Gorbachev Becomes President: The Soviet Union Transforms

The Soviet Congress of People's Deputies elected Mikhail Gorbachev as the first executive president of the Soviet Union on March 15, 1990, creating a powerful presidential office that concentrated authority in a system that was rapidly fragmenting. Gorbachev had served as General Secretary of the Communist Party since 1985, launching the reforms of glasnost and perestroika that opened Soviet society and economy but also unleashed centrifugal forces he could not control. The new presidency was supposed to provide a stable institutional base independent of the Party, which was losing its grip on power. Instead, the office became increasingly irrelevant as the republics asserted sovereignty. Boris Yeltsin, elected president of the Russian Federation in June 1991, commanded greater democratic legitimacy and more popular support. The August 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev by Communist hardliners failed but demonstrated that the Soviet system was beyond repair. Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991, dissolving the office he had created barely twenty months earlier.