The Lost Twenty-Five Years
... voted in favour of “the preservation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedoms of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed.” This was Mikhail Gorbachev’s final attempt to stop the disintegration of a major country. Nine months later, following a referendum on Ukraine’s independence on December 1st, the Soviet Union officially ceased to exist. The Ukrainians, of whom more than 70 percent had voted to preserve the Soviet Union in the March referendum, this time voted 90 percent in favour of independence....