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Something to remember: 13 years ago we said “yes” to USSR
03/18/2004 18:05

A referendum regarding the issue of USSR took place on March 17th 1991.

Members of the referendum tried to decide whether the country should be kept
as a union of republics. Despite the fact that majority of the members had
answered positively on the posed question, several months later the union
has crumbled.

13 years ago, Soviet citizens were addressed the following question: “Do you
consider preserving the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in a form of
renewed federation of equal sovereign republics, with guaranteed human
rights and personal freedom of people of various nationalities?”

Some republics and regions have also included some of their own questions.
Based on the official soviet data, 147 million people (80%) voted. Among
them, 112 million (76,4%) voted for preserving the USSR. Armenia, Georgia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, and Estonia ignored voting altogether. In 1996,
Russian State Duma passed a specific resolution thus admitting legal power
of those results of the referendum of March 17th, 1991.

Interestingly, Russians already started to forget those results of the
referendum. When asked who they voted for, 40% turned out to vote “For”,
another 40% could not remember, 13% had troubles answering the question.

At the same time, amount of those who do not regret the USSR”s collapse has
reduced almost in half. While in 1992 32% of Russians did not wish for the
collapse, today there remain only 15%. 80% of people think that USSR should
have been preserved. 58% of Russians however consider it impossible to
reconstruct former Union. Only 30% still believe in the possibility.

Here is a reminder for those who do not remember:

An agreement entitled “Belovezhskoe Soglashenie” was signed on December 8th
1991 between Belarus and Ukraine. The agreement ascertained the fact that
the Union of Soviet Republics had ceased to exist and a new Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) has been formed. The agreement was signed by the
following parties: Boris Yeltsin, Stanislav Shushkevish and Leonid Kravchuk.

“Belavezhskoe soglashenie” has later been referred to as the conspiracy of
the traitors and the three men were called names to their faces. All three
of them are still alive; none of them is at power; all of them have a rather
controversial reputation in their now-independent countries.

In conclusion, one’s role in the history has been acknowledged even by the
Bolsheviks, even though according to their theory, even the most gifted
individual is nothing without the support of the masses. Based on numerous
examples from the history of our nation, our geniuses were capable of doing
pretty much anything.They could easily make a mess and have future
generations clean up after them, or they could simply give away a
significant portion of the country’s vast territory to a neighbor.for free.

Yegor Belous