The Soviet Union, before it disintegrated, wanted to shell the White House. However, what the Soviets did not expect was that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russians did the shelling of the White House, but not the "White House" of the United States, but their own "White House".
Built during the Soviet era, the White House was the office of the People's Congress and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and has always been a sacred place in the hearts of Soviets.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited the legacy of the Soviet Union, and the White House became the office of the parliament of the legislature of the Russian Federation. In October 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin ordered troops to fire at the White House.
After the battle, according to Russian officials, a total of 142 people were killed and 744 wounded. The Russian media called it the "October Incident," but some called it the new "October Revolution" because of the enormous impact it had on the political situation in Russia.
White House (Government Building of the Russian Federation)
In this issue, we will talk about why Yeltsin ordered the shelling of his Own White House.
The White House, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, represented the parliament of the Russian Federation, and Yeltsin shelled the White House, that is, the contradiction between the president and the parliament. Why is there a conflict between the president and Parliament?
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin rose to prominence and in May 1990 was elected Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Russia. In order to gather strength against the hostile Soviet leader of the Soviet Union at that time, Gorbachev, Yeltsin elected his close comrade-in-arms Khasbulatov as vice chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet.
In June 1991, Yeltsin was successfully elected president of Russia, and Khasbulatov succeeded him as chairman of the Russian Supreme Soviet. Six months later, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia became an independent state.
Yeltsin
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yeltsin, with the support of Western countries, began to carry out radical economic reforms in Russia. He believes that only by fully liberalizing prices and privatizing industries on a large scale can we stabilize prices and stop the declining economic trend in the shortest possible time.
But Yeltsin's reforms had no effect and instead led to a sharp deterioration in Russia's economy. This situation was opposed by The Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Parliament of the Russian Federation, Khasbulatov, and Vice President Rutskoy. They formed the opposition and tried to use the power of parliament to limit Yeltsin.
In April 1993, under the increasing tension between the president and the parliament, Russia held a referendum in accordance with the resolution of the Ninth Extraordinary People's Congress.
The final result disappointed the opposition, and the numerous votes showed Yeltsin's prestige among the people. Just when the opposition wanted to continue to contain Yeltsin, Yeltsin began his purges.
The first to be purged was Vice President Rutskoy, who was the greatest threat to Yeltsin. Yeltsin used his presidential powers to remove Rutskoy from office and reduced his secretariat from 51 to 6, making it impossible for Rutskoy to work anymore.
Subsequently, Yeltsin dismissed the deputy prime minister and secretary of the National Security Council.
Rutskoy (left) and Yeltsin (right)
After eliminating the opponents around him, Yeltsin took advantage of the victory, excluded the People's Congress and the Supreme Soviet from power, and convened a constituent assembly attended by all the Russian federations, hoping to use the power of the local federations to realize the presidential system of his dreams.
On the first day of the Constituent Assembly, The Chairman of the Soviet, Khasbulatov, asked to speak, and after Yeltsin's refusal, Khasbulatov angrily withdrew from the meeting and took with him many representatives of the people.
Subsequently, the Constituent Assembly was held for 37 consecutive days, and the preliminary formulation of the new constitution was completed and submitted to the federations for consideration. However, there are still different opinions of the various federations on the new constitution, resulting in the implementation of the new constitution being postponed again and again, indefinitely.
After the failure of the constitution, Yeltsin thought that the parliament was the biggest obstacle to the new constitution, so in August 1993, he decided to launch an attack on the parliament.
He first announced that he would re-elect Parliament in the fall, and then a political showdown in September. In order to ensure that nothing was lost, Yeltsin personally carried out intensive pre-war preparations.
He toured two units in the Moscow area, one of which had supported him during the "8.19 incident". After receiving the allegiance of both teams, Yeltsin reinstated Heydar, who had been removed from parliament last year as prime minister, and appointed him deputy prime minister.
This shows that Yeltsin has completely ignored the parliament and has officially moved towards the opposite side of the parliament.
