Communist Party of the Soviet Union along with the institution of free multiparty elections led to a decline in the party's power, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the banning of the party by later last RSFSR President Boris Yeltsin and subsequent first President of an evolving democratic and free market economy of the successor Russian Federation. A number of causes contributed to CPSU's loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union during the early 1990s. Some historians have written that Gorbachev's policy of "glasnost" (political openness) was the root cause, noting that it weakened the party's control over society. Gorbachev maintained
Mikhail Gorbachev remove Gorbachev from power and prevent the signing of the new union treaty. Under the pretense that Gorbachev was ill, his vice president, Yanayev, took over as president. Gorbachev spent three days (19, 20, and 21 August) under house arrest at his dacha in the Crimea before being freed and restored to power. However, upon his return, Gorbachev found that neither Union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands, as support had swung over to Yeltsin, whose defiance had led to the coup's collapse. Furthermore, Gorbachev was forced to fire large numbers of his Politburo and, in several cases, arrest