Absolutely no one "voted to keep the Soviet Union together", Owen Jones

The late Soviet period under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev continues to inspire nostalgia from those with no personal memories of it.

When he passed away in 2022, there were some major omissions in how the media reflected on his role (not as the Pizza Hut ad guy, but prior to that as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet).

Most international reports said he was praised by the world for ending the Cold War, but often reviled in Russia for ending the Soviet Union.

Just those two opinions. For some reason, there was usually little space to mention the one region where his impact was most significant and the fact he is also reviled for his role in using deadly violence in an attempt to maintain the imposition of Soviet rule, such as through the January Events.

More recently, columnist Owen Jones has been offering his own reflections on the period, echoing the current Russian ruler in saying that "the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the great catastrophes of our age".

"An alternative would have kept the USSR together (Baltic states aside) on a democratic basis," he fantasised

That "Baltic states aside" needs addressing, but lets first look at the ludicrous next sentance.

"Notably, a Soviet-wide referendum in March 1991 overwhelmingly voted to keep the Union together (although it was boycotted by six of the fifteen republics - in the Baltic and three small republics).”

About that referendum

What's true is that most people who took part in that referendum picked the option that sounds, on its own, like an endorsement for keeping the Soviet Union together.

But the thing about referendums is that there generally needs to be more than one option.

In this case, the other option also sounded, on its own, like the option for keeping the Soviet Union together.

Recognising that specific referendum as meaningful reveals a lack of seriousness on this subject.

It was deliberately worded badly as basically: “Yes, I consider it necessary to keep the USSR as a reformed entity” or “No, I consider it necessary to keep the USSR as it is right now”.

The yes vote that Owen describes as people wanting to save the Soviet Union was the vote in favour of reforms and therefore actually the closest option offered for rejecting the system.

The referendum question was altered in some places, adding extra confusion to the process but also a clearer indication of what people actually wanted, most notably in Ukraine where an additional reference to sovereignty meant it passed overwhelmingly.

More useful to know is that Ukrainians later that same year held a clear unambiguous referendum on full independence and that passed with 92.26% in favour nationally and majority support in every Ukrainian region.

“Baltic states aside”

So let's get back to this part.

Why didn’t the Soviet Union itself just put the Baltic states aside?

There were, in fact, a lot of influential voices in the late 80s, both in Russia and the West, who argued for this Baltic exception - not necessarily out of compassion for the Baltics under brutal occupation - but because they reasoned this was the best way to save the Soviet Union.

They argued the Soviet Union should treat the Baltics as a special case, provide some kind of exceptional autonomy status (how generous!), and therefore contain the momentum toward independence from spreading beyond the Baltics.

Moscow rejected that idea. It understood that acknowledging why the Baltics were a special case was fatal to the entire myth of the Soviet Union.

In an attempt to placate the Baltic countries in the run up to the Baltic Chain protest - which was marking the 50th anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that directly led to their occupation - Moscow did reluctantly officially admit to illegal collusion with Nazi Germany over the pact, but then also maintained the absurd line that this didn’t alter the legal status of the Baltics as part of the Soviet Union.

As reported on 19 August 1991, such as this from the LA Times:

Reversing decades of Kremlin denials, a senior Politburo member Friday conceded for the first time that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under dictator Josef Stalin signed a secret pact on the eve of World War II that cleared the way for the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states.

But Alexander N. Yakovlev, while arguing that the secret protocol to the 1939 nonaggression accord should be "unequivocally condemned," denied that it had any legal impact on the Baltic states' current status as members of the Soviet federation.

The timing of Yakovlev's admission, only days before demonstrations are planned to mark the 50th anniversary of the signing of the protocol, appeared to be a calculated risk on Moscow's part.

They were all kinda right

Either way, treating the Baltics as a special case or not treating the Baltics as a special case both would have led to the whole Soviet empire unraveling.

There was simply no magical good option to save the collapsing system because it was fundamentally just a shit system that people forced to live under hated (or at least had long lost enthusiasm for).

No one knows what the actual numbers would be if Soviet citizens were given a real choice on whether they wanted to keep the Soviet Union together. Sure, plenty of people especially in Russia would have voted for it (while many Russians did go out and protest in huge numbers against the Soviet Union). But the choice was never offered because the system wouldn't have survived it.

A more democratic Soviet Union wouldn’t simply shut up the disillusioned masses. It would have meant more opportunities to discuss the horrors of how the Soviet Union was formed and held together, and more opportunities to discuss the potential of nations held back by that.

The Soviet Union couldn't be saved. The magical thinking is just more imperial entitlement.