Ruslan Khasbulatov, Whose 1993 Showdown With Yeltsin Led To Deadly Parliament Shelling, Dies Aged 80

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Ruslan Khasbulatov, a Russian politician whose dramatic standoff with then-President Boris Yeltsin in 1993 led to the deadly shelling of the parliament building in Moscow, an event that transformed post-Soviet Russia’s political trajectory, has died at the age of 80, according to Russian state television.

Khasbulatov died at his home outside Moscow, state television reported on January 3, citing relatives.

Khasbulatov, an ethnic Chechen, was a close ally of Yeltsin in the last days of the Soviet Union in 1991. Both were elected in 1989 to the new Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union in which Yeltsin headed a faction that criticized then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform program as not radical enough.

Yeltsin became president of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic in June 1991 and appointed Khasbulatov speaker of the Russian parliament.

But Yeltsin and Khasbulatov became rivals, and Khasbulatov allied himself with Aleksandr Rutskoi, Yeltsin’s vice president who attempted to remove the president in 1993 after Yeltsin’s decision to dissolve parliament. Their memorable showdown led to the shelling of the parliament building — known as the White House — by troops loyal to Yeltsin who stormed the building and placed Khasbulatov and Rutskoi under arrest. Both were jailed but later pardoned.

The events gave Yeltsin an opportunity to change the constitution to consolidate power in the presidency, something his successor, Vladimir Putin, would exploit to nearly erase any remnants of democracy.

Khasbulatov in a commentary written for RFE/RL 15 years later said the events in 1993 precipitated the destruction of parliamentary democracy in Russia and led to the adoption of a strong presidency.

Khasbulatov also played an important role in political developments in Chechnya between the August 1991 coup against Gorbachev and Yeltsin’s decision in 1994 to dispatch troops to Chechnya to “restore constitutional order.”

This brought Khasbulatov into conflict with Dzhokhar Dudayev, who was elected chairman of an informal All-National Congress of the Chechen People in November 1990. Seven months later, on June 8, 1991, the Congress proclaimed an independent Chechen republic outside the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and the U.S.S.R.

Khasbulatov traveled to Grozny in September 1991 as Yeltsin’s envoy with the intention of forcing Doku Zavgayev, then head of the Checheno-Ingush region committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), to resign. But he was outmaneuvered by Dudayev, who was elected president in late 1991 with 90 percent of the vote.

Five days later, Dudayev signed a decree reaffirming Chechnya’s independence from the crumbling Soviet Union, prompting Yeltsin to send Russian forces into Chechnya. The conflict ended in August 1996 with the recapture of Grozny by Chechen resistance forces and a formal peace agreement.

Khasbulatov later claimed that in the fall of 1994 it would have been possible to remove Dudayev “practically without firing a shot,” but that Moscow intervened rather than risk Khasbulatov succeeding him. Khasbulatov chronicled his role in a book titled How They Prevented Me From Stopping the War In Chechnya.

Khasbulatov continued to comment on developments in Chechnya. His analysis included insights into the psychological impact on Chechen society of the massive destruction of infrastructure and the republic’s economy.

Khasbulatov was born in the village of Tolstoi-Yurt, north of Grozny, on November 22, 1942, and grew up in Kazakhstan. He entered Moscow State University in 1962 and graduated with a degree in law. Following the family tradition, he went on to study for several higher degrees, focusing on the political, social, and economic development of capitalist countries.

Khasbulatov’s political engagement began in the late 1980s at the time when Gorbachev, then still general-secretary of the Communist Party, decreed the first multicandidate elections in the history of the Soviet Union as part of his reformist agenda.