All-Union Referendum of March 17, 1991
Speaking of the all-Union referendum of March 17, 1991 on the preservation and renewal of the USSR, it must be noted that the question of holding it arose in a period when the country was experiencing a deep crisis of union statehood, accompanied by numerous interethnic conflicts and the gradual dismantling of the most important political institutions of the Soviet Union. Using physical terms, one can say that, beginning in the late 1980s, centrifugal tendencies in the development of the union state began to prevail over centripetal ones. At that time, nationalist ideas intensified in the Baltic republics, whose leaders were the first to embark on the path of separation from the Union, putting forward demands first for economic and then for political sovereignty. It was then, too, that inter-republican contradictions sharpened, escalating into armed conflicts, the largest of which was the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The essence of this conflict consisted in territorial disputes between the authorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan over the right to possess the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), which since 1923 had been part of Azerbaijan with a noticeable predominance of the Armenian population. According to official data, in 1989 the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was home to 189 thousand people, of whom Armenians made up 145.5 thousand (77%), and Azerbaijanis – 40.6 thousand (21.5%). Being dissatisfied with their situation, the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, in February 1988, began rallies in the capital of the autonomous oblast, Stepanakert, and submitted a petition to the Azerbaijani authorities demanding the return of the NKAO to the Armenian SSR. Under their pressure, on February 20, 1988, the Oblast Council of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast adopted a decision to ask the Supreme Soviets of the Azerbaijani and Armenian SSRs to transfer the NKAO from Azerbaijan to Armenia. However, the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee decided not to transfer the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast to the Armenian SSR, so as not to inflame passions and not to provoke a national conflict. Despite M. S. Gorbachev's appeal on February 26, 1988 to resolve the problem by peaceful means, the situation in Karabakh continued to worsen with each passing day.
On February 27–29, 1988, mass Armenian pogroms took place in Sumgait, as a result of which, according to official data, 32 people died (26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis), and over 100 people received injuries of varying severity. The tragic events in Sumgait led to serious changes in the mindset of the Armenian population not only in Karabakh, but also in the republic itself – in the demands and slogans of Armenian associations, harsh criticism of members of the CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Supreme Soviet increasingly began to be heard, which testified to a growing crisis of confidence in the central union authority. Subsequently this manifested itself during the All-Union referendum of March 17, 1991, in which, according to official data, only 3.5 thousand people took part in Armenia.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh occurred in mid-June 1988, when the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan (June 17) adopted a decision on the unacceptability of transferring the NKAO from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR, after which mutual forced resettlements began (about 130 thousand Azerbaijanis were resettled from Armenia and more than 200 thousand Armenians – from Azerbaijan). On January 12, 1989, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a decree on introducing a special form of administration in the NKAO and establishing a Committee of Special Administration of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast under the chairmanship of A.I. Volsky. After this, the situation in the region somewhat stabilized, although it still remained quite tense; there were street clashes in Stepanakert and Mardakert in April-May 1989.
On December 1, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of the Armenian SSR and the National Council of the NKAO, at a joint session, adopted a resolution "On the Reunification of the Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh," after which the next wave of unrest arose.
On January 13–18, 1990, mass Armenian pogroms took place in Baku, and on January 19–20 government troops were brought into the capital of the Azerbaijan SSR, which led to numerous disturbances and loss of life. According to official data, as a result of the clashes in Baku on January 19–20, 83 people died, including 14 servicemen and members of their families, but according to unofficial information the number of victims was far higher.
The armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh was the largest, but not the only, clash that occurred on ethnic grounds during the perestroika period. The first case of mass disturbances was recorded in Alma-Ata in December 1986. City residents, mainly young people, dissatisfied with the replacement of the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, D. Kunayev (an ethnic Kazakh), by a party functionary from the reserve of the CPSU Central Committee, G. I. Kolbin, took to the streets of the capital and began to smash shops and other public establishments. A peculiar manifestation of dissatisfaction with their political and social status were the so-called "sit-in demonstrations" of the Crimean Tatars on Red Square, which took place in the summer of 1987.
An entire complex of national contradictions that existed in Georgia, both between Georgians and Abkhazians and between national minorities within Georgia itself (Adzharians, Ossetians), led to a series of armed conflicts that occurred in the republic in 1988–1989. The culmination of the tension was the events in Tbilisi on April 8–9, 1989, when, during an operation by troops to push back participants in an unauthorized rally near the Government House organized by Georgian nationalists, a large group of civilians and servicemen suffered, and there were human casualties. All the above-noted interethnic conflicts and contradictions testified to a high degree of crisis that had struck not only the system of interethnic relations but the entire Soviet state as a whole, and confronted the union leadership with the necessity of carrying out a radical reform of the national-state structure of the Soviet Union. The main content of this reform was the democratization of relations between the union republics and the center, and the transformation of "...a bureaucratic unitary Union into an effective federation" on the basis of a new Union Treaty.
