990s and fail, or was the "transition" always heading toward a strongman like Putin because old Soviet habits of power never really went away?
Yeltsin's first big fight was with his own parliament — packed with former communists who hated his reforms and wanted him gone.
1993 — Constitutional crisis
Parliament tries to impeach Yeltsin; he sends tanks to shell the White House (the parliament building) in Moscow. Over 100 people die.
1993 — New constitution
A referendum approves a constitution giving the president huge powers over parliament — the same powerful presidency Putin later inherits and uses.
1996 — Yeltsin re-elected
Deeply unpopular and trailing badly, Yeltsin wins re-election only with oligarch money, media control and a rigged-feeling campaign.
1998 — Financial crash
Russia defaults on its debt; the rouble collapses; millions of ordinary Russians lose their savings overnight.
1999 — Yeltsin resigns
Exhausted, ill and unpopular, Yeltsin steps down on New Year's Eve and hands power to his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin.
Shell parliament, new constitution, rig re-election, crash, resign — 1993 to 1999.
Why democracy failed to take root: IB examiners want you to explain this, not just describe it. Russia had no real democratic tradition to build on, a president who used force against parliament rather than compromise, elections that oligarchs could buy, and an economy in freefall that made ordinary Russians associate "democracy" with chaos and poverty rather than freedom.
Meanwhile the Communist Party, banned briefly in 1991, reorganized as the KPRF under Gennady Zyuganov. It became the largest single opposition party through the 1990s, nearly beating Yeltsin in the 1996 election — proof that many Russians missed the security of the old system.
A useful case study: In the 1996 election, opinion polls gave Yeltsin single-digit approval in early 1996. Oligarch-owned TV channels then ran relentless pro-Yeltsin coverage, and oligarchs personally funded his campaign in exchange for future favours — he won the runoff comfortably. It's a textbook example for questions on "how genuine was Russian democracy in the 1990s?"
Free preview
This is the free notes preview
You're reading the free notes. Aimnova Pro unlocks the full study experience — and you can try it free for 7 days:
- FlashcardsLock in vocabulary and key terms with spaced repetition.
- Practice questionsAnswer exam-style questions and get instant AI marking.
- Mock exams & past-paper vaultSit full mocks and see exactly how examiners award marks.
- Personalised study planA daily plan built around your exam date and weak areas.
Alongside the political chaos, Yeltsin tried to transform the entire Soviet command economy into a capitalist one almost overnight. The policy became known as shock therapy.
- Price liberalization (1992) — state price controls were scrapped in one go. Prices for basic goods rocketed; inflation hit over 2,000% in 1992 alone, wiping out savings.
- Mass privatization — state industries were sold off fast, partly through a voucher scheme meant to give every citizen a stake, but most vouchers were bought up cheaply by insiders.
- "Loans-for-shares" (1995–96) — Yeltsin's government let a small group of bankers lend the state money in exchange for shares in valuable state companies (oil, metals). When the state couldn't repay, the bankers kept the companies — for a fraction of their real value.
- Rise of the oligarchs — figures like Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky and Mikhail Khodorkovsky became fantastically wealthy almost overnight and gained huge political influence, especially by bankrolling Yeltsin's 1996 campaign.
The human cost: GDP fell by roughly 40% during the 1990s. Life expectancy for Russian men dropped sharply as poverty, alcoholism and a collapsing healthcare system took hold. This is essential evidence if an essay asks you to evaluate the impact of Yeltsin's economic policies.
The case for shock therapy
- A gradual transition risked being sabotaged by entrenched communist officials who still controlled the old economy.
- Fast privatization made central planning irreversible — there was no going back to Soviet communism.
- Some reformers (like architect Yegor Gaidar) argued that any transition from a command economy would cause short-term pain regardless of speed.
The case against it
- It handed the country's most valuable assets to a tiny elite instead of spreading them fairly, entrenching inequality that still shapes Russia today.
- It was carried out with almost no functioning legal or regulatory system, which is part of why organized crime and corruption exploded in the 1990s.
- The resulting poverty and instability discredited the very idea of "democracy and free markets" in the eyes of many ordinary Russians.
