"Boris, you are wrong" (Russian: Борис, ты не прав) is a political catchphrase, an interpretation of the phrase originally said by Yegor Ligachev to Boris Yeltsin on 1 July 1988 to tackle Yeltsin's split from Soviet politics.
Ligachev was at the time a member of the Politburo, while Yeltsin was First Deputy Chairman of the Soviet State Committee for Construction. Speaking at the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU, Yeltsin offered a sharp criticism of the Politburo, and Ligachev personally, for being insufficiently democratic and slowing down the Perestroika.[1]
Ligachev's speech was a direct rebuttal for Yeltsin:
Some sources suggest that "within days" or "within just a few weeks" after the event people in Moscow started to wear lapel buttons saying, "Yegor, you are wrong!"[2] as well as distributing posters and badges that said "Boris, you are right."[3]
However, other sources suggest that the form "Boris, you are wrong" became popular only after the 1989 monologue "The Baltics Deputy" by the comedian Gennady Khazanov, written by Aleksandr Tarasul, which was a satirical interpretation of the political developments in the USSR with its plot transferred to the 17th century Russia. In the piece, Malyuta Skuratov criticized Boris Godunov, saying: "You are wrong, Boris".[4] [5]
The phrase has been used in later Russian publications to admonish or rebuke the opposing side in the form "N, you are wrong". Following Yeltsin's death in 2007, Ligachev upheld his criticism by saying that what he told Yeltsin back then was right in his opinion.[6] Ligachev's own 2012 memoir book is titled Boris Was Wrong .