1993 Russian Constitutional Crisis - Siege and Assault

Siege and Assault

On September 21, Yeltsin declared the Supreme Soviet dissolved; this act was in contradiction with a number of articles of the Constitution of 1978 (as amended from 1989—1993), such as, Article 1216 which stated that:

The powers of the President of Russian Federation cannot be used to change national and state organization of Russian Federation, to dissolve or to interfere with the functioning of any elected organs of state power. In this case, his powers cease immediately.

At the same time, Yeltsin repeated his announcement of a constitutional referendum, and new legislative elections for December. He also repudiated the Constitution of 1978, declaring that it had been replaced 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 assume 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 powers of the West. Yeltsin enjoyed a strong relationship with Western powers, particularly the United States, but the relationship made him unpopular with some Russians. In Russia, the Yeltsin side had control over television, where hardly any pro-parliament views were expressed during the September–October crisis.