Exactly 25 years ago, citizens of the Soviet Union voted to preserve the USSR in a special all-Union referendum. More precisely, they believed that they were voting for this, but the reality turned out to be much more complicated. It included not only betrayal, when the Union was dissolved without regard to the plebiscite, but also a much more multi-stage lie.
A quarter of a century ago, Soviet citizens came to polling stations to speak out about the fate of their country. A vote took place, which to this day is called a referendum on the preservation of the USSR. The overwhelming majority of those who voted - 76%, or 112 million people in absolute terms - were in favor. But for what exactly? Did the citizens of the USSR understand that they were actually voting not for the preservation, but for the collapse of the country?
Referendum as shock therapy
The program of political and socio-economic transformations proclaimed by Mikhail Gorbachev's team almost immediately resulted in an acute state crisis. Since 1986, bloody conflicts on interethnic grounds have constantly flared up in the USSR. First, Alma-Ata, then the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, pogroms in Sumgait, Kirovabad, massacres in the Kazakh New Uzgen, massacres in Fergana, pogroms in Andijan, Osh, Baku. At the same time, nationalist movements in the Baltics, seemingly out of nowhere, were rapidly gaining strength. From November 1988 to July 1989, the Estonian, Lithuanian, and Latvian SSRs consistently declared their sovereignty, soon followed by the Azerbaijan and Georgian SSRs.
Under these conditions, the bulk of Soviet citizens assessed the processes taking place in the country - and this must be admitted! - completely inadequate. It almost never occurred to anyone that the conflicts flaring up on the periphery could mean the imminent collapse of the country. The union seemed unshakable. There were no precedents for secession from the Soviet state. There was no legal procedure for the secession of the republics. People were waiting for the restoration of order and the normalization of the situation.
Instead, on December 24, 1990, the IV Congress of People's Deputies suddenly put to a vote the following questions: "Do you consider it necessary to preserve the USSR as a single state?" the renewed Union of Soviet power? " Following the congress, at the request of Mikhail Gorbachev, it decided to bring the issue of preserving the USSR to an all-Union referendum.
In the resolution on its implementation, the only question to the Soviet people was formulated as follows: "Do you consider it necessary to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed." And the answer options are "yes" or "no".
From the USSR to Russia: how our country has changed in thirty years
Some assessments of this document have survived, which is interesting - from the side of the anti-Soviet democratic public. Thus, the People's Deputy of the USSR Galina Starovoitova spoke about "a pile of contradictory and even mutually exclusive concepts."And human rights activist, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Malva Landa, stated: “The question is crafty, it is calculated that people will not be able to figure it out. This is not one, but at least six questions. " True, human rights activists and democrats at that time believed that this confusion was deliberately created by the communists to hide in a fog of vague formulations of the forthcoming "unpopular and anti-popular actions" to stifle free thought and return back to the Brezhnev era.
In one thing they were not mistaken - vague formulations really served to conceal the coming "unpopular and anti-popular actions." But with the opposite sign.
For what (or against what) were the citizens of the country proposed to vote? For the preservation of the USSR? Or for a new state structure - a renewed federation? What is it and how to relate to the phrase "federation … of sovereign republics"? That is, the Soviet people simultaneously voted for the preservation of the USSR and for the "parade of sovereignties"?
The referendum was held in nine Soviet republics. Moldova, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia sabotaged the holding of the referendum on their territory, although the vote did not bypass them - for example, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Gagauzia, and the north-eastern regions of Estonia joined the expression of their will "privately". Not everything went smoothly even where the plebiscite was carried out in full. So, in the Kazakh SSR the wording of the question was changed to: "Do you consider it necessary to preserve the USSR as a Union of equal sovereign states?" In Ukraine, an additional question was included in the bulletin: "Do you agree that Ukraine should be part of the Union of Soviet Sovereign States on the basis of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine?" In both cases (and obviously not by chance), the new state was called the Union of Sovereign States (UIT).
Rebuild - the result of rebuilding
The question of reorganizing the USSR was raised back in the late 1980s. Initially, it was about amending the Constitution with the aim of restructuring life "on a democratic basis." The unrest that broke out in the country, followed by the "parade of sovereignties" with the announcement of the priority of the republican legislation over the union, caused a reaction that was largely paradoxical. Instead of suspending reforms until order and the rule of law were established throughout the country, it was decided to force reforms.
