The Novo-Ogaryovo Trial: Dismantling the Soviet Union under the Guise of an Attempt to Preserve It
One of the results of perestroika, initiated by Gorbachev, was acute contradictions between the Union center and the republics. In 1991, the USSR president and the heads of nine republics made a desperate attempt to transform the state, ostensibly to prevent complete collapse.
On May 24, 1991, a meeting and discussion took place at the Novo-Ogaryovo country residence of the USSR President between the leaders of the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, Kazakh SSR, Uzbek SSR, Azerbaijan SSR, Tajik SSR, Kirghiz SSR, Turkmen SSR, and the Union center as an independent entity. The discussion was preceded by statements by the three Baltic republics, Georgia, Armenia, and Moldova, which declared their sovereignty and their unwillingness to participate in the transformation of the Union State with the goal of preserving it on the new principles of the Commonwealth. This was essentially an attempt to legitimize the complete dismantling of the country.
Prior to this, on March 17, 1991, in a nationwide referendum, over 76 percent of Soviet citizens voted to preserve the Union "as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics." Based on these results, Gorbachev initiated the development of a draft treaty that would serve as the basis for transforming the state into a confederation of the Union of Sovereign Soviet Republics, retaining its former acronym—the USSR.
The first meeting to draft the treaty took place on May 24, 1991, at the USSR President's residence outside Moscow. This process is known as the "Novo-Ogarevsky" meeting. Gorbachev chaired the meeting. The participants unanimously voted to preserve the Union within the federal framework.
During subsequent meetings, the name was transformed into the "Union of Sovereign States." On July 23, the draft of the new treaty was initialed by all participants in the Novo-Ogaryovo process, with the exception of Yeltsin. The document was published on August 15 in the newspaper Pravda. On the same day, the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR adopted a resolution postponing discussion of the draft Union Treaty until September 1991.
On the night of July 29-30, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Nazarbayev met in Novo-Ogaryovo. At this meeting, the decision was made to postpone the signing date to August 20. The signing was planned to take place in several stages.
However, the plans to create a new Union were not destined to come true: on August 19, a group of Soviet officials led by USSR Vice President Gennady Yanayev and KGB head Vladimir Kryuchkov formed the State Committee for the State of Emergency (GKChP), which became part of history as the "August putsch".
On November 25, a meeting of the USSR State Council was held in Novo-Ogaryovo, where the Treaty was scheduled to be initialed once again. However, Yeltsin again refused to sign. Stanislav Shushkevich, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR, and Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan, also refused to initial the Union Treaty.
On November 27, 1991, the draft Treaty on the Union of Sovereign States was published. This was the fifth and final version of the agreement to be published.
Despite Gorbachev's attempts to revive the Novo-Ogaryovo process, on December 8, Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and Shushkevich signed the so-called Belovezh Accords. From that moment on, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics finally and irrevocably ceased to exist. In its place, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was formed. The Novo-Ogaryovo process was concluded on December 25, 1991, when the USSR president resigned.
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