On the zigzag road to independence, which began more than a century ago with many failed attempts, Ukrainian The referendum took place on December 1, 1991, which stood out as a major turning point.
In the days leading up to the vote, even Ukraine’s most ardent independence supporters were uncertain, concerned about the large number of ethnic minorities. Russian in Soviet Ukraine, especially in Crimea and the eastern regions. But when votes were counted on December 3, 1991, 31 years ago, the results surprised even the most optimistic observers—more than 90% of Soviet Ukraine’s population voted in favor of independence. create.
With a voter turnout of 84%, people from all regions participated, including an estimated 17% of Ukraine’s ethnic Russians, who made up a significant portion of the southern provinces. east of the country. Exceeding expectations, every of Ukraine’s 25 administrative regions voted to become a state. Furthermore, the Ukrainian people voted to elect their president on the same day that all six candidates were pro-independence.
The results of the 1991 national referendum shed light on Russia’s brutal and inhuman war in present-day Ukraine. Because it’s a war based on the old Russian argument that Ukraine is not a country but a collection of different regions, divided by religion and nationality and linked to Russia.
Seven months after the gratuitous war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially annexed four eastern regions of Ukraine on September 30, 2022, on the basis of the false argument that Russia was merely giving the this area of self-determination, to return to Mother Russia as it is said to be desired.
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President Leonid Kravchuk leaves a polling station during a vote for the referendum on Ukraine’s independence.
Photo by Georges DeKeerle/Sygma via Getty Images
Using the same arguments that Adolf Hitler made to justify the annexation of Western Czechoslovakia in 1938—to restore self-determination to ethnic Germans in the region—Putin in 2022 condemned the to lose large numbers of ethnic Russians to the seceding republics after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Given that these countries’ desire for independence was entirely due to outside Western influence Putin tried to rewrite history of the recent past on the basis of false claims, declaring: “It is the so-called West that trampled on the principle of the inviolability of borders, and now now it’s deciding, in its own discretion, who has the right to decide and who doesn’t, who doesn’t deserve it.”
In eastern Ukraine, Putin continued, ethnic Russians in 1991 were forcibly annexed to Ukraine against their will: “In 1991…without asking the will of ordinary people, representatives of the elites party then decided to destroy the Soviet Union, and the people suddenly found themselves far from their homeland. This has torn and divided our country, becoming a national disaster… I want everyone to remember this: people living in Luhansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia have become our citizens. forever!”
But to mark today’s anniversary, we should remember the real facts about the people of eastern Ukraine and their aspirations. When the results of the December 1991 national referendum were counted, residents of the four regions of eastern Ukraine that Russia annexed Russia voted in favor of Ukraine’s independence by an overwhelming margin: 83.9 % in the Donetsk region, 73% in the Luhansk region, 90.66% in the Zaporizhzhia region, and 86.33% in the Kherson region.
The December 1991 national referendum in Ukraine built on the momentum for separation that began on August 24, 1991, when the Ukrainian parliament voted on separation—only two out of 353 MPs voted against independence.
The first constituent Soviet republic to declare independence was Lithuania in March 1990—an action that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev opposed by sending Soviet tanks to Vilnius in January 1991, which resulted 11 Lithuanians died and hundreds were injured.
Although appalled by the Soviet repression in Lithuania, President George H. W. Bush supported Gorbachev’s opposition to separatist movements that could lead to unrest and social unrest in other parts of the country. regions of Soviet Russia that share nuclear weapons like Ukraine.
In a speech in Kiev on August 1, 1991, President Bush stood before the Ukrainian parliament and warned against independence. With hundreds of protesters waving Ukrainian flags and chanting “freedom for Ukraine” outside the US Capitol, the US president expressed support for Gorbachev’s efforts to keep the Soviet Union intact. Bush said: “Freedom is not the same as independence. “Americans will not support those seeking independence to replace a distant autocracy with a local autocracy. [Americans] will not support those who promote suicidal nationalism based on ethnic hatred.”
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Ukrainians demonstrate in front of the headquarters of the Communist Party’s central committee, August 25, 1991, in Kiev, after the Soviet republic declared independence.
Photo by Anatoly Saproneko/AFP via Getty Images
The New York Times columnist William Safire famously scorned Bush’s appearance in Kiev, calling it Bush’s “Kiev chicken speech” in an August 1991 commentary. At the time, the world Ukraine’s leadership was divided on the issue of independence, and most of the Kyiv MPs actually applauded Bush that day.
The turning point came three weeks later when, on August 19, 1991, Soviet hardliners detained Gorbachev at his seaside home in Crimea and declared a military coup in Crimea. Moscow. But with the help of Boris Yeltsin in Moscow – then the first president of the Russian Federation who stood on the streets of Moscow condemning the coup – the conspirators were defeated in less than 72 hours and Gorbachev returned. about Moscow.
The brief coup d’état by the hardliners had the effect of destroying Gorbachev’s proposal for a new federation of Soviet states with extensive internal autonomy. Immediately after the failed coup, the three Soviet republics declared their separation—the parliaments of Estonia, Latvia, and Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union between 20 and 24 August 1991. The future of the Soviet Union is in jeopardy. “Communism is dead. The Soviet Empire is disintegrating,” William Safire gleefully commented on the pages of The New York Times on August 29, 1991. “This is a glorious moment for human freedom.”
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Ukrainians show their joy in front of the Communist Party headquarters on August 25, 1991, in Kiev during the proclamation of Ukraine’s independence by the Soviet Union.
Photo by Anatoly Saproneko/AFP via Getty Images
When, on December 3, 1991, the nationwide referendum in Ukraine brought a decisive vote for independence, the collective voice of about 51.8 million Ukrainian residents dealt the final blow. into the Soviet Union.
By mid-December 1991, 11 constituent members of the Soviet Union had declared their independence. When Gorbachev submitted his resignation as president of the Soviet Union in a farewell speech on December 25, 1991, the Soviet Union was over.
