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President of the Russian republic who criticized the slow pace of Mikhail Gorbachev 's reforms. In 1991, he successfully led the opposition to an attempted coup by communist hard-liners and became the most powerful person in the former Soviet Union . As president, Yeltsin led the Russian republic in its difficult and often chaotic struggle to move away from centralized economic planning, but he was plagued by poor health, conservative opposition, and a lagging economy. He was succeeded by Vladimir Putin .