In many respects the problem of decentralizing the multiethnic union state was connected with the position of the leaders of the union and autonomous republics, who in 1990–1991 pursued a deliberate policy of separating from the USSR. According to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, A. I. Lukyanov, this was nothing other than "national careerism" of the "republican party princelings," the "swollen nomenklatura governors," the "unbridled economic managers," who, hiding behind statements about protecting national interests, could henceforth ignore the previously unassailable center. Such a position of the republican leaders relied on nationalist movements, fronts and foundations.
At the same time it must be noted that the existing model of the national-state structure of the USSR did not allow the union republics to fully realize their national-state sovereignty. As is known, the basis of national sovereignty was the right of nations to self-determination up to and including full secession, enshrined in the official documents of the USSR: the Treaty on the Formation of the USSR of 1922 (Art. 26), in the Constitution of the USSR of 1924 (Art. 4), 1936 (Art. 17) and 1977 (Art. 72). In accordance with these normative legal acts, the USSR was recognized as a federal multiethnic state, formed on a voluntary basis by union republics, each of which retained the right to freely secede from the Union. However, the mechanism of this right was not set out in official documents until 1990, and consequently this right was declaratory in nature, while the USSR was in fact a unitary centralized state governed from Moscow.
On April 3, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the law "On the Procedure for Resolving Questions Connected with the Secession of a Union Republic from the USSR," which stated that the decision on the secession of a union republic from the USSR is taken by the free expression of the will of the peoples of the union republic by way of a referendum. The referendum was conducted on the principles of a secret universal vote, and if more than 2/3 of the population of the republic voted for secession from the USSR, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was obliged to recognize this decision, after which that union republic, upon the expiration of a transition period (not more than five years), could obtain political independence. This law was adopted for the purpose of regulating the process of the secession of union republics from the USSR and was a reaction of the union authorities to the strengthening of separatist ideas in the union republics.
The first to go down this path were the Baltic republics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which throughout the entire period of the USSR's existence occupied a special position within it. Appealing to the fact of their unlawful incorporation into the USSR in 1940, the authorities in the Baltic republics took a hard opposition to the union center and, beginning in 1987–1988, began to pursue an openly separatist policy. Confirmation of the political claims of the Balts was the adoption by their republican Supreme Soviets in 1988–1989 of declarations of sovereignty, in accordance with which they were recognized as full-fledged subjects of intra-republican and all-union legislative activity, and as owners and managers of their economic potential. The final step in this direction was the proclamation by the Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR in March 1990 of Lithuania's independence and the adoption of the Fundamental Law of the Lithuanian SSR on the basis of the pre-Soviet Constitution of 1938. Soon similar legislative acts were adopted in Estonia and Latvia, after which the process of the Baltic republics' secession from the USSR became irreversible.
Following the Baltics, other union republics followed the path of sovereignization. In 1990, 11 republics of the USSR adopted their own declarations of sovereignty: Georgia (May 26), Russia (June 12), Uzbekistan (June 20), Moldavia (June 23), Ukraine (July 16), Belarus (July 27), Turkmenistan (August 22), Armenia and Tajikistan (August 24), Kazakhstan (October 25) and Kyrgyzstan (December 15). The key event in the process of decentralization and disintegration of the USSR was the adoption on June 12, 1990 by the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR of the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of the RSFSR, which proclaimed the state sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic throughout its territory. It was precisely the position of Russia led by B.N. Yeltsin – subsequently elected by popular vote on an alternative basis as President of the RSFSR – that was decisive in the fate of the union state at the last stage of its existence, since, as noted by the well-known Italian researcher G. Boffa, "...the Union could have survived without any of the other republics, which sooner or later would have come to understand how harmful it is to remain in isolation. But without Russia there could be no Union." This position is also held by the well-known domestic historian I. Ya. Froyanov, who asserts that it was precisely the Declaration on the Sovereignty of the RSFSR that launched the process of the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Due to the fact that the meaning of the term "sovereignty" was understood differently by union and republican leaders, various awkward situations in relations between them were inevitable. One of them occurred at the First Congress of People's Deputies of the RSFSR (May-June 1990), speaking at which the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, B.N. Yeltsin, set out his concept of sovereignty, which contradicted all legal norms. According to him, the most important primary sovereignty in Russia belongs to the individual. Next comes the sovereignty of the enterprise, the collective farm, the state farm and the district soviet. M.S. Gorbachev, launching criticism at B.N. Yeltsin, argued that genuine sovereignty can only belong to the state and the nation, and that such a – "Yeltsin" – interpretation of this term is absurd in its essence and creates unnecessary uncertainty and tension in relations between the different peoples living in Russia.
