Talk:1991 Soviet Union referendum

Untitled

"pro-Soviet front-organisations"? Miantonimah (talk) 21:38, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

First and only?

Hey, it says this in the article: " It was the first, and only, referendum in the history of the Soviet Union, which was dissolved on 26 December 1991.[7][8]" I'm not sure that's true? there were referendums on independence in various places and on the creation of the post of russian president? Maybe its true that this was the only one across the whole of the SU? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iamsorandom (talk • contribs) 14:45, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

17/03/2016: Just saw it on todays front page, but wanted to ask, who proposed this referendum, was it Gorbachev? Perhaps in an attempt to have a mandate to maintain the Soviet Union? Or was it Yeltsin? Perhaps thinking people would vote for the end of USSR? Try to add a bit of background to the referendum please. Why does it only show the results for fringe republics that had high pro soviet turn out but avoids other key republics? signed, BV.

Map doesn't show boycotters & lack of discussion of observers

Update: the third reference contains .. other interesting information see this post, as far as i read, no direct talk from observers, maybe it refers to some.88.159.73.12 (talk) 00:49, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

“The only referendum in the history of the Soviet Union”

I don’t have access to the cited source (and I removed a RIA Novosti citation as insufficiently reliable per RSP). This appears to be absolutely false, in light of all the other referendums in the history of the Soviet Union:

• 1989–1990 Transnistrian referendum
• 1991 Abkhazian New Union Treaty referendum
• 1991 Crimean sovereignty referendum
• 1991 Nagorno-Karabakh independence referendum
• 1991 Transcarpathian general regional referendum
• 1991 Armenian independence referendum
• 1991 Azerbaijani independence referendum
• 1991 Estonian independence referendum
• 1991 Georgian independence referendum
• 1991 Latvian independence and democracy referendum
• 1991 Lithuanian independence referendum
• 1991 Russian presidential referendum
• 1991 Transnistrian independence referendum
• 1991 Turkmen independence referendum
• 1991 Ukrainian sovereignty referendum
• 1991 Ukrainian independence referendum
• 1991 Uzbek independence election

One might be tempted to say it was the only all-Soviet referendum, but that is false too, as it was boycotted by the authorities in Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Moldova.

So this statement is dubious, and should probably be removed, or heavily qualified.  —Michael Z. 22:57, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I am sure it meant the only Union-wide referendum. Even if it had boycotts, it is still the only such referendum held. Mellk (talk) 09:12, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this was my view too. Cheers, Number 57 09:28, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source that says that in so many words? Perhaps the Soviet government called it an “all-Union referendum” or something, but we shouldn’t claim it was anything other than

the only referendum ever organized by the central government, although it was only implemented by nine republics and a few subregions.

 —Michael Z. 16:34, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

From a quick search, I found these that refer to it as the first national referendum[1][2][3] while this[4] refers to it as the first national referendum in Russian and Soviet history (the first at the SU level and other two at the RSFSR level). Mellk (talk) 17:19, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for finding those. All four sources say it was only national referendum in the USSR. I will edit the lead. —Michael Z. 18:11, 19 December 2022 (UTC)