With the Soviet Union out of the way, Yeltsin eliminated most price controls, privatized a slew of major state assets, allowed for the ownership of private property and otherwise embraced free market principles. Under his watch, a stock exchange, commodities exchanges and private banks all came into being. But although a select few oligarchs became shockingly wealthy, many Russians lapsed deeper into poverty due to rampant inflation and the rising cost of living. Yeltsin’s Russia also struggled with the taint of being an ex-superpower and with corruption, lawlessness, decreased industrial output and falling life expectancies. Moreover, Yeltsin began treating himself to some of the perks, such as chauffeured limousines, that he had previously criticized.
As president, Yeltsin broke from his Soviet predecessors by generally supporting freedom of the press, permitting public criticism and letting Western popular culture seep into the country. He also agreed to nuclear arms reductions and brought home soldiers from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. Nonetheless, he did not completely disavow military action. After surviving impeachment proceedings, Yeltsin disbanded the communist-dominated parliament in September 1993 and called for elections to a new legislature. He then resolved the ensuing standoff by ordering tanks to shell the parliamentary building. The following year Yeltsin sent troops into the breakaway republic of Chechnya, an action that left roughly 80,000 people dead—the majority of them civilians. Though the fighting ceased in August 1996, it picked back up again in 1999 and lasted most of the next decade.
Health problems, some of them caused by heavy drinking, eventually began to take their toll on Yeltsin. In 1995 alone he had at least three heart attacks. Yet he decided to run for president anyway in 1996, winning a second term and then undergoing quintuple bypass surgery. Near the end of his time in office, he survived another round of impeachment proceedings and went through a string of prime ministers. In August 1998 the ruble collapsed and Russia defaulted on its treasury bills. Soon after, the economy finally turned around with the help of rising oil prices.