The Chechen Revolution was a series of anti-government protests in the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic against the local Communist Party officials.

The event occurred during the Dissolution of the Soviet Union and was brought by the failed 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev intended to save the Union from collapse. While the coup was opposed by many union republics, including Russia, local Soviet Chechen leadership was seen as supporting the coup, which triggered demonstrations and calls to resign from anti-Soviet and nationalist opposition led by All-National Congress of the Chechen People and its chairman Dzhokhar Dudayev. Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, who played the crucial role in the failure of the coup and subsequently emerged as a dominant leader, also turned against the local Soviet Chechen leadership of Doku Zavgayev.

The chain of events led to the collapse of Zavgayev's authority and assumption of power by the Provisional Supreme Soviet consisting of Dudayev's supporters and former Communist Party members. However, the subsequent confrontation between the Russian leadership and Dudayev's supporters led to Dudayev's faction withdrawing from the Provisional Supreme Soviet and declaring the National Congress as a sole legitimate authority in the republic. The snap elections were held and Dudayev declared Chechnya's independence from Russia, which ushered the republic into a decade of de facto but internationally unrecognized self-rule.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev, a new leader of the Soviet Union, launched campaigns of Glasnost and Perestroika reforms. The increasing decentralization, however, led to a power struggle between the Soviet central government and the leaderships of its constituent republics, which included ex-Communist Boris Yeltsin of Russian SFSR. From 1988 to 1991, the constituent republics passed "declarations of sovereignty", which asserted the priority of the constituent republic power in their territory over the central power (but not complete independence). In June 1990, the Russian SFSR passed the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Gorbachev designed a New Union Treaty for preserving the Soviet Union with a less centralized federal system, but Yeltsin called for a far more decentralized model and accused Gorbachev's reforms of being a "sham". Yeltsin denounced Gorbachev as "conservative" and "reactionary", especially after his use of force in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Baltics. He attacked the Soviet leader for "failing to implement" his liberal reforms and accused him of leading the country into a "dictatorship".

Along with the USSR's constituent republics, all federal units within the RSFSR also passed proclamations of sovereignty. In an attempt to undermine Yeltsin's rule, Gorbachev supported these republics, which included Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Republic within the RSFSR. Gorbachev even promised the Russian autonomies more rights. On 26 April 1990, a Soviet law was adopted which granted the autonomies full power in their territories and made them "subjects of the USSR", thus upgrading their status so they could participate within "renewed federation" on "equal footing" with the union republics. Yeltsin sought to counter this tactic by declaring Russia's sovereignty.

During Glasnost, a nationalist opposition began to grow in Chechnya demanding more national self-determination for Chechen people, with some calling for independence. In July 1989, Bart (Unity) was established as a first overtly oppositional political organization in the republic. It was later renamed into the Vainakh Democratic Party in February 1990. It was instrumental in assembling the Chechen National Congress in November 1990. On 25 November the Congress declared the republic's sovereignty, albeit lacking legal authority. It proclaimed the sovereign Chechen Republic Nokhchi-cho. The National Congress elected Dzhokhar Dudayev, a Soviet air force major general serving in Estonia, as a chairman of its executive committee. The National Congress asked the Supreme Soviet of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic "to ratify the declaration of sovereignty". On 27 November, the Supreme Soviet passed a declaration of sovereignty, which was thus one of the last ones in the "parade of sovereignties". While most of the Russia's federal units ultimately declared about their sovereignty within the Russian SFSR, thus supporting Yeltsin rather than Gorbachev, Chechnya-Ingushetia and Tatarstan did not do so. Chechen declaration of sovereignty did not have reference that Chechnya was declaring sovereignty within Russian SFSR or USSR, as was the norm with the other republics, and it established the conditions under which the republic would sign Gorbachev's New Union Treaty. Despite the ambitious tone of the declaration, Soviet Chechen leader Doku Zavgayev only intended it to provoke economic and political concessions from Moscow. While Zavgayev grew defiant to central authorities, he still did not want Chechnya to secede from Moscow. Still, Gorbachev and his government were worried about Chechen claims, considering them to be too excessive.

Yeltsin also promised greater recognition to autonomies within a sovereign Russia, but Zavgayev refused to hold a Russian referendum to create a Russian presidency in March 1991, obeying Gorbachev's instructions. This led to Yeltsin's circle criticizing Zavgayev. Instead, Chechnya took part in Soviet referendum to preserve the USSR. This led to further criticism, since Yeltsin claimed that the referendum was called by Gorbachev to "fight against the Russian republic's independence". Gorbachev tried to present himself as a defender of "Soviet multiculturalism" against Yeltsin's Russian nationalism. The Russian ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) leaders feared that the revitalized strength of the Russian SFSR threatened to relegate their place in the Russian and Soviet hierarchy. Also, the ASSR leaders, which were propelled through corruption and clan hierarchy, feared Yeltsin's brand of populism, which could sweep away the corrupt Party networks painted by nationalist populist democrat Yeltsin as "atavistic remnants of communism".

Yeltsin presented himself as a "democratic" and "anti-communist" leader. Yeltsin visited Chechnya in March 1991. In April 1991, the RSFSR Supreme Soviet proceeded to pass a Law on the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples, which was popular among Chechens, who had been deported en masse by Soviet authorities in 1944. During his presidential campaign, Yeltsin promoted the self-determination and used the slogan "Take as much sovereignty as you can swallow". According to Emil Pain and Arkadii Popov, Yeltsin's team "promised to maximize the autonomy of Russia's constituent republics, and was willing to ignore the anti-constitutional games played by republican authorities and nationalist movements that advocated different versions of ethnic sovereignty". In June 1991, Chechnya took part in the Russian presidential elections, and 80% of Chechens voted in favor of Yeltsin. While the National Congress did not want the election to be held in Chechnya, considering it to be sovereign from Russia, according to Dr. Tracey German, "the election issue demonstrated the extent of Zavgayev's resolve in his confrontation with the centre". He endorsed the elections and one week before it even supported Yeltsin's candidacy.