The Russian elections of December 1993

THE NATIONAL ELECTIONS of 12 December 1993 were the first held under the aegis of the reconstituted Russian Federation, and the first democratic direct national elections to be held in peacetime in Russian history. They were intended to put the final nail in the coffin of communism and set Russia on the path of irreversible democratic development. Held in the wake of the dissolution on 21 September of the old Russian legislature chaired by Ruslan Khasbulatov and the crisis of 3-4 October, in which an apparent uprising was crushed by military force, the elections took place against the background of a deeply divided society and with a large section of the political spectrum neutralised by participation in the October events. Despite this unpropitious background, the elections marked a significant turning point in political development, hastening the realignment of Russian political life, accelerating the development of a multiparty system and making possible a new start in the development of parliamentarianism

Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Law · Russia and Soviet political economy