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Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was enstalled as first secretary to: The Moscow City Party Committee in 1985, but alienated party reactionaries and was stripped of his post in 1987. Critical of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the party, Yeltsin gained a wide following during the late 1980s. In 1991 he was elected president of Russia by popular vote. When Communist hard-liners staged a coup to depose Gorbachev, Yeltsin led the fight to resist the coup. Gorbachev’s resignation as Soviet president confirmed Yeltsin as the dominant figure in the former Soviet politics.
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