From civil engineer to President of Russia

In this film, Dr Edwin Bacon (University of Lincoln) introduces us to the young Boris Yeltsin, a true product of the Stalinist years. He explores how a young Yeltsin caught the eye of the Communist officials, allowing him to work his way up from a civil engineer to the politburo. Dr Bacon discusses the differences in Yeltsin’s and Gorbachev’s personalities, their early disagreements and the seeds of rivalry that would end with the fall of the Soviet Union.