In 1991, the Russian people wanted a sovereign Russia, were ready to abandon the Empire and paved the way for the disintegration of the USSR

By accusing Gorbachev, Yeltsin and Western governments of being behind the disintegration of the Soviet Union, says Alexander Tsipko, the Putin regime is seeking to conceal a truth that, in its eyes, is most unfortunate: the end of the Soviet era, it was the Russians and not the Russians. another who wanted a sovereign Russia and was prepared to abandon the empire to obtain it.

According to the leading Russian commentator who was deeply involved in Russian politics in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the disintegration of the USSR, which Putin calls the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20^th century, was “the sovereign choice of the Russian people” (mk.ru/social/2024/06/10/raskryta-trudovaya-pravda-o-raspade-sssr-elcin-ne-byl-predatelem.html).

Tsipko points out that the idea of a sovereign Russia was formulated and promoted by Russian rural writers, a group particularly close to the thoughts and feelings of the Russian people and distant from many democrats and certainly from the West, during the Congress writers of the RSFSR in 1988. .

Alexander Yakovlov, then a close advisor to Mikhail Gorbachev and someone often presented by Putinists as “a CIA agent” believed to have undermined the Soviet Union, advised Tsipko, then one of his collaborators, at the time, that “you should read it and you will understand how the disintegration of the USSR began.

“I can give many more examples to show that today’s historians, who create conspiracy theories and link all events in post-Soviet history to a CIA project, have in fact not not the slightest idea of what happened in the country after Stalin. and what actually led to the collapse of the USSR,” says the Russian commentator.

Indeed, Tsipko continues, “this whole conspiracy theory aims to conceal” that the Russians themselves, having suffered the depredations of Soviet power, wanted the sovereignty of a Russian country and were not ready to take to the streets to fight for the preservation of the old empire. .

The commentator notes that he was personally “at that time a categorical opponent of the disintegration of the USSR, spoke out against the sovereignty of the RSFSR and understood, even with Yakovlev’s comments, that the idea of sovereignty would lead to the disappearance of historic Russia. .”

But despite this, Tsipko says, Boris Yeltsin was positively inclined towards him and even proposed in December 1992 that Tsipko become Minister of Nationality Affairs. The current Russian commentator says he rejected this proposal because he “felt that sooner or later it would end in blood, and already in October 1993 my fears proved true.”

Despite what today’s conspiracy theorists say, “today we must see the truth”, and it is this: Yeltsin, “who, after his March 1991 meeting with the striking miners of Kememovo, made the decision to actively support the idea of sovereignty of the RSFSR, deeply realized what it demands of the Russian people.”

The Beloveshcha Accords which put the final nail in the coffin of the USSR were “based on the deep need of the Russians to get rid of the empire, where they had never been a metropolis and where they lived at least Soviet times, even in Soviet times. worse than other peoples” under Moscow’s regime, says Tsipko.

“Today’s patriots,” he emphasizes, “have forgotten what we heard everywhere, especially in 1991: “stop feeding the Caucasus”, “stop feeding Ukraine” and “we must give all Russia’s natural reserves to its people” rather than to anyone else. Thus, “the idea of killing the empire belonged to the Russian people of the USSR” who were tired of living in poverty.

These thoughts, Tsipko said, arise when he and others visit the Yeltsin Center, which some in Moscow want to close. Not only what is displayed there, but even more so what is not, sends a clear message. In the museum there is no reference to the fact that the Russian people and especially Muscovites did not support the August 1991 coup.

This is an important truth. A second reason, which is not mentioned in the museum, is that “no one protested against the Beloveshcha agreements” or that Soviet officers who had sworn loyalty to the USSR and the CPSU almost entirely switched sides overnight and supported Yeltsin and Russian sovereignty.

Another truth that everyone should remember despite efforts to make it forget by accusing Yeltsin of treason and betrayal is this: “After the defeat of the GKChP, after Yeltsin’s glorious victory, there was no political force who could have opposed the disintegration of the USSR. .”

Democratic Russia actively supported the idea of the disintegration of the USSR and this political force actually “actively cooperated with the Democratic Party of the United States.” But the American government of President George HW Bush was not in favor of the breakup of the USSR and spoke out on August 1 in kyiv.

Tsipko says he knows this to be the case from a month-long visit he made to Washington at the time.

Within Gorbachev’s command, the commentator continues, there were “only three people – Georgy Shakhnazarov, Andrei Grachev and himself who actively resisted the idea of sovereignization of the RSFSR.” The rest followed what they believed was the opinion of the majority of the Russian people rather than that of anyone else, regardless of what the Putinists said.