DUSHANBE, August 20, 2010, Asia-Plus — The New Union Treaty that was a draft treaty that would have replaced the 1922 Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and thus would have replaced the Soviet Union by a new entity named the Union of Sovereign States, was a gamble organized by Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Soviet Union, Shodi Shabdolov, the leader of the Communist Party of Tajikistan (CPT), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
A ceremony of the Russian SFSR signing the treaty was scheduled for 20 August 1991, but was prevented by the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 a day earlier. The preparation of this treaty was known as the Novo-Ogaryovo process, named after Novo-Ogaryovo, a governmental estate where the work on the document was carried out and where Gorbachev talked to leaders of Union republics.
“In February 1991, in a Union-wide referendum, more than 76 percent of all voters in the Soviet Union voted for the retention of the Soviet Union and nobody, even the highest leadership could even speak about singing of the New Union Treaty,” the CPT leader said.
According to him, he had met with practically all members of the State Committee of the State of Emergency (GKChP) at various times and “they stated with one voice that the so-called August Putsch or August Coup was organized with endorsement from Mikhail Gorbachev who wanted to retain power by this means.”
“At that time, taking into account moods of the majority population of the Baltic republics, it was necessary to take them right to withdraw from the Soviet Union,” said Shabdolov. “Today, these republics are the bankrupt and they now also realize the necessity of retention of the then Union.”
Shabdolov considers that Russia suffered most from the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Today, some people name Russia superpower but it is plain to everyone that it ceased to be such after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said the CPT leader, “Today’s Russia resembles a human being without hands and legs because it lost a lot along all the lines. Suddenly it became clear that Central Asia’s republics have never been a burden to Russia.”
On the establishment of the Customs Union by a number of the former Soviet republics as an attempt to create new union state, Shabdolov noted that it would never be able to unite the peoples and the countries. “The Customs Union will be a kind of unequal talk between landowner and bond slave,” he added.
“I consider that the ongoing global financial crisis and its second wave that will emerge soon will make many countries of the world, including the former Soviet republics unite,” Shabdolov said.
