The Supreme Soviet chairman who stood with Yeltsin against the coup, then fell to Yeltsin's tanks
During the October 1993 siege of the White House, when Yeltsin offered safety guarantees, Khasbulatov replied: 'I need no guarantees, I can offer guarantees to Yeltsin myself.'
Ruslan Khasbulatov was a Chechen-born Soviet economist and Russian politician who became the last chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet. On the day of the August 1991 coup, he was Yeltsin's closest ally: he personally drafted the appeal 'To the Citizens of Russia' and helped organize the defense of the White House. After the Soviet collapse, however, he turned the parliament into the center of opposition to Yeltsin's economic reforms and concentration of power, leading to the 1993 constitutional crisis in which he and Vice-President Rutskoy commanded the parliamentary resistance until tanks shelled the building and they were arrested. Amnestied in 1994, he left politics and returned to academia, teaching world economics at his alma mater.
Career Timeline
- 1965Graduated from the Faculty of Law, Moscow State University
- 1970–1990Professor and head of the Department of International Economic Relations, Moscow Institute of National Economy (Plekhanov)
- 1990.03Elected RSFSR People's Deputy from the Grozny constituency
- 1990.06–1991.10First Deputy Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
- 1991.07–1991.10Acting Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet
- 1991.10–1993.10Chairman of the RSFSR/Russian Federation Supreme Soviet
- 1994–2023Head of the Department of World Economics, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics