The constitutional crisis of 1993 was a en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Laws#Issues_in_a_new_Russia between the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Russia and the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Soviet_of_Russia that was resolved by using military force. The relations between the president and the parliament had been deteriorating for some time. The en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_crisis reached a tipping point on September 21, 1993, when en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin purported to dissolve the country's legislature (the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_People%27s_Deputies_of_Rus and its en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Soviet_of_Russia ), although the president did not have the power to dissolve the parliament according to the constitution. Yeltsin used the results of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_government_referendum,_1993 to justify his actions. In response, the parliament declared that the president's decision was null and void, impeached Yeltsin and proclaimed vice president en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Rutskoy to be acting president.The situation deteriorated at the beginning of October. On October 3, demonstrators removed police cordons around the parliament and, urged by their leaders, took over the Mayor's offices and tried to storm the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostankino_District television centre. The army, which had initially declared its neutrality, by Yeltsin's orders stormed the Supreme Soviet building in the early morning hours of October 4, and arrested the leaders of the resistance.The ten-day conflict became the deadliest single event of street fighting in Moscow's history since the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Revolution of 1917.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis#cite_note-2 According to government estimates, 187 people were killed and 437 wounded, while sources close to Russian communists put the death toll at as high as 2,000.