Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse

The article is devoted to the consideration of internal political processes in the Soviet Union at the final stage of its existence, in particular, the political struggle between the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev and Republican leaders in the course of the preparation of the draft Union Treat...

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Main Author: A. V. Lukashin
Format: Article
Language:Russian
Published: State University of Management 2018-09-01
Series:Управление
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Online Access:https://upravlenie.guu.ru/jour/article/view/48
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author A. V. Lukashin
author_facet A. V. Lukashin
author_sort A. V. Lukashin
collection DOAJ
description The article is devoted to the consideration of internal political processes in the Soviet Union at the final stage of its existence, in particular, the political struggle between the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev and Republican leaders in the course of the preparation of the draft Union Treaty in the autumn of 1991 («Novo-Ogarevo-2»). The task of the research is to reconstruct the process of preparation of the draft Union Treaty in September-November 1991, its discussions during the meetings of the State Council of the USSR, and to assess the role of this Treaty in the dismantling of the USSR`s political system. The main source of this research was the verbatim records of the State Council`s meetings, numerous comments and additions to the autumn draft of the Union Treaty, which are stored in the archive Gorbachev Foundation. On the basis of these archival documents, as well as press materials, documentary collections, memories of eyewitnesses of those events, the author compares the positions of the Union and the Republican leaders on the structure of the future Union of the USSR: membership in the updated Union, the tax system, state bodies, the legal system. The key problem, to which all discussions of the Union Treaty were reduced, concerned distribution of power between the Union and Republican elites. The analysis of the sources allows us to conclude that during the autumn negotiations a compromise between the Union and the Republican leaders was impossible - the project “Novo-Ogarevo-2” was doomed to failure initially. If M.S. Gorbachev made attempts to legally secure the preservation of the Union in the form of a confederation, the Republican leaders, first of all, the President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, based on the adopted Declaration of sovereignty, sought independence and separation from the USSR. The Union Treaty, originally designed to create the necessary balance in the relations between the Center and the republics, in practice was an instrument for the implementation of the ambitions of the Republican elites and became one of the factors of the USSR`s collapse.
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spelling doaj-art-f51d3b7f53b9454d92bb9081afbac28e2025-02-04T09:04:37ZrusState University of ManagementУправление2309-36332713-16452018-09-0163727910.26425/2309-3633-2018-3-72-7948Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapseA. V. Lukashin0Российский государственный архив социально-политической истории; Государственный университет управленияThe article is devoted to the consideration of internal political processes in the Soviet Union at the final stage of its existence, in particular, the political struggle between the President of the USSR M.S. Gorbachev and Republican leaders in the course of the preparation of the draft Union Treaty in the autumn of 1991 («Novo-Ogarevo-2»). The task of the research is to reconstruct the process of preparation of the draft Union Treaty in September-November 1991, its discussions during the meetings of the State Council of the USSR, and to assess the role of this Treaty in the dismantling of the USSR`s political system. The main source of this research was the verbatim records of the State Council`s meetings, numerous comments and additions to the autumn draft of the Union Treaty, which are stored in the archive Gorbachev Foundation. On the basis of these archival documents, as well as press materials, documentary collections, memories of eyewitnesses of those events, the author compares the positions of the Union and the Republican leaders on the structure of the future Union of the USSR: membership in the updated Union, the tax system, state bodies, the legal system. The key problem, to which all discussions of the Union Treaty were reduced, concerned distribution of power between the Union and Republican elites. The analysis of the sources allows us to conclude that during the autumn negotiations a compromise between the Union and the Republican leaders was impossible - the project “Novo-Ogarevo-2” was doomed to failure initially. If M.S. Gorbachev made attempts to legally secure the preservation of the Union in the form of a confederation, the Republican leaders, first of all, the President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, based on the adopted Declaration of sovereignty, sought independence and separation from the USSR. The Union Treaty, originally designed to create the necessary balance in the relations between the Center and the republics, in practice was an instrument for the implementation of the ambitions of the Republican elites and became one of the factors of the USSR`s collapse.https://upravlenie.guu.ru/jour/article/view/48collapse of the ussrunion treatystate council of the ussrconfederationnational republicsinternal political processesnegotiations between political leadersnational-state model
spellingShingle A. V. Lukashin
Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
Управление
collapse of the ussr
union treaty
state council of the ussr
confederation
national republics
internal political processes
negotiations between political leaders
national-state model
title Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
title_full Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
title_fullStr Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
title_full_unstemmed Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
title_short Drafting of the Union treaty in September-December 1991: from the dismantling of statehood to the USSR's collapse
title_sort drafting of the union treaty in september december 1991 from the dismantling of statehood to the ussr s collapse
topic collapse of the ussr
union treaty
state council of the ussr
confederation
national republics
internal political processes
negotiations between political leaders
national-state model
url https://upravlenie.guu.ru/jour/article/view/48
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