Russian President Boris Yeltsin triggers a constitutional crisis when he suspends parliament and scraps the constitution.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism.

In September and October 1993, a constitutional crisis arose in the Russian Federation from a conflict between the then Russian president Boris Yeltsin and the country's parliament. Yeltsin performed a self-coup, dissolving parliament and instituting a presidential rule by decree system. The crisis ended with Yeltsin using military force to attack Moscow's House of Soviets and arrest the lawmakers. In Russia, the events are known as the "October Coup" or "Black October".

A duma is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions.

The Constitution of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic of 12 April 1978 was formally its supreme law.