In December 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR as a whole approved the draft of a new Union Treaty proposed by Mikhail Gorbachev to replace the document in force since 1922 uniting the country into a single whole. That is, in the conditions of the growing disintegration of the state, the first president of the USSR decided to disassemble and rebuild the country on new principles.
What was the foundation of this Union? The draft Union Treaty was finalized in the spring and summer of 1991 during numerous meetings and conferences with republican leaders at Gorbachev's country residence in Novo-Ogarevo. The President of the country actively discussed the reassembly of the state with the growing national elites. The final version of the Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States (the JIT is an amazing coincidence with the Kazakh and Ukrainian bulletins, isn't it?) Was published in the Pravda newspaper on August 15, 1991. It, in particular, said: "The states forming the Union have full political power, independently determine their national state structure, the system of authorities and administration." The jurisdiction of the states, and not even the "sovereign republics" (the masks were thrown off), were transferred to the formation of a law enforcement system, their own army, they could independently act in the foreign policy arena on a number of issues.
The new Union of Sovereign States was thus only a relatively civilized form of divorce.
But what about the referendum? It fits perfectly into the logic of the processes taking place. Recall that in December 1990, the draft of the new Union Treaty was approved for work, on March 17, a referendum "on the preservation of the USSR" was held with a very vague wording of the question, and on March 21, 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a resolution in which it stated no less casuistically: “For the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics … 76% of the voters spoke out. Thus, the position on the issue of preserving the USSR on the basis of democratic reforms was supported. " Consequently, "the state bodies of the USSR and the republics (should) be guided by the decision of the people … in support of the renewed (!) Union of Soviet Socialist Republics." On this basis, the President of the USSR is advised to "more energetically lead matters towards the completion of the work on the new Union Treaty in order to sign it as soon as possible."
Thus, the new Union Treaty and the strange formation of the JIT through simple manipulations were legitimized through the 1991 referendum.
Costly paternalism
The signing of the new Union Treaty was thwarted by the August 1991 coup. It is characteristic that in its address to the people, speaking about certain forces (but not naming them directly), which headed for the collapse of the country, the GKChP opposed them precisely with the results of the March referendum "on the preservation of the USSR." That is, even high-ranking statesmen did not understand the essence of the multi-step manipulation that took place before their eyes.
After the failure of the putsch, Gorbachev prepared a new draft of the Union Treaty - even more radical, this time about a confederation of states - former Soviet republics. But its signing was thwarted by the local elites, tired of waiting and behind Gorbachev's back, they disbanded the USSR in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. However, it is enough to look at the text of the treaty that the President of the USSR was working on to understand that he was preparing the same CIS for us.
In December 1991, another referendum was held in Ukraine - this time on independence. 90% of those who took part in the vote were in favor of "independence". Today, a shocking video of that time is available on the Web - journalists interview Kiev residents at the exit from polling stations. People who have just voted for the collapse of the country are fully confident that they will continue to live in a single Union, with single production and economic ties and a single army. "Nezalezhnosti" was perceived as a kind of eccentricity of the authorities. The absolutely paternalistic-minded citizens of the disintegrating USSR believed that the leadership knew what it was doing. Well, for some reason he wanted to hold several referendums (democratization in the country, maybe this is really necessary?), We do not mind, we will vote. In general (and there was iron confidence in this respect), nothing will fundamentally change …
It took many years and through a lot of blood to heal from this ultra-paternalism and an extremely detached view of politics.
The surrealism of what was happening confused not only ordinary people. After the officially formalized dissolution of the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from himself as president of the USSR, the leadership of a number of republics continued to await instructions from Moscow. And it was extremely perplexed that such instructions were not received, cutting off the phones in attempts to contact the no longer existing union center.
Much later, in 1996, the State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted a resolution "On the legal force for the Russian Federation - Russia of the results of the USSR referendum on March 17, 1991 on the issue of preserving the USSR." And since there was no other referendum on this issue, she declared illegal the decree of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of 1991 "On the denunciation of the Treaty on the formation of the USSR" and legally recognized the USSR as an existing political entity.
That is, even the deputies of the Russian State Duma, five years after the referendum, still believed that it was "about the preservation of the USSR." Which, as we saw at least from the wording of the question, does not correspond to reality. The referendum was about "reformatting" the country.
This, however, does not at all negate the paradoxical fact that people - citizens of the country, in spite of everything, without delving into the wording, voted precisely for the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But all 112 million who voted were subsequently cynically deceived.
