Boris Yeltsin's ascent to power: Rhetorical roles and the end of the soviet union

Abstract

This study examines the rhetorical strategies utilized by Boris Yeltsin during his rise to prominence and his role in what some call the second Russian revolution. The author contends that the Russian leader used three distinct rhetorical roles— the revolutionary, the conciliatory, and the conservative—to present his discourse between 1985 and 1991. With this critical vocabulary, the author argues that Yeltsin's successes and failures related to his fitting use of rhetorical roles in relation to the exigencies that emerged during the final years of the Soviet Union's existence.

Key concepts:

• rhetorical roles
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• Yeltsin
• revolution