Russia's first war in Chechnya added a military and human-rights crisis on top of the economic one. Chechnya, a mostly Muslim republic in the North Caucasus, declared independence in 1991.
| Event | Detail |
|---|---|
| 1994 | Yeltsin sends troops into Chechnya to crush the independence declaration — the First Chechen War begins. |
| 1994–96 | Russian forces, though far larger, fight poorly against Chechen guerrillas; the capital Grozny is devastated by Russian bombing. |
| 1996 | Khasavyurt Accord — Russia effectively withdraws, granting Chechnya de facto independence. A humiliating defeat for Yeltsin and the army. |
| 1999 | Apartment bombings in Russian cities, blamed on Chechen militants, trigger the Second Chechen War — launched by Putin as prime minister. |
Chechnya links Yeltsin to Putin: Don't treat the two wars as separate topics. The First Chechen War (1994–96) exposed the weakness of the post-Soviet Russian state and humiliated Yeltsin; the Second (from 1999) became Putin's launchpad to power, letting him present himself as the strong leader Yeltsin never was. Cause and consequence links these two micro-events directly.
Get feedback like a real examiner
Submit your answers and get instant feedback — what you did well, what's missing, and exactly what to write to score full marks.
Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, became acting president on 31 December 1999 and won the 2000 election in his own right. His central promise was simple: restore order and Russian pride after a decade of chaos.
Perspectives: Supporters see Putin as the leader who rescued Russia from collapse. Critics see the same period as the systematic dismantling of the fragile democracy Yeltsin had at least attempted. A strong Paper 3 answer holds both views in tension rather than picking one uncritically.
- Taming the oligarchs — Putin let wealthy businessmen keep their fortunes if they stayed out of politics. Those who defied him, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky (arrested 2003, jailed for a decade on fraud/tax charges widely seen as politically motivated), lost everything.
- Controlling the regions — Putin created federal districts overseen by his own appointees and stripped regional governors of the power to sit in the upper house of parliament, reversing Yeltsin-era decentralization.
- Managing parliament — his party, United Russia, won overwhelming majorities in the Duma (parliament), letting Putin pass laws with little real opposition.
- The "tandem" (2008–2012) — barred by the constitution from a third consecutive term, Putin stepped aside as president for his ally Dmitry Medvedev while remaining prime minister, widely seen as still holding real power, before returning as president in 2012.
Economically, Putin's first two terms benefited enormously from rising global oil and gas prices. Russia is one of the world's largest energy exporters, and that revenue funded rising wages, debt repayment and a growing middle class — a genuine improvement in living standards after the 1990s.
| Policy area | What Putin did |
|---|---|
| Economy | State reasserted control over strategic sectors (energy, especially through state company Gazprom); flat-tax reform simplified taxation; oil wealth funded a stabilization fund and rising incomes 2000–2008. |
| Social policy | Pensions and public-sector wages rose; but reforms like the 2005 replacement of Soviet-era benefits with cash payments triggered mass protests from pensioners. |
| Media | Independent television networks (like Gusinsky's NTV) were taken over by state-linked companies; national TV became overwhelmingly pro-Kremlin. |
| Political opposition | Restrictive laws on protests, NGOs ("foreign agent" laws) and election rules made it steadily harder for genuine opposition to compete. |
Repression and resistance: Critical journalists and opposition figures faced serious danger. Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who reported on Chechen war abuses, was murdered in 2006. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was assassinated in 2015. Alexei Navalny, an anti-corruption campaigner, was poisoned in 2020 and later imprisoned. These cases are strong exam evidence for "extent of control" and "repression" questions — but so is the fact that mass protests still happened (2011–12 election-fraud protests; Navalny-linked rallies), showing control was real but never absolute.
Putin's foreign policy grew steadily more assertive, especially toward former Soviet states that tried to align with the West.
Georgia, 2008
After Georgia moved toward NATO and clashed with Russian-backed separatist regions, Russia fought a short war and recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent — asserting Russian influence over its "near abroad".
Ukraine — Crimea, 2014
After Ukraine's pro-Russian president was overthrown in the Euromaidan protests, Russian forces seized and annexed Crimea, and backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) — widely condemned internationally as a breach of Ukrainian sovereignty.
Syria, from 2015
Russian military intervention propped up the Assad government, restoring Russia's role as a major power broker in the Middle East for the first time since the Soviet era.
"Near abroad" as a concept: Georgia and Ukraine show a consistent pattern: Putin resists former Soviet states drifting toward NATO/the EU, using force or backing separatists when he judges Russian influence is at stake. Use both examples together for "conflicts with neighbouring states" questions rather than just one.