During his speech in Ufa on August 6, 1990, B.N. Yeltsin openly called on the autonomous republics to separate from the union center, uttering his famous phrase – "take as much independence as you can digest." This statement finally devalued the concepts of state and national sovereignty and served as an impetus for the sovereignization of the autonomous republics. From August to October 1990, the so-called "parade of sovereignties" took place, during which the majority of autonomous republics within the RSFSR, with the aim of "equalizing their state-legal status," adopted corresponding declarations of sovereignty: the Karelian ASSR (August 9), the Komi ASSR (October 11), the Tatar ASSR (August 31), the Udmurt Republic and the Yakut-Sakha ASSR (September 27), the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the Adyghe Autonomous Oblast (September 7), the Buryat ASSR (October 7), the Bashkir ASSR (October 11), the Kalmyk ASSR (October 19), the Mari ASSR (October 22), the Chuvash ASSR (October 24), the Yamalo-Nenets (October 17) and Gorno-Altai (October 25) autonomous okrugs, the Irkutsk region (October 26).
Formally, the declarations of sovereignty adopted by the union and autonomous republics proclaimed the right of nations to self-determination and created a new mechanism for inter-republican economic management. In fact, however, the main purpose of adopting these declarations was to establish the priority of republican laws over union laws, which significantly weakened the state sovereignty of the USSR. The process of sovereignization of the national republics provoked a "war of laws" between the union center and the union republics, primarily Russia led by B.N. Yeltsin, which seriously exacerbated inter-republican and inter-ethnic relations and in the future could lead the union state to complete disintegration.
It should be noted that the disruption of vertical ties between central and republican bodies proceeded not only along state lines but also along party lines. Back in December 1989, the Lithuanian Communist Party withdrew from the CPSU, after which a process of gradual degradation of the Communist Party and "departization" of society began, which was largely facilitated by the position of the union leadership headed by M.S. Gorbachev. The turning point in this process was the Third (Extraordinary) Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR (March 12–15, 1990), at which the historic decision was adopted to abolish Article 6 of the USSR Constitution on the leading role of the CPSU in Soviet society. By decision of the Third Congress of People's Deputies, the CPSU, which had been the core of real power in the USSR and the bulwark of union statehood, lost its former significance, which dealt a serious blow to the integrity of the union multinational state. It is worth adding that the process of gradual disintegration of the most important political institutions of the USSR was accompanied by a severe economic crisis that erupted in the country at the turn of the 1980s–1990s and manifested itself primarily in a total shortage of consumer goods. Gradually developing and intensifying, all the above-mentioned crisis phenomena led to the fact that by the end of 1990 the question of preserving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had turned into a question of the life and death of the Soviet state and the Soviet people representing it.
A detailed analysis in the scholarly article by Candidate of Historical Sciences Lukashin Alexander Vladimirovich: "Problems of organizing and conducting the all-union referendum of March 17, 1991 and the paths of development of the union federation"
Having considered the report of the Central Commission of the USSR Referendum on the results of the first referendum in the history of our country, held on 17 March 1991, on the question of preserving 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, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR notes the high activity and civic responsibility of the participants in the nationwide vote. According to preliminary data, 147 million people took part in the referendum in the country as a whole. 112 million people, i.e. 76 percent of those who voted, spoke in favor of preserving the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[...] Despite the fact that the authorities of a number of republics (Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Latvia, Armenia and Estonia) did not comply with the decisions of the IV Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on holding the referendum, there were violations of the constitutional rights of citizens, moral pressure on them, and blocking of polling stations, more than two million citizens of the USSR living in these republics expressed their will and said "yes" to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[...]
Do you consider it necessary to preserve (keep, leave in force) the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (state) as a renewed (having received a new, former appearance, new, former strength, as it were reborn) federation (a union state formed as a result of the unification of several states) of equal sovereign (being bearers of supreme power) republics (exploitative states with an unspecified parliamentary or presidential system), in which the rights and freedoms of a person of any nationality will be fully guaranteed.
As for the republics that did not support it, there was self-organization at the local level despite the unwillingness of the "top", the referendum was held at plants, factories, etc., and the results for them also exist. Apart from the Armenian SSR with 71.6%, the rest voted more than 95% IN FAVOR (often 98%, 99%).