On September 18, Yeltsin summoned the leaders of 86 federal subjects to the Kremlin for the inaugural meeting of the Federal Council. In Yeltsin's intentions, the Federation Council was the upper house of both houses of the Russian Federation.
Two days later, in the evening, Yeltsin conducted a drill in advance under the pretext of "assisting the police in the search for drugs and illegal weapons."
On the evening of September 21, Yeltsin signed the Order on constitutional reform of the Russian Federation in the name of the President and issued a letter to the Russian people, announcing the cessation of all functions and powers of the People's Congress and the Supreme Soviet, and the temporary administration of the country by the government and the President until December, when a new parliament was elected.
After Yeltsin 'went to war', The Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, Khasbratov, convened an emergency meeting, voted, and finally adopted by the overwhelming majority the unconstitutional decision on Yeltsin's order.
Khasbulatov then announced that Yeltsin was going to stage a state coup, and the Supreme Soviet formally suspended Yeltsin and put Vice President Rutskoy in temporary power from now on. Parliament occupied the White House and Yeltsin began a standoff.
After the White House resolution, Rutskoy also stepped forward and appealed to the military in Moscow that they should be on the side of the law, not the president. However, the military in Moscow did not show any indication.
That night, a group of people claiming to have been sent by the Parliament rushed into the General Headquarters of the Combined Armed Forces and clashed with the Moscow Armed Forces, resulting in 2 deaths and injuries.
This sudden event completely broke the peaceful confrontation between Parliament and the President. Thousands of police officers from Moscow then came to the White House and surrounded it under the pretext that weapons were hidden in the White House.
(Transition)
On October 3, a group of pro-parliamentarians came to the front of the White House and broke through the police line. Vice President Rutskoy then spoke again, calling on the military to stand on the side of parliament.
This time, with the support of the masses, about 300 soldiers sided with the parliament. Parliament then began to fight back, organizing its people and soldiers and rushing toward the TV tower and government building next to the White House.
Government soldiers surrounding the White House
At this time, Yeltsin, who heard the news, hurried down from the countryside to Moscow, and after explaining some things, organized the government army and surrounded the White House on the morning of the 4th.
At 8 a.m., government forces officially launched an attack, and with the sound of gunfire and constant gunfire, the White House, which was defended by few soldiers and weapons, fell into a panic.
The parliamentarians rushed to the army outside Moscow for help, but there was no response. Tens of thousands of people also stood quietly in the distance, making a bystander from beginning to end.
By the afternoon, the gunfire had stopped. More than 30 parliamentarians, including Hasbratov and Rutskoy, chose to surrender, and they, under the supervision of soldiers, boarded a car bound for Moscow's Levltowo prison.
In the early hours of October 5, the administration began cleaning up the post-war White House. By 8 a.m., some of the traffic roads next to the White House were ready for normal use.
Yeltsin then began issuing a series of orders to repair the White House, appoint government personnel, and eliminate those who opposed him from the central to the local level.
Shelling the White House
After shelling the White House, Yeltsin used tough tactics to exclude dissidents, formally dissolved the Soviets at all levels, and changed the Parliament of the Russian Federation into a bicameral system, with the Upper House dominated by the Federal Council and the Lower House also called the State Duma, composed of representatives of all regions of the Russian Federation.
Yeltsin then followed his own ideas and prompted the House to adopt a new constitution. The new constitution provides for a separation of powers system in the country, and the president has extremely broad powers. Thus formed the prototype of the three-presidential separation of powers system in Russia today. After Yeltsin stepped down, Putin continued to improve the political system dominated by the president.
Yeltsin (right) and Putin (left)
Although Yeltsin participated in the shelling of the White House, his prestige among the people did not diminish. In the 1993 elections, the people gave him great support.
However, Yeltsin, who fully seized power, did not change the situation of Russia's economic difficulties, but under his reforms, the Russian economy continued to be sluggish. Eventually, in a flurry of chicken feathers, Yeltsin ended his presidency early.