Vice President
See also: 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt and Gang of Eight (Soviet Union)On 27 December 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev proposed Yanayev for the Vice Presidency of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Yanayev had initially been rejected by the Soviet parliament, but he was finally approved due to Gorbachev's reluctance to replace him with another candidate. Because of Yanayev's more conservative views, Minister of Foreign Affairs Eduard Shevardnadze resigned from office to protest against the increasing numbers of conservatives in top political offices. At the beginning of January 1991, Yanayev headed a committee working on the formation of a new cabinet. Later, he was sent to the Soviet city of Kuznetsk to negotiate with a newly-formed independent trade union, making this the first time since 1917 that a Russian government official had negotiated with a trade union. However, after gaining the attention of the Soviet government, the unionists withdrew their plans for a strike.
Read more about this topic: Gennady Yanayev
Famous quotes containing the words vice president, vice and/or president:
“If the vice president thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure that abortion remains safe and legal.”
—Diane British (b. 1948)
“Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices that may accompany it. Accept no present whatever; let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“I tell you, you’re ruining that boy. You’re ruining him. Why can’t you do as much for me?”
—S.J. Perelman, U.S. screenwriter, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, and Norman Z. McLeod. Groucho Marx, Horsefeathers, a wisecrack made as Huxley College president to Connie, the college widow (Thelma Todd)