1988 Reports

Moscow Politics and the El’tsin Affair

Colton, Timothy J.

Few recent Soviet headlines so vividly capture the imagination as those charting the rise and, in particular, the spectacular fall of Boris Nikolaevich El’tsin. His selection in 1985 as Mikhail Gorbachev’s Moscow lieutenant propelled El’tsin into the national and even international limelight. The same age as Gorbachev, physically robust, and devoted to glasnost’ and perestroika, El’tsin seemed the epitome of the Kremlin’s new look. How shocking it was, then, to see him humbled in the autumn of 1987, in what has been described as “the first major domestic political crisis of the Gorbachev era.”! It is vital that we accurately gauge the meaning of this baffling event.