New Union Treaty
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The New Union Treaty was a draft treaty that would have replaced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and thus replaced the Soviet Union by a new entity. A signing seremony for the treaty was scheduled for 20 August, 1991, but was prevented by the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 a day earlier.
A loose federal system as a solution to the Soviet Union's increasing ethnic problems was proposed by President Gorbachev during the Communist Party Congress of July 1990. A draft of the New Union Treaty was submitted to the Supreme Soviet in on November 23 1990. A drafting committee started work on the text on January 1, 1991. Six of the fifteen Soviet republics however did not participate in drafting of the treaty: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Georgia and Armenia, i.e. the six Christian non-Slav of the fifteen republics. The proposal was approved by the Union Council on March 6 and sent to the Supreme Congresses of the republics for approval. Agreement could not be reached on the distribution of power between the Union and the Republics and the proposal was not approved.
President Gorbachev tried to gain popular support for the proposal. In a national referendum held on March 17, 1991, 76% of voters supported maintaining the federal system of the Soviet Union, including a majority in all of the nine republics which participated in the drafting. Opposition was greatest in large cities like Leningrad and Moscow. The referendum was boycotted in the other six republics.
An agreement between the Soviet central government and nine republics, the so-called "9+1" agreement was finally signed at Novo-Ogarevo, a government dacha outside of Moscow, on April 23, 1991. The New Union Treaty would have made the Soviet Republics independent republics in a federation with a common president, foreign policy, and military. The treaty would have transferred a major share of the central presidential authority to the republics.
Only nine republics had indicated a willingness to remain in the USSR. The three Baltic Republics had already chosen the path to independence. Though the treaty was intended to save the union, hardliners feared that it would encourage some of the smaller republics to follow the lead of Lithuania and press for full independence.
[edit] References
- The USSR in 1991: The Implosion of a Superpower by Dr Robert F. Miller
- 1991 Diplomatic Bluebook, Section 4. The Soviet Union by the Japanese Foreign Ministry
